In search of these qualities, we’ve developed—with the help of our data-crunching partners at Resonance Consultancy—this unique index of the 28 friendliest city neighborhoods in the United States. Whether embracing its immigrant roots (San Jose’s Japantown) or celebrating inclusion (Manhattan’s Hell’s Kitchen), an open-minded, open-hearted neighborhood can make travelers feel at home. This ultimate list offers starting points to explore American cities: enclaves full of places to delve into, people to meet, and enough bonhomie to make you want to return again and again. (See our list of best smaller U.S. cities.)

In a survey created just for Traveler, Vancouver-based Resonance Consultancy combined its proprietary Best Cities analytics from more than 200 cities with statistics and user-generated data such as walkability, home affordability, public spaces, and the prevalence of third spaces (restaurants, breweries, cafés, and more). Resonance also considered social media and perception data from TripAdvisor and Yelp to generate a list of welcoming zip codes that the editors then correlated with existing neighborhoods to produce this list.

You can find the remaining National Geographic article here.