San Miguel among Travel + Leisure Readers’ 25 Favorite Cities in the World 2023

T+L readers select their favorite cities in the world in our annual “World’s Best Awards” survey for 2023.

Five of seven continents are represented on this year’s list of best cities in the world, according to T+L readers. And the rankings prove that, this past year, our resilient readers got back to Asia and Africa, and traveled to cities well worth the long-haul flight, like Marrakesh (No. 14) and Singapore (No. 18). Based on reader comments, it seems the travelers who voted in this year’s World’s Best Awards survey were most interested in welcoming locals, great food, safety, reasonable prices, and aesthetics (be it picturesque nature or Renaissance architecture).

How Voting Works

Every year for our World’s Best Awards survey, T+L asks readers to weigh in on travel experiences around the globe — to share their opinions on the top hotels, resorts, cities, islands, cruise ships, spas, airlines, and more. Nearly 165,000 T+L readers completed the 2023 survey, an increase of nearly 25 percent over pre-pandemic voting levels. A total of more than 685,000 votes were cast across over 8,500 unique properties (hotels, cities, cruise lines, etc.).

Cities were specifically rated on the criteria below:

• Sights/landmarks
• Culture
• Food
• Friendliness
• Shopping
• Value

For each characteristic, respondents could choose a rating of excellent, above average, average, below average, or poor. The final scores are averages of these responses.

What Readers Loved

It looks, from this list, like Mexico is T+L readers’ favorite country in the world. No fewer than five Mexican cities ranked as the best in the world this year. Japan had three winners, and Thailand, Italy, and Portugal each had two. There was some movement in the top five, compared to last year’s rankings, with two European cities slipping to make room for No. 2 Udaipur, India, and No. 3 Kyoto, Japan.

It’s typical to see at least one European city in the top five — often Istanbul (No. 8 this year, also winning the title of best city in Europe) or Florence, Italy (No. 12). Those spots, this year, went to Asian cities instead, indicative of the shift back to travel to Japan (Tokyo came in at No. 7, four spots behind Kyoto) and India (which also had Mumbai at No. 10, trailing Udaipur by eight).

Read on to learn how Oaxaca, Mexico, claimed the coveted top spot for the second year in a row, and why travelers chose these 25 cities as the best in the world.

Click here to see the full list

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