Bridgeport is the absolute worst destination for a summer vacation out of 80 cities ranked by a leading personal finance and lifestyle site, due mostly to the high cost of accomodations, food, gas and other expenses.
Stamford and Norwalk are lumped together with the Park City in last place, and New Haven and Milford combined for 79th place. The analysis of 13 factors including airfare costs, number of attractions and leisure opportunities was released Wednesday morning by WalletHub.com
The analysis included the country’s largest Metropolitan Statistical Areas, groupings used by the U.S. Census. On a day when the state Legislature is expected to approve higher taxes, no Connecticut location fared well.
Neither did Albany, N.Y. or many other Northeast destinations, mainly because of high costs.
But Bridgeport and lower Fairfield County scored the worst on “the highest costs and hassles of getting there,” and next to last for its attractions, despite having the state’s only zoo, the nationally known Barnum Museum and the newly reopened Pleasure Beach and boardwalk.
The Hartford-West Hartford-East Hartford MSA ranked 73rd out of 80 destinations.
Even Baltimore, the scene of recent riots and soaring crime, ranked higher, 33rd in the country as a vacation destimation. Las Vegas was the top-ranked city with Orlando, Fla. second. Raleigh, N.C. was statistically in the middle, 40 out of 80.
“In order to identify the best and most budget-friendly summer travel destinations, WalletHub ranked the 80 most populated MSAs based on five equally weighted dimensions, including Costs Hassles of Getting There, Local Costs, Attractions, Weather Conditions and Parks Recreation,”said spokesman John S. Kiernan. “We then identified 13 key metrics that are relevant to those dimensions.”
Our summer weather didn’t help the rankings of area cities either. Bridgeport was ranked 75th for mildness of climate, and, somewhat inexplicably, Stamford is 88th out of 100 cities ranked on climate.
Americans of all ages — but Baby Boomers and Traditionalists especially — plan to travel and increase their travel spending this summer compared with the same time in 2014, according to travel and tourism research firm D.K. Shifflet Associates.
Millenials will spend an average of $2,300 on their summer vacations, about $500 less than the $2,788 budget of the average American traveler, according to the Shifflet study.
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