Top 5 Fun Places for Families to Live in America

This is episode number 205 of The Homeowner Show. Whether you DIY or looking to hire, we're here to help you find the best information and options for you and your home. My name is Kevin Hackett, and here with me is Craig Williams.

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to The Homeowner Show. We're so glad you could join us for another live episode of The Homeowner Show. in the studio. How you doing, Kev?

I'm great, man. Things are great.

Things are great?

Great.

Are you Tony the Tiger?

Look, school is back in session. Things are great. So I'm happy.

Kevin loves his kids, y'all.

I, I do love my kids. I really, really do. But it really has nothing to do with my kids. I would be fine if they were home, whatever. Um, I, I'm just, uh, for me, for you personally, I'm glad that school is back in because to be quite honest, um, I mean, my summers are busy, very busy.

It's time to get back in the regular swing of things.

I am ready for natural, normal, whatever that looks like, fall, whatever that is. That's what I'm excited about. So, uh, anyway, That's, that's good for me. But I did, I did actually, um, just make a pretty big purchase.

Yeah?

Uh, yeah, I just bought a, uh, a generator for my house. Um, I've—

Kevin's rolling in it, y'all.

Yeah.

Hit him up.

No, here, here's, here's the, here's the thing. Like, so a couple of weeks ago, I, I think, uh, we, we talked on the show about how my house lost water.

Right?

And, um, I, I realized something really important in this moment, and that is that if my house loses power, I also lose water.

Right.

So, uh, I, I realize we're very happy with the, uh, you know, the new electric company that we have. the co-op, all that kind of great stuff. That being said, um, I, uh, I don't wanna lose power because if we do, we lose water. And so I was like, look, we're not gonna do this. So I bought a really, really cool generator. It's a, it's a tri-fuel generator. So it runs on gasoline, propane, and natural gas.

That's awesome.

Yeah. So, uh, and, and the great thing is it is the largest Um, natural gas generator that you can purchase without going with like a Generac. If you go with— yeah, if you go with like a Generac, uh, I mean, you're, you're talking, you know, a lot of money. Yeah, you know, I mean, you're looking, you're looking north of $10K. Oh, probably, probably $15K to $20K without blinking an eye for a house like mine. And so, um, but this one, the, the running watts on it for natural gas is 8,500, and for peak it's 10,000. So for natural gas, which is the lowest, uh, wattage usage of the 3, it's, it's a lot. I mean, the

gasoline-powered one, man, uh, if we just use gasoline, 13,000 watts, dude.

Dang.

And it's got push-button start.

Push-button start is highly underrated.

Uh, you— I mean, I'm just sitting here going, look, you know, I don't think people quite understand pulling that. It also has a pull cord.

Sure.

I plan to never use it.

Well, and that's actually a good redundancy to have on something like that.

It is. Yeah. So I am gonna have to make some modifications. I'm gonna have to call our friends over at Burke Plumbing or somebody because, um, so I have a quick connect already on my natural gas line for a gas grill, which is awesome, right? It's like a 3/8-inch line or something. Uh-huh. This hose is a 1-inch line. It is massive. It's gonna be pushing a lot of gas through that thing.

So wait, the, the line on your generator is 1 inch or the line on your supply line's 1 inch?

That's the problem. My supply line is only— the only quick connect I've got on is at like a 3/8 inch. So I've got to be able to hook up like a 1-inch line to— because the supply line to the generator is a 1-inch line. So, okay, I, I gotta get somebody out to re— rerun things so that I can quick connect into it. Uh, but anyway, I'm also going to do an interlock system.

Okay.

And do a transfer switch. Um, so I'll have a 50-amp plug into my, into my breaker box, uh, that this thing will run. It should run everything. It should run my air conditioner, all my appliances. Um, uh, the well, everything that we need. It should run everything, and I'm pretty excited about it. So anyway, I mean, here's the problem. I mean, I'm— I, I really, really hope I'm not speaking anything to an existence, so bear with me for a moment, but it's been freaking hot this summer, right? You know what that does?

What?

To the ocean. It just heats up that water.

Oh, you're talking about like hurricanes?

That's what I'm hoping doesn't happen, but I think we do have a pretty high potential for some bad ones this year. I'm hoping not.

Yeah, but I think it's fair.

I mean, I just don't— I, I don't want to get caught because here's what happens. People get down to it and it's like they start predicting, hey, you know, in 2 weeks we've got really, really bad hurricane conditions, and then there's no generators available.

Right.

