Survey Says! Utah Not That Fun

I sometimes look at lists and surveys and rankings and scratch my head. When I saw this list from Wallet Hub, I initially shrugged my shoulders and said, “Well yeah, it's Utah, and I don't think most folks around the country would call us the center of fun, whatever that is.”

In the rankings, California is the most fun (to the chagrin of my English teacher I was tempted to write funnest) state in the country. Mississippi was the least fun. Utah was solidly in the middle at 23.

According to AI

"Fun is an essential and enjoyable aspect of life that brings happiness, amusement, and a sense of joy. It is a subjective experience that varies from person to person, as different individuals find pleasure in different activities and experiences. Fun can take on various forms, and it often involves engaging in activities that bring about positive emotions and create memorable moments."

 

OK, I can buy that. So what defines fun is subjective and open to personal interpretation. The puzzling thing to me in the Wallet Hub rankings is that they provide specific measurements of fun, and frankly, some of them have me scratching my head.

First one is restaurants per capita. All right, I can see that. If you scan some of the social media posts and groups here in the state and especially here in Southern Utah, you can often see a “we need this kind of restaurant” post from someone not satisfied by the selection in the area.

I personally think we have some very fine place to go to eat, but I will concede that we could use some more options.

The second metric was movie theaters per capita. Leading the way here was California and I guess that makes sense, Hollywood and all. But I never acquainted fun based on the number of movie theaters in an area. Only 75 theaters in town? No fun here!

The next one really puzzled me. In the ranking of golf courses per capita, Utah was not even in the middle. We ranked 49^th in this category. The only thing I can figure is that they only counted St. George as one huge golf course.

We also didn't show up in the top 5 of performing arts theaters per capita. When you have such powerhouses like the Utah Shakespeare Festival, Tuachan, the Utah Symphony and the like you don't need that many.

Fitness centers per capita was also ranked. Yeah, I've never considered going out to sweat and come home in pain all that much fun.

With the entire state being one gigantic ski slope, I thought we might do well in the ski facilities per capita ranking, but no, not even top five. Five states tied at number 1 including Vermont. Vermont....

You can check out the rest of the metrics yourself and if you're like me you'll find them curious at least. I somehow manage to have a good time and what I call fun here in our pretty, great state. I've just concluded a personal ranking of ranking services, and Wallet Hub didn't show that well.

However, there is one ranking in their report that I have to find myself in agreement with. We were near the bottom in the amount of marinas in the state. That may be true, but we do have a lighthouse no where near a body of water. Doesn't that count for something?