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With its proliferation of Irish pubs, massive parade and festive spirit, New York City topped two recent studies as the best destination in America to celebrate St. Patrick's Day.
We have to agree, especially given our list of the best St. Patrick's Day events around town, including a free book giveaway, a six-hour musical performance, activities for kids, and sober St. Patrick's events. Plus, there's the parade, which is the oldest and largest St. Patrick's Day Parade in the world.
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Given all of those factors, two recent studies—one from vacation company Travel Republic and another from entertainment site CanadaCasino—said NYC is the best spot in America for St. Patrick's Day celebrations.
More than 10% of New York state's population identifies as Irish, so there's certainly a lot of Irish pride around the city, per Travel Republic. But as the saying goes, everybody is Irish on St. Patrick's Day—and that includes the Empire State Building, which will light up for the holiday. The building will display green lights, plus will show the colors of the Irish flag rotating on its mast.
Those who want to kick back with a Guinness or two will find no shortage of pubs here. There are 70 British and Irish pubs in the city (including 14 of our favorites listed here), according to Travel Republic. The Canada Casino study found 139 Irish pubs and restaurants in NYC. The pubs in the city have an average 4.4-star rating on Google. "As it can be hard to please British and Irish people regarding authenticity, this score proves New York is doing it right when it comes to these establishments," Travel Republic says.
Cost, however, can be a barrier to the fun in NYC. Pints here go for about $11.63 for imported beer and $9.09 for domestic, per the Travel Republic study, which added that the average pint in Ireland now costs over $6.30. Meanwhile, CanadaCasino's analysis found that a pint in NYC goes for $7.40.
While NYC tops both lists, CanadaCasino ranked Chicago in the No. 2 spot. Chicago leads on social media posts with 8,210 Instagram posts about the holiday (everybody's gotta get that green river pic!). That's compared to NYC's average of 529 social media posts about St. Paddy's. Philadelphia comes in third as the best city to celebrate, followed by Detroit, Indianapolis, Louisville, Dallas, Houston, Oklahoma City, and Denver.