Rating a city: From First Crush to Favourites

How do you rate a city? A good memory? The food? Its beauty?

The first time I landed in Paris, I fell hard. I loved the art, the tree‑lined streets, the river, the metro, the food and markets, and even the people (yes, I mean Parisians). Twenty‑three visits later, I still love Paris. Barcelona was the same.

Since then, there have been many other cities I’ve been smitten with, a small number of places that bored me, and a very small number I couldn’t wait to leave. Most sit somewhere in the middle, with moments that range from brilliant to “ho hum.”

How I measure a city

Tokyo at 11 p.m., when the last trains are full of office workers and young adults in cosplay, is a very different experience from Wellington (New Zealand) at 8 a.m. on a windy harbour hike. Yet both score high for me, for completely different reasons. Kaohsiung is different to Cape Town, and yet I love both. How do I compare the 305 cities I have visited with over 100,000 people? How does a small town like Spokane or Hat Yai compare to Ho Chi Minh City or Detroit?

Whenever I am exploring a place, I keep an eye on six simple measures:

1. Aesthetics
2. Liveability
3. Crime
4. Culture
5. Transit
6. Personal Vibe

Over time, this has become a consistent personal measure, so that my experiences in 303 cities (with populations over 100,000) have become a structured record rather than a blur!

1. Aesthetics

The first time I went to Kraków, my friends said, “Go to the main square. It’s the most beautiful in Europe.” At check‑in, the agent sighed and sai,d “Kraków. The main square is stunning.” On the plane, a guy from Poland flying home for the weekend asked, “Have you been before? How beautiful is your main square?” By the time we landed, I was ready to be disappointed. I dropped my bag at the apartment, walked along the lovely river past the gorgeous castle into the charming town centre, turned the corner and stepped into one of the most breathtaking places I had ever seen. I was frozen in the square, just gazing at this intensely beautiful space. Several cities have had this effect on me with their natural or physical beauty, or both:

• Sydney (Australia)’s beaches, harbour and bushland hikes around it. There is something sensual about that city landscape.
• San Francisco (USA) for its incredible hillscape, parks and stunning waters from Coit Tower to the Mission to the roughness of Tenderloin
• Wellington (New Zealand) and Cape Town (South Africa) keep up this intense mountains-and-ocean theme.

• The mountains of Denver and Medellin
• The old‑town beauty of Salzburg (Austria) and Budapest (Hungary) fills me with awe time and time again.

2. Liveability

Having now lived in eleven cities and enjoyed short-term stints in several others, liveability is a critical consideration. I know many of us dream after a lovely holiday about selling everything and relocating s to for me. How easy and pleasant it is to actually live a place, not just visit?. It covers climate comfort, everyday convenience (shops, services, healthcare), affordability and how many years out of ten I would enjoy living here.

• Big‑city: Melbourne (Australia), Tokyo (Japan), Berlin (Germany), Paris (France)
• Coastal comfort: Porto (Portugal), Wellington (New Zealand)
• Good‑life capitals: Canberra (Australia), Adelaide (Australia)

Crime

How safe does a city feel? I look at both on paper and what my body tells me. I blend hard numbers (murder rate, crime rate) with how safe I feel walking around, especially at night and in everyday neighbourhoods.

• No fear cities Abu Dhabi, Chengdu, Chiang Rai, Kaohsiung, Kobe, Seoul, Xi’an,
• Feel totally safe to me: Doha, Singapore, Shanghai, Taipei, Tokyo,

Culture

I like my cities teeming with life and opportunities to experience things; I look for what makes a city feel alive beyond work and sleep: food, museums, galleries, cafés, universities, cinemas, festivals, sports and street life.

• Global powerhouses: Paris (France), London (UK), New York (USA), Rome (Italy)​, Beijing (China), Madrid (Spain)
• High‑intensity: Bangkok/KrungThep (Thailand), Lyon (France), Firenze/Florence )Italy), München/ Munich (Germany), Tokyo (Japan)

Transit

The best cities in the world do not require a car to explore. The more I “need” a car between neighbourhoods, the worse a city is. Transit is about how well the town moves people, looking at coverage, frequency, reliability, comfort and safety, plus airport access and price. There really is not much between the world’s best cities for transport.

​World ultimate best: Seoul (Korea), Singapore (Singapore).​
Excellent: Kobe (Japan), Düsseldorf (Germany), Tokyo (Japan), Hong Kong, Osaka (Japan).​
Close to excellent: Berlin (Germany), Paris (France) and Amsterdam (Netherlands)

Personal Vibe

This is the most subjective and the most honest part: how the city lands in my gut. The real test is simple. If I had one unexpected free week and a round‑trip (business class) ticket to anywhere, these are the places I would race back to without thinking:

1. Incredible: Barcelona, Berlin, Budapest, Ho Chi Minh, Hua Hin, Helsinki, Paris, Barcelona, Melbourne, Porto, Reykjavik, Rio, San Francisco, Taipei, Toronto, and Wellington
2. Great: Adelaide, Bergen, Canberra, Cape Town, Chiang Mai, Copenhagen, Köln (Cologne), Lyon, Medillin, Montreal, New York, São Paolo, Tallinn, Wien/Vienna

Over to you.

Where does your heart sit? Which cities call you back, and for what reasons that are important to you?