Can't buy them, and you're not going to get one shipped here in time.

No, you're not, you're not buying a generator during our— like, in the aftermath of a hurricane.

Exactly. So I, I'm being proactive and I'm fixing the situation. So I'm hoping I never have to use it. Um, although I bought the portable one also because I can use it on my camper, so there's that too.

No, that's true.

So Anyway, it's heavy. It's big. It's really, really big. So anyway, that's a lot about me. How you doing, man?

I have to be honest. I am fighting with my computer at the moment.

Why?

Because my mouse won't connect.

And you hate the trackpad.

I hate— let me tell y'all something. Like, I'm sorry for all y'all that just love the trackpad, but like, you suck.

I love it.

Because the trackpad is the dumbest thing ever. Like, I get the utility of it because you don't have to have mouse connected and you like, you can still get around, but like, I want a mouse.

Nah.

This trackpad is dumb.

Look, here's how much I love the trackpad.

And you're dumb if you like it.

Well, I guess call me dumb.

Yep.

Um, here's the thing.

Done. Mark it, stamp it, you're dumb.

So here's the thing. At my office, I've got my laptop hooked up to an external monitor. So I've got 2 monitors that I use with my laptop, and then I've got an external keyboard, right? And an external trackpad.

Uh-huh.

That's how much I love the trackpad.

Trackpad sucks.

No, it doesn't.

You can't do as much as you can with the mouse.

That's actually completely false. You just have to—

It's not false.

No, you have to— you just have to build in hand gestures for it.

The hand gestures are stupid.

No, they're not. It's okay for you to be wrong, Craig. It's fine. No, I'm not wrong. Y'all are witnessing wrongness here.

Not wrong. Mouse's nieces are better. And now I have it, so suck it, Kevin.

Okay, I won't.

And I will move faster than you.

False.

And I will be better than you.

That's not true either.

And the show will be better because of it.

That may be true, but it's not gonna—

It's all because of the mouse.

I promise you.

I'll turn the mouse off and the show will suck. Just watch, the numbers will plummet.

Well, it's because we won't have a show.

It won't be because of anything else other than the mouse.

I'm so glad we cleared this up.

So any success that we have is because of this mouse being charged.

Wow.

The magic. And there's a reason they call it the Magic Mouse. It is magical. It bestows magical powers onto me while we do the show. Is it now?

I can flick between all of the websites. Baby possum.

That's the question. No. And if y'all haven't seen my TikTok, my magical TikTok that I made with this mouse, It's me chasing my children with a baby possum.

Yeah.

And my littlest screaming in absolute terror, which is weird because she's the one that's least afraid of animals. But really, it was adorable.

It was.

And the possum was adorable.

Uh-huh. Um, yeah, I mean, as far as possums could be adorable, yeah, a baby one is the only shot it has. Yeah, because I hate those things, man. They're nasty.

But they're easy to catch.

Well, they're, they're slow.

So before we get into the meat of the show, let me get a quick shout out to Paradigm Brewing over in Tomball.

Okay.

Because they fed me lunch the other day.

What?

Yeah, it was fantastic.

I mean, I'm not that far away, man.

I had the— called me the whole brewery to myself. This lovely lady at the bar took wonderful care of me. They actually had a Belgian on tap, which is my love language.

Yeah.

And I had a blue cheese burger, which was cooked to perfection. So here's the thing, this is a little bit different brewery experience because they have an in-house restaurant. Most breweries bring in food trucks, right, at night. This one has a full kitchen. Yeah, open from lunch through dinner.

That reminds me, like Copperhead's that way.

Is it?

Yeah, they have, uh, the Hoppy Kitchen.

Okay. They have good pizzas. That's the thing, right?

Yeah. And I've been told that their burgers are phenomenal too. They make all their burgers in-house and everything.

So, so, well, they haven't fed us yet, so shut up about them.

Okay.

Paradigm fed me. Okay. And it was good.

Really? Yeah.

And, like, it's, it's a cool place too. And, and so much like our friends over at B52, like, we're, we're not in the Tomball area.

Right.

We live in Conroe.

Sure.

And so, like, we like to go to B52, one, because it's really good beer. They typically have really good food trucks. And, but it's like a family-friendly environment. Like, you, you and I, neither one of us, and we have pretty young kids, even though I have, one older one. Um, like, neither one of us would have any fear about taking our kids up to the brewery.

We have, and we have on multiple occasions. Yeah, I mean, I remember when we moved here, y'all were like, hey, do you want to go to the brewery?

