Trinity Church, Boston
surfer in Honolulu, Hawaii
skateboarder underneath the El Chicago, Illinois
Gay-pride rainbows mark several crosswalks in Capitol Hill, Seattle
patrons in a bar in Charleston, South Carolina
trail riding in Boise, Idaho
a band playing in Austin, Texas
Coit Tower in San Francisco, California
children dancing in Albuquerque, New Mexico
balloon dog sculpture, Los Angeles, California.
cross-country skiing in Anchorage, Alaska
a girl on the beach on Myrtle Beach, South Carolina
San Diego's Little Italy district
a bicycle ride in Savannah, Georgia
taxis in Times Square, New York
drummers in San Jose’s annual Obon Festival
night lights in Las Vegas, Nevada
an aerial view of Asheville, North Carolina
shopping in Houston, Texas
the sunset in Naples, Florida
a bicyclist in Madison, Wisconsin
a Farmers Market on Lake Eola, Florida
Miami Florida canal
historic buildings in Colorado Springs, Colorado
Woody Guthrie Center in Tulsa Oklahoma
Logan Circle in Washington DC
a mural in El Paso, Texas
west Omaha’s Boys Town
1 of 28
Back Bay, Boston, MassachusettsThe Boston Marathon, Red Sox parades, and locals in search of chow or shopping hit the byways of Back Bay. Surrounding blocks house Beantown originals such as cozy, decades-old Trident Booksellers and Café.
Photograph by Jorge Salcedo, Alamy Stock Photo

The 28 friendliest neighborhoods in U.S. cities

Where are the most welcoming urban enclaves? Read on.

June 03, 2019
2 min read

Travel is rooted in hospitality—in a welcoming gesture, a friendly smile, an accommodating spirit.

In search of these qualities, we’ve developed—with the help of our data-crunching partners at Resonance Consultancy—this unique index of the 28 friendliest city neighborhoods in the United States. Whether embracing its immigrant roots (San Jose’s Japantown) or celebrating inclusion (Manhattan’s Hell’s Kitchen), an open-minded, open-hearted neighborhood can make travelers feel at home. This ultimate list offers starting points to explore American cities: enclaves full of places to delve into, people to meet, and enough bonhomie to make you want to return again and again. (See our list of best smaller U.S. cities.)

Our methodology

In a survey created just for Traveler, Vancouver-based Resonance Consultancy combined its proprietary Best Cities analytics from more than 200 cities with statistics and user-generated data such as walkability, home affordability, public spaces, and the prevalence of third spaces (restaurants, breweries, cafés, and more). Resonance also considered social media and perception data from TripAdvisor and Yelp to generate a list of welcoming zip codes that the editors then correlated with existing neighborhoods to produce this list.

City reporting by Jennifer Barger. This story was published in the June/July 2019 issue of National Geographic Traveler magazine.

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