It's Official: Austin Is The Most Fun City In Texas (But 18th Most Fun Nationwide)

AUSTIN, TX — In your travels throughout Texas you find yourself having a bit more fun, albeit to a nominal degree, than in Houston but exponentially more fun than when visiting San Antonio, there's a reason for that. According to a new study, Austin is ranked 18th among the "Most Fun Cities in America," according to a new analysis.

WalletHub has compiled its list of most fun cities, and Austin edged out Houston in the reckoning. Ranked 32nd is San Antonio, a city less fun by 14 degrees of separation. In short, Austin emerged as the most fun city in all of Texas.

But the city trailed behind such fun stalwarts as Las Vegas; Orlando, Fla.; New York City; Miami; Portland, Ore.; Atlanta; San Francisco; New Orleans; Chicago; San Diego, Calif.; Denver; Los Angeles; Cincinnati; St. Louis, Mo.; Tampa, Fla.; Philadelphia; and Washington, D.C.

Back in Texas, Dallas and San Antonio (29th and 32nd most fun, respectively) also emerged as respectably fun, but behind Austin and Houston (ranked 18th and 19th, respectively). Austin made its mark on the list in the top spot of specific categories, including deemed best in "Nightlife and Parties" and also tops in the "Costs" category but not in a good way as it points to how expensive local nightlife can be.

Another Texas city, Brownsville, fared near the bottom at 149th, emerging only slightly less disgraced in the fun department by Oxnard, Calif., which came in dead last. To see the full list, click here.

To achieve its rankings, WalletHub analysts compared the 150 most populated cities across three key dimensions: 1) Entertainment & Recreation, 2) Nightlife & Parties and 3) Costs. Those dimensions were evaluated using 58 relevant metrics, each one graded on a 100-point scale, with a score of 100 representing the greatest number and variety of fun and cost-effective activities. For metrics marked with an asterisk (*), the square root of the population was used to calculate the population size in order to avoid overcompensating for minor differences across cities.

Finally, WalletHub determined each city’s weighted average across all metrics to calculate its total score and used the resulting scores to rank-order the cities in our sample. The sample considers only the city proper in each case and excludes the surrounding metro area, according to analysts.

Fun, right?

>>> Photo by Marlon Giles depicting SXSW crowds from 2012