San Fran named best US city by Conde Nast Traveler

San Francisco, Charleston, Santa Fe named best cities by Conde Nast Traveler readers

(AP)  NEW YORK (AP) - San Francisco was named the best U.S. city to visit for the 17th year in a row in Conde Nast Traveler magazine's 2009 Readers' Choice Awards.

The awards appear in the magazine's November issue, ranking the best cities, cruise lines, airlines, hotels and resorts worldwide based on responses from 25,000 readers in the Conde Nast Traveler Readers' Choice Survey.

Charleston, S.C., took the No. 2 spot on the U.S. cities list, followed by Santa Fe, N.M.

In the category of top islands in North America, Kiawah, S.C., was first, followed by Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada, and Nantucket, Mass. Top islands in the Caribbean/Atlantic were Bermuda, St. John and St. Barts.

Italy swept the top three spots for top cities in Europe: Florence, Rome and Venice.

Virgin America was named the best U.S. domestic airline for the second year in a row with JetBlue Airways at No. 2 and Midwest in third place.

Singapore Airlines won top spot for international route airline, a category it has won for 21 of the past 22 years. Emirates took second place in the global airline category, followed by a tie for third place between Virgin Atlantic and Cathay Pacific.

Conde Nast Traveler introduced a new cruise category in the Readers' Choice Awards this year for mega-ship cruise lines, with Celebrity coming in first, followed by Disney and Cunard. In the category of large ships, Crystal, Regent Seven Seas and Cunard took the top three spots, while in the small ship category, Sea Cloud, Yachts of Seabourn and Regent Seven Seas were the winners.

Winners in top car rental agencies were Hertz, Enterprise and Avis.

In the category of top hotels in the United States, the 21c Museum Hotel in Louisville, Ky., took top honors, followed by The Peninsula in Chicago and the Mandarin Oriental in Boston. For top small hotels in the U.S., Blantyre in Lenox, Mass., was No. 1. Second-place winner was The Swag, located in the Smoky Mountains in North Carolina, just outside of Waynesville and about an hour from Asheville. Third place went to Tu Tu< Tun Lodge, in Gold Beach, Ore.