What to Know
- Times Square: a place so famous it has become synonymous with New Year’s Eve thanks to its renowned ball drop. However, a recent study has surprisingly concluded that New York City is not the best city in the United States to celebrate the ringing in of the new year.
- WalletHub compared the 100 biggest cities based on 26 key indicators form the legality of fireworks to nightlife to food affordability and weather to determine the best cities for New Year’s Eve celebrations.
- According to the study, it appears that the main reason why the Big Apple did not top the list had to do with how expensive it is to spend New Year’s in “the city that never sleeps.”
Times Square: a place so famous it has become synonymous with New Year’s Eve thanks to its renowned ball drop. However, a recent study has surprisingly concluded that New York City is not the best city in the United States to celebrate the ringing in of the new year.
WalletHub compared the 100 biggest cities based on 26 key indicators form the legality of fireworks to nightlife to food affordability and weather to determine the best cities for New Year’s Eve celebrations.
While the study did not rank New York City at the top as the best city to celebrate New Year’s it did crack the top 3 overall thanks to its scores in individual categories (No. 6 for for the entertainment and food rank, No. 91 for costs, and No. 19 in the safety & accessibility rank).
According to the study, it appears that the main reason why the Big Apple did not top the list had to do with how expensive it is to spend New Year’s in “the city that never sleeps.”
“Local businesses in NYC – and many other famous locales across the U.S. – are notorious for hiking up their prices when big crowds are in town for a major event,” WalletHub said. “That’s especially true for hotels, which can experience price increases of several hundred percent over the rest of the year. The last thing you want to do in the final hours of 2023 is wreck your finances over one night of festivities.”
Jersey City and Newark, both in New Jersey, were the other two tri-state area cities that placed in the ranking — although they fared far worse than the Big Apple.
Jersey City came in at an overall No. 84, while Newark came in at No. 92.
So what cities beat New York as the best places to ring in the new year? Sunny Orlando and San Diego came in at No. 1 and 2, respectively.
To see the complete list or learn more about the methodology used, click here.
