Best and Worst Cities to run in when traveling

Stay away from Detroit!

Las Vegas is hands down the worst. No good places to run anywhere and it's always windy. For good cities, I like Vancouver and Chicago. Chicago has great lakefront trails, as well as suburban trails in the forest preserves.

Stay away from Lubbock or Amarillo, TX. You might fall off the edge if you aren't careful.

Amarillo is got to be one of the windiest places I have ever been to...though Lubbock is not too bad. Nice park north of town, and some pretty empty roads...

Best? (of course, many of these depend on where you are at, but all have running pretty close by)

Spokane

Boise

Portland

Seattle

Sacramento

LA/Burbank/Orange County

Phoenix

Albuquerque

Worst?

Vegas

Orlando

Ottawa is a great place to run - in the summer

I had a conference downtown in St. Louis and it was awful. I was able to run to and from the park with the arch, and do laps around that park. That was about the best I could do. Combine that with the tens of thousands of panhandlers and the fact that the entire downtown area I was staying at seemed to close at 2:00 p.m., and I'll never be back.

Criteria: Running right in the city center (not talking about trails 5 miles outside the city here)

Best:

Munich (hands down the best true 'urban' running in the world...the English Garten goes forever)

Rome (underrated...incredible parks)

New York (central park never gets old)

Boston (Charles River)

Osaka (had a pretty good river right in the center)

Sydney (spectacular)

Melbourne

London (Hyde Park is pretty good)

Madrid (has a good park also)

Barcelona (interesting run up the hill to where the Oly Games were held)

Cologne

Worst:

Paris

Bangkok (Jason will disagree)

Amsterdam

Toronto

Tokyo

Seoul

Venice

Dallas

Best: Boulder, CO. No explanation needed

Worst: Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Fears of offending local customs by running with little clothing kept me inside on a treadmill most of the time. Imagine a rock hard treadmill, in a room that had to be 85 degrees with no fans. Can you say brutal?

Hey Mr. St.Louis Blues,

You run in downtown of any major city, you will run into the experience you had in St.Louis. If you want to find good running you must travel a little to accomplish that goal. St.Louis has so many parks that offer hard or soft surfaces, scenic views, minus the panhandlers. If you ever HAVE to come back try these places:

-Forest Park

-Queeny Park

-Carondelet Park

-Tower Grove Park

anyone else out there know the St.Louis scene?

St. Louis is good if you can get to Forest Park; that's where they had the women's Oly marathon trials. Huge park, good trails.

Washington DC has some good running paths and lots to see.

A bit off the beaten path, Fort Worth has a pretty good bike path system across the river from downtown. Miles and miles in several directions.

Kansas City has a good path in the southern suburbs on the Kansas side; I'm told it connects to the Missouri side as well.

Criteria: Running right in the city center (not talking about trails 5 miles outside the city here)

These are the right criteria, and my list would be

BEST

Berlin (under-rated, great park in the center)

London (lots of parks, pretty much wherever you are)

Amsterdam (it's different. the traffic moves slowly by the canals. best in spring or fall, without all the tourists)

Boston (the river)

Washington, D.C. (Mall, Rock Creek, the canals, Potomac Trails)

Minneapolis (hometown prejudice, but from downtown you are close to the river trails)

Chicago. Great, if you're close to the lake. Otherwise, not so good.

Melbourne. River-side trails are nice, if busy.

Wellington, New Zealand. Real off-road running close to the city, or miles of flat running beside the harbor

WORST

St. Louis. (Endless laps of the f***ing Arch are your only option downtown)

Toronto. The lake promises much, but delivers little.

Wilmington (DE) I pity you who have to travel here on business regularly ...

Hanoi

Saigon

NOT SURE

Philadelphia. I heard it was great, but in my 45 minute run I couldn't find the trails Runners World mentioned.

Durham/Chapel Hill. Really seems to depend where you're staying. The roads have no sidewalks in a lot of Durham, and you have to drive to the Duke Forest

Also Best:

Richmond, VA: Great hills in downtown; trails near James river. However, stay away from West Broad Street -- the west side of the city gets boring

San Francisco: If you don't mind hills, this place is unbeatable for the views. Also trail running in the Presidio is great

St. Petersburg, Russia is hands-down the worst place I have ever run. I was staying near the middle of the city which was dirty and filled with smog. Imagine running through an industrial wasteland.

Best: Anywhere in NJ like Camden or Newark

Worst: Anywhere else

Best:Buies Creek,NC

Worst:Lillington,NC

Compared to Flagstaff, Mammoth, high plains areas such as New Mexico, Southern CO, Wyoming,

Boulder is not great.

For trails Right in the city that are not paved, Boulder doesn't have much. the trails are paved people. The south boulder trail by the CU course is nice...But short, you can cross over the city ditch and go into Eldorado canyon...but the trail dissapears. You can run Blue Bird and other Famous trails along the Flatirons from Eldorado to Gregory canyon...if you like stairs, non stop steep ups and downs that never allow a runner to establish a rythym. You can pay to run the RES...in the blazing sun with no shade and that you have to drive to. Magnolia is awesome, but you have to drive to it, as you do all of the trails up in the mountains which are truely awesome. Try Lyons, CO. You don't have to drive to get to the mountain trails there. or just go live in Jamestown or Ward and get more trails that you can think of from your front door. This is my kind of running, open plains, like Wyoming. But for wooded trails runs, go to NC.

For year round training, the triangle area from San Antonio Florida-Trilby Florida-Brookesville Florida is loaded with so much trail running, Steep hill running, tons of dirt roads, Croom forest trails...it's just sick.

I personally only train there in the winter. the summers are too hot and humid. This area is also known as the best place to bike in Florida because of it's relentless hills.

Speaking of Boston, Wakefield area; any trails, off road running or parks?

Yeah open plains like Laramie, WY rock with 90 mph winds and the fact that you can see your destination 10 miles away....

If you're into tumbleweed and barren wasteland, definitely the place to train....