State of Romance: The Most Romantic States in America

Christmas is in the air, and before long it will be Valentine’s Day – arguably, this is the most romantic time of the year. There’s a reason this season is known as Engagement season; with incredible food, heart-warming songs, fairytale lights, the world turns into a winter wonderland, and there quite literally is cheer in the air. We might be stressing and struggling to manage everything all at once, from catching up on work tasks ahead of Christmas, to planning a feast for all the family, but you’re also wandering around romantic Christmas markets, holding hands with your partner, cosying up around a fire pit with a hot chocolate and toasted marshmallows. What’s not to love?

That’s why here at Pettitts Travel, we have compiled a list of the most romantic states in the US, so you’ll know where to expect the most love this holiday season – and where you might have to nag at your partner a little bit before you’re showered with the affection you deserve. Pettitts is dedicated to creating holidays perfect for our customers, which is why this index is a perfect tool to use for all those travellers who want to add a little bit of romance into their trip.

Romance Map

We compiled our State of Romance index by analysing a variety of factors that prove to be important indicators when considering how romantic and loved up someone is, and then identified which states around the US offer the best for these factors. These included marriage rate (and, of course, divorce rate), romantic communication, the amount spent on gifts for Valentine’s Day, overall happiness, and openness to love.

The most romantic state turned out to be Nevada, which had the highest marriage rate of all the states, combined with a relatively low divorce rate (10.66%). The people of Nevada also communicated mostly with stereotypically happy emojis, suggesting as a whole they’re a happy community, which goes hand in hand with being happy in love, typically.

Read on below to find out the most romantic states in America.

Results Below

Romance Table 1

Nevada was ranked as the number one State of Romance after scoring highly in pretty much all the categories. This is because on average, people in this state were some of the most sexually satisfied, and they also spent the second most on gifts for Valentine’s Day, coming in second only to Kansas with an average spend of $112. Not only this, but the overall happiness was 61.8%, which can be attributed to the fact that the state has the highest marriage rate and lowest divorce rate.

The top 10 states are:

1. Nevada
2. Hawaii
3. Florida
4. California
5. Washington
6. Massachusetts
7. Utah
8. Maryland
9. Connecticut
10. Vermont

Hawaii ranked second due to its relatively low divorce rate, and high score for openness to love, which was calculated based on how people from each state rated their discomfort regarding intimacy, called attachment avoidance. Participants were asked to answer questions on a 7-point scale from 1 (strongly agree) to 7 (strongly disagree), such as “I don’t feel comfortable opening up to romantic partners”. Hawaii also scored highly for overall happiness, again likely linked to the low divorce rates, and overall gift spend for Valentine’s Day – Hawaiian couples typically spent an impressive $102 on gifts for their partners.

Methodology

In order to compile our States of Romance Index, we used the following methodology. We analysed a variety of studies and surveys regarding how romantically happy people in each US state were in order to find out what different factors influenced these romantic emotions. The elements we found to be important were:

- Marriage Rate
- Divorce Rate
- Romantic Communication
- Sexual Satisfaction
- Openness to Love
- Amount Spent on Gifts at Valentine’s Day
- Overall Happiness

To identify exactly what each state had to offer for each of these categories, we searched through a variety of sources – including the most used emoji for each state (if the most commonly used emoji was a heart, for instance, that indicated feelings of romance), as well as the average amount of time people were having sex for, indicating a closeness to partners, and the marriage rate for each destination. We also added in the category for divorce rates, which acted as a counter balance for the marriage rates and allowed us to establish who was the most romantic overall – not just for a short period of time.

For each of the above categories, we scored each state from 1-5 (with 5 being the highest) and added these scores together to get our final ranking, with a total of 35 being available. We then ranked the states based on their scores.

The full dataset is available upon request.