Alexandria has claimed the No. 3 place on Condé Nast Traveler’s 2025 “Best Small Cities in the U.S.” rankings, extending its streak of top-five placements to eight consecutive years.
The metropolis positioned behind Charleston, South Carolina, and Santa Fe, New Mexico, whereas surpassing standard locations together with Savannah, Georgia, and Honolulu, Hawaii, in keeping with outcomes from the journal’s thirty eighth annual Readers’ Choice Awards introduced Tuesday.
More than 757,000 Condé Nast Traveler readers nationwide solid votes ranking their journey experiences to find out the rankings.
Alexandria has held a top-three spot since 2023 and beforehand achieved the excellence in 2021 and 2019. The Small Cities class was launched in 2018.
“Consistent national recognition in top-tier publications such as Condé Nast Traveler, Travel + Leisure, and others helps solidify the city’s reputation as a top destination and is a key part of Visit Alexandria’s year-round promotional efforts,” Allison O’Keefe of Visit Alexandria stated in a press release.
Visit Alexandria secured the nomination and carried out a get-out-the-vote marketing campaign for the rankings. The group stated analysis exhibits these accolades affect journey choices.
In its write-up, the journal praised Alexandria’s “charming, historic” character and famous Old Town’s “red-brick sidewalks” and “perfectly preserved rowhouses from the 18th and 19th centuries.”
The article highlighted King Street’s boutiques and eating places, the waterfront’s Torpedo Factory Art Center and Gadsby’s Tavern, “where some of our founding fathers used to drink.”
Alexandria additionally advantages from proximity to Washington, D.C., which ranked No. 6 on the journal’s “Best Large Cities in the U.S.” list.
“Alexandria also has the unique positioning of being a top five ‘Best Small City in the U.S.’ located minutes from a top 10 ‘Best Large Cities in the U.S.,’” O’Keefe stated. “Visitors can stay in one location but experience two of the nation’s best cities.”
The full rankings will seem within the November problem of Condé Nast Traveler.
The journal describes the Readers’ Choice Awards as “the travel industry’s longest-running and most prestigious accolades.”
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