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If you plan to celebrate Thanksgiving in Hialeah, you may want to reconsider.
According to a new study by personal finance company WalletHub, Hialeah is one of the worst places nationwide to go for Thanksgiving this year. Of the 100 largest U.S. cities included, the Miami-Dade County suburb was ranked the second-worst city, beating out only Stockton, California. As for the best cities to celebrate all the Thanksgiving festivities, San Antonio came in first, followed by Atlanta, Virginia Beach, Virginia, Dallas, and Scottsdale, Arizona.
“The best cities for celebrating Thanksgiving all have an abundance of high-quality restaurants and places to buy festive decorations, and their residents get very excited for the holiday based on their Google search history,” WalletHub analyst Chris Lupo said in a news release. “Other features make individual cities stand out. For example, Atlanta has a fantastic track record for on-time flights, and Virginia Beach has surprisingly affordable accommodations.”
To compile the rankings, WalletHub compared the 100 most populous U.S. cities across five dimensions: Thanksgiving celebrations and traditions, affordability, safety and accessibility, “giving thanks,” and the Thanksgiving weather forecast. The dimensions are comprised of interesting weighted factors, including pumpkin patches per capita, holiday decoration shops per capita, cost of Thanksgiving dinner, traffic congestion, share of delayed flights near Thanksgiving, volunteer opportunities per Capita, and the temperature on Thanksgiving versus the average temperature.
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The study uses data from various sources, including the U.S. Census Bureau, the Council for Community and Economic Research, the FBI, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and the Bureau of Transportation Statistics.
What really hurt Hialeah’s ranking was its perceived lack of celebrations and traditions, as well as its affordability. It ranked last in affordability and third from last in celebrations. Evidently, Hialeah doesn’t have a high number of pumpkin patches per capita, a high Google search interest for Thanksgiving, or a high number of holiday decoration shops per Capita. The affordability measure is made up of the cost of Thanksgiving dinner, the number of affordable restaurants with at least four-and-a-half stars, and the lowest price for three-star hotel rooms during Thanksgiving week.
Miami, which was tied in first for the most number of pumpkin patches per Capita, was the highest-ranked city in Florida. Here is where all Florida cities included in the study stood in the rankings:
- Miami: No. 20
- Tampa: No. 29
- Orlando: No. 30
- Jacksonville: No. 72
- St. Petersburg: No. 81
- Hialeah: No. 99
