The Top 5 Memorial Day Weekend Destinations

If finding out the best places to play this Memorial Day weekend top your list of things to do, Hampton Hotels may have done the research for you. Now Argo will help do much of the rest and find you a party to go to too. And we add a bit of something more. At the end of this article, the subject of all this celebration. Have fun this Memorial Day Weekend, and act responsibly.

Today, Hampton Hotels announced their official “Weekend Getaway Survey,” that asked guests across the US about their weekend travel destinations. The resultant list reveals a lot about what Hampton calls their “inner playaholic” data. Below are America’s favorite weekend getaway destinations with the biggest Memorial Day events for each.

Number one on Hampton’s list of “playaholic” destination, New York, as anyone would expect, is about big doings every weekend. But Memorial Day is a bit of another story. For those wanting to see and be part of the best of the best festivals and parties, maybe the coolest event this year is the Lower East Side Festival of the Arts. A wide array of performances are scheduled this year today, Saturday, and Sunday including; many performers at the Johnson Theater, a film festival at the Cabaret Theater, Poetry at the Community Space Theater, and various visual and other arts all weekend long. Check out the official website for more details. And for the party-a-holic? Tenjune (see below)

Coming in a close second to the Big Apple, Las Vegas is of course the USA’s biggest party town day in and out. Since Vegas culture and festival is all about partying down, let’s get straight on into it. The Memorial Day festivities in Sin City this weekend are unending, but perhaps the biggest event is Wynn’s Encore Beach Club bash. Wynn and Encore hold more awards than the Boston Celtics, and the video below shows a taste of the kind of wet and wild musical adventure guests this weekend can expect.

The third most popular weekend destination according to Hampton and us is Chicago. On top of the Windy City’s famous Memorial Day Parade, cultural festivals, and showers of fireworks, the party scene is rampant too. Of all the cutting loose being done up there on the Great Lakes exclusivity and coolness should probably be your guide. Catching Roger Sanchez on Saturday should be the party time equivalent to the parade and the air shows. If you check out the Mid website here, upcoming events should tease your appetite for weekend travel.

Spot number four on the Hampton Inn list of favorite weekend getaway spots is, surprise-surprise San Francisco. The city on the bay will be reverberating in between highly sophisticated cultural and family events from The San Francisco International Arts Festival to San Francisco Carnaval 2010: Colors of Sound, Splashes of Culture – and then into the wilder side of life – parties galore. The long and short of the San Francisco scene is however, Sloan Squared – dancing your butt off – period. If you can make this ticket Memorial Day 2011 will be one of those pretty pictures you carry. And after the Memorial Day hangover is slugged off, the next Friday dance your tail off some more with Sunloverz ala the video below.

At position number five, but deserving of its own spot, San Diego celebrates Memorial Day this year with the theme – Flags, Friends and Family – a characteristically SD kind of bash all about town. Festivals, parades, cultural events, fireworks, party hardy (check these links), and most importantly, lest anyone forget ever, the real essence of Memorial Day – thanking America’s heroes. While we all love to party and celebrate, let’s never forget hundreds of thousands of our countrymen paid for our privilege giving the last full measure of devotion – as Abraham Lincoln called giving their blood for the cause. I leave San Diego party hunting tips in the links up there, and the reader with a parting shot at what the celebration is all about.

Jimmy Smitts narrates on Memorial Day 2007: