South Dakota is Home to One of the Friendliest Cities in the U.S.

When you travel there are two kinds of places you will remember. The ones where everyone was rude and makes you never want to go back, and the ones where people are friendly as can be and make you think about moving there.

Expedia.com did a survey of customer reviews of the places they traveled to determine what the friendliest cities in the country are. The reviews were all submitted over the last two years, from January 2019 through December 2020. One of them is found in South Dakota and it totally makes sense.

The National Historic Landmark town of Deadwood was ranked the 18th friendliest city in America. If you've been to Deadwood you know why this would be for the small tourist gambling town. A great deal of the employees at every establishment you would go to work for tips, just like I did during college at Black Hills State University, so being friendly to people who are traveling and blowing money works out pretty well.

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A surprise on the list of friendliest cities was definitely Manhattan, NY. From what I know of New York, and what I have been told by friends who have recently traveled there, before the pandemic, there is no one who is friendly there. People are pushy and rude and doing their own thing and everyone there is okay with that.