Valentine's Day 2017: Miami Is the Least Romantic City in the U.S.

Valentine's Day is here, and if you're planning a dinner alone tonight, don't fret. It's not you — it's Miami!

Despite our city's swaying palm trees and balmy evenings tinged with a hint of seaspray, Miami apparently sucks in the romance department — at least according to Instacart.

The online shopping and delivery service has created its first Romance Index. By carefully tracking online searches for five key items conducive to romance, the company compiled a list of the most romantic and least romantic cities in the United States.

Items chosen include standard "I love you" items such as chocolate, strawberries, champagne, flowers, and candy. Based on this data, cities were given an average romance score, and the results were tallied.
Boston came in as the most romantic city on the list. Miami, however, was dead last — behind even honeymoon hot spot (not!) Indianapolis.

A spokesperson for Instacart says the company used a data set comprising millions of searches from consumers spread over the 18 states in which Instacart operates. Company analysts then compared weekly changes in the popularity of various search terms to come up with the findings. "Our results are focused on the terms that have experienced the strongest relative rise in customer interest in the week of Valentine’s Day."
According to information provided by Instacart, Miami was way behind in every category — including strawberries. That's a shocker, considering that the juicy red fruit is readily grown right in Miami-Dade. And for a city that loves its unlimited mimosa brunches, champagne sales in the 305 seem to be far behind those in metro areas such Houston and Washington, D.C.

Instacart also discovered that the keywords most searched by romantic city dwellers in the days before Valentine's Day included "heart-shaped cookies," "love," "heart," and "kiss."

According to a 2014 story published by New Times, "how to twerk" was one of the most searched internet terms in Miami. Draw your own conclusions.

The upside to this? Miamians have the rest of today to make up for this lack of romance. There's still time to get your love game on and take your boo out to dinner. Or at least send some heart-shaped cookies or something. And save the twerking until tomorrow.

Here are Instacart's most romantic and least romantic cities:

Most Romantic Cities
1. Boston
2. Seattle
3. Washington DC
4. Philadelphia
5. Minneapolis
6. Chicago
7. New York
8. Houston

Least Romantic Cities

1. Miami
2. Indianapolis
3. San Francisco
4. Atlanta
5. Denver
6. Austin
7. Los Angeles