They're Weird and Proud: America’s Quirkiest Cities
The Mermaid Parade at Coney Island in New York. (Courtesy: Coney Island USA)
By Katrina Brown Hunt
To Caitlin Sandburg, her hometown of San Francisco provides a safe haven—for oddballs.
“Once
you’ve been here long enough, nothing surprises you,” says the
hospitality exec. “Whether it’s a naked person walking down the street,
someonedressed in full drag, or ‘Burning Man’ types, no one really
raises an eyebrow. Being a freak here is so normal.”
Even
so, according to Travel + Leisure readers, there are five cities in the
nation that have more weird people than the City by the Bay. In this
year’s America’s Favorite Cities survey—in which readers ranked 38
cities for features such as romance, thrift shops, craft beers and, indeed, quirky locals—the results show how a city can be nicely shaped by its kookiest denizens.
One
top five city, for instance, offers a hotel fashioned out of a former
psychiatric hospital and doughnuts sprinkled with faux meth. Another
winner is famed for its offbeat bars—like the one decorated for
Christmas year round, or another that regularly holds armadillo races.
Onward, to the cities with the most kooks per capita.
10. New York City
New
York’s top 10-ranked transportation system exists mostly under the
streets, and indeed the city’s most eccentric characters—aside from the
strolling, cartoonish ones in Times Square—also have an underground
charm. To admire folks who were freaky before freaky was cool, you can’t
go wrong with the contortionists and fire-eaters of the Coney Island Circus Sideshow. In the survey’s No. 1 city for culture, museums, and theater, meanwhile, you’ll also find the Earth Room (a dirt-filled gallery in SoHo), the lift-loving Elevator Historical Society Museum in Queens, and the sports-meets-performance-art of competitive Ping-Pong at Spin, in the Flatiron District. No surprise, the Big Apple also ranked at No. 2 for vivid people-watching.
9. Seattle
(Photo: Jake Stangel)
The
Washington locals did not light up the survey for being friendly, but
perhaps they just don’t care about impressing others—as in, other
people. In a city where, according to census numbers, dogs outnumber
children, your best bet for good vibes may be to follow the four-footed
crowd. In the Fremont area—known for its giant stone troll, the
regularly decorated Lenin statue, and the nude cyclists who ride during
the summer solstice—you’ll also find Norm’s Eatery & Ale House,
where dogs are welcome to join you at your inside table. The city also
scored well for specialty food shops like the bountiful Pike Place Market—as well as places like Scraps Dog Bakery
in South Lake Union, where you can indulge your furry friend with
gorgeous baked treats and pup-size Seahawks swag, the latter reflecting
the locals’ well-known love of their teams.
8. Kansas City, Mo.
(Photo: Carlos Lima)
These
Midwesterners may have struck readers as thrifty and no-nonsense, but
that doesn’t make them dull. The city ranked highly for both its museums
and its sense of history—though some of that history is distinctly
outside the box. Take The 1950s All-Electric House,
which was originally built to be a glimpse of the future (when
everyone, for instance, would have electric curtain openers). Or you can
explore the Arabia Steamboat Museum,
where you can see a fascinating array of pre-Civil War artifacts,
recovered 132 years after the boat sank in the Missouri River. The city
also ranked in the top 10 for its coffee, exemplified nicely at Oddly Correct, where cream and sugar are verboten.
7. Baltimore
Atomic Books (Photo: Pete Prodoehl/Flickr)
The city known for its own quirky dialect—the “Hey Hon”-heavy Bawlmerese—has long celebrated its own outsider status. The American Visionary Art Museum,
for instance, shows a wide range of outsider art (like the
broken-glass-and-glitter rendition of George Washington by “Baltimore
Glassman” Paul Darmafall. To hang out with literary oddballs, go to Atomic Books,
in the Hampden neighborhood, where director and native son John Waters
picks up his fan mail; you can people-watch at Eightbar, a bar in the
rear of the bookstore with craft beer and gourmet soda. To see why the
city also ranked well for food trucks, don’t miss the bibimbap from one
local favorite, the Korean-fusion Koco Truck.