I'm like, um, don't idiots hang out there?

Yeah, exactly. And, and your wife was like, no, we take our kids. And we're like, what are you talking about? Yeah. And we're like, okay, Craig and Brandy said it. We showed up and we're like, this place is awesome.

Yeah. So, I mean, so, yeah, Paradigm is very much the same way. They've got like playgrounds and games and all kinds of stuff.

Nice.

But they just have an in-house restaurant, so they don't have to bring in food trucks. And just, just a cool, like, off-the-beaten-path kind of facility, but like, just really like a nice facility.

Okay.

So if you're ever in the Tomball area, but like, you know, most of you are listening to this show from across the country, you know, Fly out to Tomball.

Why not?

To the Hooks Airport.

Oh, oh, I know where that is.

Yeah, you can fly in there.

Yeah, well, I can't, but—

You could, it would be expensive.

Well, I, I, I don't own a plane.

If you're a private pilot, you could fly into Hooks.

You can.

There are airlines that fly into Hooks.

Yes, there are.

So you can fly in there and they have a concierge car. You can just drive on over to the Paradigm Brewing. It's really maybe 10 minutes from there.

So why were you there by yourself?

Uh, I had a late appointment in Tomball that afternoon. Oh, but—

oh, so it was kind of after the rush of lunch or whatever?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, it was, it was like around 3 o'clock.

Oh, okay.

And so like there was really nobody there. It was kind of like in between the lunch and the dinner hour.

Oh, probably about that time when I was doing nothing. Yeah.

Perfect. But not in Tomball. No, because I didn't know to go to Tomball. To be fair, I didn't find out until that day that I was even gonna be there. That's not fair.

So, but thank you.

That's, that's my life.

Yeah, that's, that's my life, y'all.

It's—

somebody's got to live it.

That's right. I like it. You don't have to.

I, I don't care one way or the other.

So anyway, this episode is going to be kind of cool because we're building off of a previous episode.

Yeah.

Where—

what did we even talk about last time? We talked about— last time we talked about plumbing in Honduras. What?

No, but before that, before that, we were talking about What?

Now I forgot.

Oh, that's what it was. It was the cities with the biggest price drop.

That's what it was. Yeah. And, and we—

yeah.

So, like, real estate prices coming down.

What are we paying you for here, Kevin? I mean, golly.

Yeah. I'm not worth my money, I promise. The, the reality of it is the, the real estate market's coming down everywhere.

Right.

But some of them have dropped more dramatically than others. We discussed it. That's what you're talking about.

Yeah. So what we did is we actually found an interactive calculation on the best family-friendly cities to live in.

Yeah.

And it, it's based off of 4 categories. And so we're gonna go through all 4 categories and give you the top 5 cities in each category, and then we're gonna give you the top cities in overall score.

Okay.

And so we're gonna, we're gonna break— so we're gonna start with each category, and then we're— so this is basically gonna be 5 episodes. We're gonna spread it out over quite a while. Um, but tonight we're going to go over family fun, like which of the cities ranked the highest, uh, in family fun. And this is all based off of data gathered by WalletHub, so we want to give credit where credit is due. WalletHub did a lot of the heavy lifting on this one, and we also want to say that because we disagree with them.

Yeah, WalletHub is not a person, by the way. As we were going through this earlier, I was like, who is this Wallet. Oh, who's Wallet Hub?

Oh, Wallet.

Oh, it's a website. Not Wally.

Yeah.

So yeah, it's a place like Wally and the Beeve. Exactly.

I'm going to beat up his younger brother.

Yeah. All right. So we're going to start with number 5.

Yeah, we're going to do— I think we should give honorable mentions to number 6.

Well, if this list is going to have any chance of being something that we care about, that you and I care about.

Exactly.

It's gonna have to include number 6.

So number, number 6 is Orlando, Florida. And I think that's all the information you need. Everyone knows what's in Orlando.

Yeah.

There's lots of other things in Orlando other than Disney and Universal.

There are.

Um, but, or, and, you know, that might give you some, I don't know, it might take away from the credibility of this list.

I don't know. I don't know. I mean, I, it's a pretty family fun place.

It is.

I mean, and not just that, did you know— okay, so they got Legoland there, right? Uh, which is a great little amusement park, but, um, have you heard about the Peppa Pig Park?

No.

So this is, this is pretty amazing. It is the first amusement park in America, uh, maybe more than that, but at least in America, that is specifically geared toward toddlers. Huh. It is an amusement park for toddlers.

I don't want to go.

