You Will Totally Guess Where the Grumpiest Travelers Come From

For the past several years I’ve split my home base between Washington, D.C., and New Orleans, Louisiana, spending my non-traveling time more or less evenly between the two, which makes me the yin and the yang of traveler grumpiness.

Washington, D.C. is home to the grumpiest travelers in America, according to a new study from RewardExpert out Tuesday. Actually fairly rigorous as these sorts of marketing department pseudo-studies go, this study looks at the percentage negative hotel reviews (one and two stars) residents of a state or D.C. have left on Trip Advisor compared to the national average. D.C., according to RewardExpert, topped out the list by a long shot, with a grumpindex score of 92.82 (for reference, the second grumpiest state, Colorado, has a grumpiness score of 73.57). I love Washington but if you find this statistic surprising you haven’t spent a lot of time in our nation’s capital city—politics is blood sport.

At the other end of the spectrum, is Louisiana, with a nearly imperceptible grumpindex score of 3.87, making it the state home to the happiest, most roll with the punches travelers. Music in the streets, free-flowing booze and food richer than Scrooge McDuck may be the perfect antidote to D.C. grumpiness.

Without intending to, it seems I may have made my other home in Louisiana to balance out the effects of D.C. And vice versa, too—because, let’s be honest, who doesn’t feel like being grumpy sometimes?