In fact, numerous recent studies have highlighted that people are taking more short trips than ever – which is unsurprising really, considering that this type of travel enables you to visit more destinations and take more trips in a year.

Travel ‘quickies’ aren’t just restricted to weekend breaks either, and also refer to layovers of more than one day in an extra destination at the beginning or end of a longer trip. Spending a few days in Asia on the way back from Australia, for example.

But whatever the reason behind your whistle-stop tour, Holidu has crunched the data and found out which are the best, and most feasible, cities around the world for a ‘quickie’. 

And there is no time to waste, so read on below to find out the results…

Best Cities In The World For A ‘Quickie’

Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Sitting in the top spot is the United Arab Emirates’ extravagant city, Dubai. Although it’s not the most reliable for on-time flights right now – the airport is currently seeing 25% of flights delayed, Dubai has taken the top spot for the best city for a ‘quickie’.

In fact, Dubai International Airport is a very popular connection on flights between the East and West so this makes it an ideal place to use as a layover – and a couple of extra days exploring! Aside from a popular airport, in what other ways is the glitzy city good for a short break you might ask?

Well, regardless of when visit, you are unlikely to experience rain as the city only sees an average of 90mm each year. Dubai also has an average annual temperature of 20 degrees – and sweat-inducing highs of 36 degrees in the summer months. The city is not short of things to do either, with Tripadvisor showing over 4,200 tours available – putting the city in 5th place overall for this metric. 

Marrakech, Morocco

It is Morocco’s capital city, Marrakech, that takes the silver medal position overall for the best cities for a ‘quickie’. Out of the top five, the city took first place for the price of a taxi with it costing only around 40p per km. This means the 8-minute drive from the airport to the city centre, which was the 8th shortest drive time in the study, will be super affordable!

As well as scoring well for time spent getting to, from and around the city, Marrakech also ranked the highest of the top five for the things to do whilst there. The city has over 5,300 tours available on Tripadvisor including desert trips, hot air balloon flights and Atlas mountain treks.

Florence, Italy

In the third position is Florence in Italy. One of the factors that the city scored particularly highly on was its incredible short drive time from the airport to the centre, taking only around 6 minutes with no traffic. Of the Italian cities in the study, Florence has the smallest centre – meaning that it is the easiest to explore in a short period of time.

However, of the top five cities in the study, Florence does experience the most rain though, with an average of 935mm a year. It is typically rainier in the autumn months so if you’re visiting in October or November, we recommend an umbrella!

Seville, Spain

Taking fourth position overall is Seville. With the nickname ‘the frying pan of Spain’, the city offers glorious weather for a city in Europe with the temperature never dropping below 10 degrees on average. The summer months get as hot as 28 degrees on average and is one of the European cities that sees the least average annual rainfall with only 483 mm a year. 

Make sure you give yourself plenty of time at the airport though, as the city is currently seeing 25% of flights delayed – which actually isn’t too bad when you consider that it scored 31st out of 134 cities for this metric!

Adelaide, Australia

Rounding up the top five is South Australia’s capital, Adelaide. The city scored particularly highly for its size as the centre only measures 16 km2. The smallest of the Australian cities in the study, its pocket size means that it is ideal for a ‘quickie’ as it is super easy to explore and is even walkable.

Adelaide also has the shortest drive time to/from the airport of all its Australian counterparts, meaning that a quick trip here starts soon after touching down. The city centre is also not too densely populated either, meaning that there will be fewer dawdlers on the pavements when you’re on a time limit!

Results That Particularly Interested Us

The city with the cheapest taxis per km?

Cairo. Egypt’s capital offers the lowest price taxis at only 13p per km on average!

The city with the least flight delays? 

Durban in South Africa. Despite travel chaos all around the world, the city has the lowest percentage of flight delays with an impressive 2% affected. 

The city with the least rainfall per year?

Abu Dhabi. The capital of the United Arab Emirates has the least amount of rainfall each year of the cities in the study, which isn’t surprising considering its desert climate.

Methodology

To compile the ‘Best City For A Quickie’ Index, we first collated a list of all of the main cities in each country in the world and then analysed each on the below factors:

• Population density per km2
• Size of the city in km2 (double weighted)
• Price of a taxi per km
• Average delays at the main airport
• Drive time to/from the airport
• Number of available tours on Tripadvisor
• Average annual rainfall in mm

Essentially, the size is the determining factor when it comes to how feasible it is to have a short holiday in that city so this data point has been double weighted to account for this.

For the size and population density, a city/urban figure was used, and where applicable, filtered down to ‘land’.

We used a variety of credible sources to find data for each of the above categories and then ranked the cities from first to last based on this data. Cities, where a full dataset was not available, were omitted from the index.

We then added the scores together to get a total score, before ranking the destinations based on this overall, final score.

The starting list included all of the cities on Resonance’s ‘World’s Best Cities’ and Euro Monitor’s ‘Top 100 City Destinations’ lists, as well as some additional cities that were drawn from credible sources including Culture Trip and Business Insider about popular city destinations.

Data was gathered in August 2022. The full dataset and source list are available upon request.