Well, no, you don't have toddlers and you're not a toddler.

No.

Most of the time. But I think that if you were a parent—

I am a parent.

Of a toddler. You had a toddler.

I've had a toddler.

Don't currently. I think it would be fun because especially it's part of Legoland, basically.

They're 2 separate parks, Okay, so like it's attached to another—

It's, yeah, it's separate, separate entry. It's separate entry and everything. Actual part. I don't know, I just think it's, I think it's interesting. I think it's a good idea.

Yeah.

Now whether you want to go there or not, it's family-friendly in Orlando. That's the point, Craig. Can we just agree on that?

No, because I'm starting from a baseline of my absolute repulsion from all things Peppa Pig.

Okay, well that That's fair because Daddy Pig and Mama Pig are a little bit annoying.

The whole thing is annoying.

I don't disagree. I just, I think it's interesting.

I don't know who put the money up. That's what I want to know. Who's the idiot doing that?

Someone probably from—

So the other thing that irritates me about this list is there's not a city in Texas that crops up until number 19.

What? 19?

Yes. And it's El Paso.

Okay, okay, y'all. Wait, look.

Let me tell you.

Why are we?

That is not the funnest city in Texas.

Why are we foreshadowing how bad this list is? That's the question.

But in the next, hang on. Let me see when the next one shows up.

Jeez!

I gotta scroll down with my mouse.

Oh my goodness! It's like it's magic.

Number forty-nine, Houston.

Forty-nine?

Yeah.

It hasn't even hit the funnest one yet.

I know.

Do you know what the funnest one is?

No.

Come on, think about it. What's the funnest city?

I don't come here to think, Kevin.

That's true, especially not at this time of night when we record these things. To me, I mean, look, if I were going to guess the funnest city, uh, I would probably guess San Antonio.

Okay, so that is number 58. Now, out of all the cities in the United States, Right. And but Grand Prairie is above that.

Grand Prairie is number 55. Look, okay, San Antonio, not only do they have like the Riverwalk, which is amazing, they've got a lot of other things, but they're like moments from Schlitterbahn and—

Yeah, but see, that's the thing. I don't know if that counts.

It probably doesn't.

That's the thing. It's like, because if you say Houston, I don't think you get to count like Lake Conroe. Or even Lake Houston?

Well, probably not.

And Austin is number 79.

Well, they can see that.

Which is weird.

Austin is fun.

Austin is fun, but not a family-friendly fun.

No.

Because that's the thing. I wonder if they're making a distinction between fun and family fun. I imagine they are.

Yeah.

Because that's the whole point of this list is family, the best places to raise a family. So this list specifically says family fun.

Okay. Which, when we, when we start narrowing down the top 5, which makes the rest of the list really weird. But yeah, I don't know that I completely disagree with number 5. It's a pretty fun place. Yeah, there's some pretty amazing things there. So do you want to just start there? Sure. Okay.

Yeah, number 5, San Diego, California.

San Diego. Yeah, I mean, they have the zoo.

That's, that's the big clunkers.

all zoos. Like, it, it is— it's a 2-day zoo without even questioning.

Oh yeah.

Maybe more. I mean, you, you need at least 2 days to explore that place. Um, if you want to ruin zoos for the rest of your life, go to the San Diego Zoo because none of them will compare to that. Unless you go like on a safari in Africa, that might compare.

I have heard, um, I think it's in Lincoln, Nebraska. I've heard Lincoln, Nebraska is really, really competitive, really, with San Diego now. Um, that's interesting.

I've got a friend who prides himself on zoos. Like, he, he goes to every zoo he can possibly go to. Um, he has one of those zoo passes, and if it's not on the pass, he goes anyway. I need to ask him if he's been to that one. Because that's interesting to me.

Yeah. So, I mean, like, we, like, we've been specifically invited to visit a family in Nebraska, and I think it's Lincoln. Correct me if I'm wrong. I may be wrong on that, but I think it's Lincoln to go there specifically just to go to the zoo because they're like, it's amazing. You need to see it.

It's—

we can't describe it. You just got to come check it out.

Interesting.

That being said, like, the Houston Zoo's pretty incredible. Oh, I love it.

Um, and it's actually better now. They got the, like, the wetlands open and stuff.

Yeah, I mean, like, they're expanding it as much as possible. It's a pretty incredible zoo.

It's, it's got a pretty big footprint.

I've never been to the San Diego Zoo. I've never been to the zoo in New York.

Okay, I've never been to the New York Zoo.

