America's best cities for hipsters

Portland, Ore., is known for its food trucks, but apparently that’s not the only local food on wheels. “One night, I walked by someone singing at the top of their lungs while dressed as a taco and on roller skates,” says Simon Tam, leader of the band The Slants. “It was just another ordinary evening out in Portland.”

No surprise, the city famous for its flagrant quirkiness ranked near the top among Travel + Leisure readers for a high density of hipsters—locals who embody the cutting edge of culture while also embracing simple, retro charms.

In this year’s America’s Favorite Cities survey, readers rated 35 major metropolitan areas for qualities such as wine bars, walkable streets and great weather. To discern the biggest hipster concentrations, we combined the results for offbeat and tech-savvy locals; great microbrews and coffee bars; a buzzing live music scene; and plenty of flea markets.

For travelers, following the trail left by hipsters usually pays off—both in good culture and a lot of fun. That doesn’t make you a hipster, of course. “Perhaps the most ‘ironic’ thing about Portland,” adds Tam, “is that very few people will actually admit to being a hipster.”

No. 1 San Francisco

With its tech-fluent locals, trendsetting dining scene and seemingly effortless sense of style, San Francisco takes the hipster championship this year. The nerve center is the gentrifying Mission District, where you can snack on cotton candy (it’s okay—it’s artisanal) at Batch Made market or mow down pins and toss back a retro cocktail at Mission Bowling Club. Charles Chocolates sells handcrafted, small-batch goodies in edible boxes, reflecting the local passion for recycling. Proof that the city’s hipster population may be at capacity: Four Barrel Coffee recently made headlines for posting a snarky list of rules that included “not talking about annoying hipster topics.”