Watsonville Ranked Among Most Fitness-Friendly Places In U.S.

SANTA CRUZ COUNTY, CA — The Santa Cruz-Watsonville metro area was recently ranked by SmartAsset as the sixth-most fitness-friendly place in the country.

Santa Cruz County finished ninth overall when it came to its relatively low percentage of fast food restaurants at 33 percent, according to SmartAsset. It came in 12th place for the percentage of residents biking or walking to work at 7.5 percent.

The region had an average of 39 fitness professionals per 100,000 residents and 104 fitness-related businesses per 100,000 businesses.

Santa Cruz County ranked in the bottom third when it came to the average wage of a personal trainer at nearly $21.

Santa Cruz County ranked higher than any other California region. Other California metro areas cracking the top 50 included San Luis Obispo-Paso Robles, Napa, Santa Rosa-Petaluma and San Francisco-Oakland-Berkley.

See the top 15 below:

1. Missoula, Montana
2. La Crosse-Onalaska, Wisconson-Minnesota
3. Bend, Oregon
4. Ann Arbor, Michigan
5. Bloomington, Indiana
6. Santa Cruz-Watsonville, California
7. Flagstaff, Arizona
8. Fort Collins, Colorado
9. Boulder, Colorado
10. Ithaca, New York
11. Lafayette-West Lafayette, Indiana
12. San Luis Obispo-Paso Robles, California
13. Charlottesville, Virginia
14. Madison, Wisconsin
15. Wanatchee, Washington

Read the full report at SmartAsset.