Um, and so I— there's lots of zoos I've not been to. I've been to the one in Chicago.

Okay.

Which is an impress— like the, the Shedd Aquarium. That thing's impressive.

Yeah.

Um, it's, it's more impressive than any aquarium I've been to in the Houston area. Well, yeah, and more impressive than any aquarium I've been to in Florida.

But have you— but you've not been to the Atlanta Aquarium either?

I've not been to the Atlanta Aquarium.

So that one, that one's the aquarium to rival all aquariums as far as size goes. It's got the largest aquarium, um, as far as, uh, capacity of an aquarium goes. Uh, but I'll tell you, man, like The San Diego Zoo is unbelievable.

Oh, you've been?

Okay. Yeah, I've been there. It's incredible. So I would love to take my kids because I think they would really, really enjoy it. But I mean, San Diego has some other things.

I mean, it's, it's, you know, one of the things I'm seeing that they have is La Jolla, and I think I'm pronouncing— hopefully I'm pronouncing that right. But like, they have like a sea caves tour, like snorkeling tours.

Sure. I mean, they're right on the— they're right there.

They're on the water.

On the water. You know, Petco is there, which is, uh, you know, the Padres Stadium. Um, they've got a lot of cool things.

They got a lot going on. I've heard a lot of people that are from San Diego that's like, look, it's a really cool city.

Yeah, it's the, the climate's always great, you know. Um, it's right there on kind of the southern tip. If you want to get some good authentic Mexican food, I promise you're gonna be able to find it there. Um, so I, I don't, I don't disagree with this answer. I think that it's probably—

There's a whale watching tour you can go on.

Well, I love whale watching. Have you ever done one of those?

I haven't.

Holy crap, man. Those are— whale watching tours, one of the best things I've ever done. I did it up in Alaska. It was unbelievable.

I got to say, any place, I mean, like, there's whales, there's snorkeling, there's kayaking. I actually spent a fair amount of my youth sailing.

Really?

Yeah, I was actually pretty good at it. And it looks like that's a big part of their culture there.

And that's—

I mean, like, I mean, sailing on big boats is really fun.

I can imagine.

Um, I don't ever want to own one, but man, do I enjoy like, like running one.

Sure. And they've also got like, they've got SeaWorld, they've got a Legoland there as well.

Well, at least as long as SeaWorld's gonna last.

Well, it's lasted a long, a lot longer than I thought it was after, uh, Blackfish.

Like, I, I don't— I mean, like, here's the thing. I mean, I don't understand why they haven't just shut the whole operation down. I mean, like, when you, when you make a public declaration to the public, like, we're not gonna accept any new orcas. Yeah, like, okay, like, no one's gonna come after the last one dies, right?

I mean, that, that's really what SeaWorld is, isn't it? Yeah, the orcas.

I mean, like, they have dolphins, they have otters, they have sea lions.

They—

I mean, like, they have other things, but not on the sign, right?

Like, how you're gonna just redo all your signage just because You're not gonna—

Yeah, I mean, people are— people, they have, uh, they do have like a Beluga show that they do. I mean, like, they— I haven't been in years. Let me just put that out there. I haven't been in years.

I haven't either. Um, I was in high school.

And we have one in San Antonio, right?

It's close.

Um, and but like, they've, they've made it very well known that like, we're not, we're not doing this anymore. It's like, okay, so like, is it just gonna be like a roller coaster place or what is it gonna be?

That's weird.

So anyway, so that's number 5. Okay, uh, number 4 is Tampa, Florida.

Okay, well, I've been here too. You— I mean, you've been there, obviously.

Tampa's cool.

It's, it's really interesting. I mean, again, you got, you know, St. Pete close. Yeah, you know, I mean, but again, you're not going to use that.

Here's one of the things I'm noticing about this list thus far is there's usually like a public park component, a theme park component, and a sports component.

Okay. Well, but there's not— I mean, Tampa has football.

Tampa has football.

They don't have baseball. It's in St. Petersburg.

Oh, they moved it?

Yeah. Well, it's been there forever. I mean—

But it's always been like the Tampa Bay Rays or something.

Yeah, they have been. They've been— yeah, they are, but it's in St. Petersburg.

How far away is that?

That can't be— It's across the Bridge? That's not— okay, so that it's in the area, but if we're talking— if we're going back to what we said earlier, then like you can't use certain parts of Houston because it's not in Houston proper.

