SAN DIEGO (FOX 5/KUSI) — “America’s Finest City” is a phrase that’s been coined by San Diego, and for good reason.
Recently, the Southern California metro has been considered among the most “chilled-out” cities in the world, according to a study by travel insurance company PayingTooMuch.
With summer just around the corner, researchers with the organization sought to find which cities across the globe are great for unwinding during a vacation.
To begin, PayingTooMuch pulled together a list of the top 50 most in-demand global travel destinations, based on the latest travel trends by Google trends.
The cities were then ranked based on the following metrics:
- Noise and light pollution (score out of 100)
- Traffic index
- Population density (number of people per square mile)
- Number of walking trails (ranked per 100,000 people)
- Number of parks (ranked per 100,000 people)
- Quality of green space and parks (score out of 100)
- Happiness scores – score out of 2,000
Based on this study, San Diego ranked No. 7 when it came to the most “chilled-out” cities in the world. It also ranked No. 11 for “happiest” cities globally, and has the most parks per capita than any other city in the world with 19 parks available per 100,000 people.
The only other U.S. city to make the top 10 ranking was Honolulu, Hawaii. According to PayingTooMuch, this island metro is considered No. 4 on the most relaxed list.
The table below shows the 10 most chilled-out cities in the world, based on this study:
| Rank | City | Population density (per sq mile) | Noise & light pollution (out of 100) | Number of walking trails | Happiness scores (out of 2,000) | Quality of green space & parks (out of 100) | Traffic index (out of 200) | Number of parks |
| 1 | Sydney | 167 | 42.19 | 681 | 1566.9 | 77.30 | 215.24 | 917 |
| 2 | Vienna | 1,670 | 31.09 | 41 | 1496.0 | 83.50 | 73.83 | 172 |
| 3 | Melbourne | 194 | 42.49 | 367 | 1526.7 | 80.00 | 220.54 | 918 |
| 4 | Honolulu | 863 | 50.82 | 75 | n/a | 60.48 | 205.02 | 58 |
| 5 | Amsterdam | 2,037 | 37.57 | 60 | 1578.1 | 83.68 | 80.36 | 55 |
| 6 | Kyoto | 695 | 41.67 | 133 | n/a | 71.67 | 78.70 | 116 |
| 7 | San Diego | 634 | 51.15 | 82 | 1485.4 | 72.09 | 179.02 | 261 |
| 8 | Berlin | 1,593 | 43.56 | 89 | 1548.2 | 81.52 | 99.74 | 254 |
| 9 | Dublin | 1,943 | 43.36 | 190 | 1448.8 | 75.56 | 161.53 | 80 |
| 10 | Prague | 1,042 | 45.57 | 92 | 1303.8 | 79.49 | 98.90 | 152 |
For those looking for a chilled out vacation, San Diego may be the spot to go.