6. San Francisco
(Courtesy: Wild SF Walking Tours)
The
city that gave the world hippies and the Castro also scored highly in
the survey for fabulously fashionable locals. To see them up close, take
the hipster-led Wild SF Walking Tour
through the Beat Generation’s North Beach and the artsy Mission
District. Not surprisingly, San Francisco scored in the top five for its
wine bars and cocktail lounges—but even those can offer their own
surprises. Take the San Francisco Champagne Society, a reservations-only lounge in SoMa that serves small-production bubblies, or The Interval,
at Fort Mason Center, which has “timeless” cocktails (like an Aged Tom
Collins) and a clock designed to last 10,000 years, installed by a local
group called the Long Now Foundation.
5. Albuquerque
(Photo: ABQ Trolley Co.)
The
New Mexico city made the top five for its unique, piñon-accented
coffee—which tastes great with a faux-meth-sprinkled Blue Sky doughnut
at Rebel Donuts.
Indeed, the sometimes-dubbed Albuquirky has embraced its links to the
TV series Breaking Bad: you can explore Walter White’s version of the
city in ABQ Trolley’s Bad Tour. Otherwise, you could stay at the Hotel Parq Central,
a former psychiatric hospital that now has the rooftop Apothecary
Lounge, with pre-Prohibition cocktails and a full selection of
interesting bitters, like blood orange, celery, and Aztec chocolate. The
city also ranked in the top 10 for being both adventurous and
affordable.
4. Providence, R.I.
(Courtesy: Extraordinary Rendition Band)
Founded
by the tolerance-advocating Roger Williams, the Rhode Island city has
long cultivated iconoclasts. Indeed, you’ll find more than a mere
symphony and theater scene here: you can experience the all-puppet Big Nazo Theater (where you can get hands-on with the alienesque creatures) or the Extraordinary Rendition Band,
a local marching band featuring sousaphones, accordions, and
washboards. The city ranked highly for both its burgers and its
sandwiches, but its only-in-Providence hot dogs also distinguish
themselves: at Olneyville New York System
(which does not presume similarity with New York dogs), the savvy order
is “three all the way with coffee milk,” which comes with everything
(meat sauce, mustard, chopped onion) and a glass of the odd but
wholesome state drink. Say what you want, but the locals did not rank as
being dumb, either.
3. Portland, Ore.
(Photo: Michael Branscum)
The
legendary community of hipsters ranked at the top of this year’s survey
for being pedestrian-friendly—and perhaps, by association,
unicycle-friendly, too. The independently minded locals are known for
their passion for sourcing: the store MadeHere PDX
boasts all local (and often kind of bizarre) products, like mustache
wax or a wood-and-leather six-pack holder for cyclists. Readers also
awarded Portland the top spots for its tasting-room coffee (like Coava) and craft beer (like the inventive brews at Coalition Brewing), but the City of Roses even offers a tasting-room experience with salt. At Jacobsen Salt (which shares space with the artisanal honeys of Bee Local),
you can sample, say, the Smoked Cherrywood or Stumptown Coffee Flake
salts. Unicycling is clearly good for your core: the locals also ranked
No. 3 for being buff.
2. Austin, Texas
(Courtesy: Austin Convention & Visitors Bureau)
The
1991 film Slacker—by Boyhood’s Richard Linklater—featured aimless
intellectuals wandering the Texas capital, and you can still find a lot
of those same folks (perhaps literally the same folks) populating the
bars, food-truck pods, and parks of Austin today. The newest incarnation
of the Keep Austin Weird motto is the recently opened Sfanthor
on South Congress—a wax museum celebrating the greatest in the sci-fi,
fantasy, and horror genres (hence, “Sfanthor”). To experience some of
the weirdest of Austin’s highly ranked bars, order a Shiner beer at
longtime standouts like the always-decorated-for-Christmas Lala’s, or Little Longhorn Saloon (home of the weekly Chicken-Sh*t Bingo)—or the newer entries, like Javelina on Rainey, which hosts live armadillo races.
1. New Orleans
(Photo: Donna Kennedy - La Petite Photography)
The city known for its jubilant funerals, voodoo shops, and seemingly nonstop festivals—from the roller-derby-based San Fermin Festival to the Oak Street Po’ Boy Festival—was
a shoo-in to win the quirky category. Indeed, the offbeat culture is so
dominant that it’s become mainstream: even the spa at the Ritz-Carlton offers a VooDoo Massage, complete with chants and scents of absinthe. To experience the city in a quirky but convivial way, try one of the NOLA Social Rides—like
the organized bike ride starting at Congo Square, with stops to hear
live music. New Orleans also made the top five for two things that make
travelers giddy: romance and free attractions.
