. This means that the 50 US states have been measured, side by side, on differentials as varied as, on one hand, their respective tallies of five-star hotels, museums and top-ranked restaurants; on the other, their highest mountains, number of national parks, range of dark-sky areas (or lack thereof), and tallest waterfalls. Throw in a raft of less tangible measures – density of population, average temperature, air quality, annual rainfall, cr){kind=link}
It sounds like an impossible task; one, perhaps, that shouldn’t even be considered. After all, when you set out to assemble a jigsaw, you start the process by upending the box and checking that each of the pieces is there – not by deciding which of the pieces is the best.
Yet this is exactly what is being attempted here. And with the biggest jigsaw of all – the 50-piece spectacular that is the United States. And so begins a game of apples and oranges.
Of course it helps that, in this particular box, the pieces are of wholly different sizes and shapes – and that, in the case of two of them, do not fit into the rest of the puzzle at all. But can you really compare California to Alaska, Hawaii to Oklahoma, North Dakota to Utah? Isn’t this akin to the old fool’s errand of comparing a Granny Smith to a satsuma?
The answers here are, respectively, “yes you can” and “no it isn’t” – especially if you are assessing the 50 American states on their worthiness as travel destinations. Having, in the last 18 months, taken a similar approach to every country on earth, its greatest cities, the islands of both the Mediterranean and the Caribbean, and even the counties of England, Telegraph Travel has designed a system that will weigh up the relative merits of Texas as opposed to Tennessee, Maine as opposed to Missouri, Arizona as against Arkansas. Pink Lady or jaffa? Golden Delicious or tangerine? As it turns out, you can compare the two…
How? Via 39 separate factors, across four broad categories (nature, culture, experiences and luxuries). This means that the 50 US states have been measured, side by side, on differentials as varied as, on one hand, their respective tallies of five-star hotels, museums and top-ranked restaurants; on the other, their highest mountains, number of national parks, range of dark-sky areas (or lack thereof), and tallest waterfalls. Throw in a raft of less tangible measures – density of population, average temperature, air quality, annual rainfall, crime rate, cost of living – and a clear picture begins to emerge. The overall ranking will not be to everyone’s liking – although a reader survey was one of the 39 factors; your opinions are also included here – but it has a hard bulk of statistics behind it.