Well, that's not fair. Then why does it— why are they the Tampa— like, I—

again, like, it's the same way reason we got the Dallas Cowboys in Arlington. Okay, they're not in Dallas. Yes, they are. No, they're not. They're in Arlington.

That's the same thing.

Okay. But, but it's not.

Okay, like Arlington is in Dallas.

It's not actually.

It's a whole nother city. I realize that like technically it's not.

It's closer to Fort Worth than it is Dallas.

That's stupid to say. It's not because Fort Worth and Dallas are the same thing.

Well, they're not.

Like it's closer to Fort Worth. Well, Fort Worth is close to Dallas.

But my point is like you, if you can't use one, then you can't use the other, right?

So I don't know.

So you can't say—

but they do have the Bucs.

They, they do have the Bucs.

Is there a basketball team there?

Uh, I don't care. I don't know. I don't, I don't care about NBA. They do have— I'll tell you something they do have, and this is— I'm pretty sure this is in Tampa— is they've got the, they've got the, um—

No, they got Busch Gardens.

That's true. But they've also got, uh, the training facility for the Yankees. Okay, so that's a that's kind of a big deal. A lot of people come down to. I mean, you can watch the Yankees play.

Isn't Legoland in Tampa?

No, that's in Orlando. There's not one in Tampa. I think you're wrong. All right, I'll look. Maybe you're right.

He's looking. His fingers are furiously trying to be wrong.

Legoland. Nope. Winter Haven.

Winter Haven.

Yep. Which, that can't be— that can't be counted in Orlando either because it's in Winter Haven.

So no. I thought that was really more closer to Tampa.

Uh, well, no, it's— I mean, I know there's, there's that one in, in, uh, yeah, it's in Winter Haven.

Okay.

Yep. So it's only the Orlando area.

Okay, let's see here. Okay, so the Florida Aquarium is also in Tampa.

Oh, okay. Well, that, that's cool.

Which is like the number one attraction in Tampa, apparently.

That's not surprising to me because who cares about the parks?

And they also have a big zoo.

Okay.

Um, Tampa Museum of Art, Children's Museum, lots of museums.

Well, it actually I mean, that's weird.

The number 6 attraction in Tampa is the Bits and Pieces Puppet Theater.

Nope. Bits and Pieces Puppet Theater.

That is not your number 6 attraction.

No, it shouldn't be.

At least a manatee viewing center.

Yeah, I mean, that's kind of cool.

Busch Gardens.

There we go. But like, I mean, again, it's right there on the bay. Um, it's, uh Yeah, I mean, it's a long way from anything though. I mean, I say that, it's, it's what, an hour and a half from, from Orlando?

Yeah, I mean, like, Florida's super skinny.

Yeah, a lot of people actually fly into Tampa to get to Orlando. Yeah, because it's cheaper.

So apparently there's a giraffe ranch in Tampa.

Giraffe ranch?

Yeah.

Well, then I'm going. Why would I not? Who didn't want to see a big old giraffe and not have to go to Africa? They got some here at the Houston Zoo, actually. Pretty cool little habitat for them. So, all right. All right. So number 3.

Number 3 is Sacramento, California.

False. No way that's number 3.

You can submit your formal letter to WalletHub.

I've never— yeah, uh, I don't know him, but, um, I'll say this. I don't know much about Sacramento because I've never been there. I know it's the capital. I know it's in the northern part of California, and to be quite honest, that's about all I know about it.

Let me tell you, based off the list that I pulled up, yes, um, I am not convinced that this should be number 3 or even on the list. Yeah, I mean, so like, this is like vacationidea.com, and it's their list of 22 fun kid-friendly things to do in Sacramento. The number one thing is the Sacramento State Railroad Museum.

Oh, really?

And I'm like, okay, that's cool if you're into trains. Likes, like, 3 people. Yeah.

Well, I'm looking on their actual cityofsacramento.org site and, like, where they frequently lie. Yeah, exactly. But when it comes to landmarks and things to do, one of the things on here is Old Sacramento. That doesn't really—

There's nothing that spawns excitement in children, right? Like telling them, hey kids, we're going to Old Sacramento.

I just don't get it.

Dad, why can't we go to New Sacramento? Shut up, Johnny.

Shut up. Because I said—

We're gonna go look at trains who run on steam.

Steam. Bet you never seen that before.

It sure did in Back to the Future 3 that you made me watch.

I actually do like that one. I like all of them, but I do like that one. Oh man, I don't know.

I—

maybe there's something I don't know.

Like, it took me to like number 7 to get to anything that I was even like remotely interested in, which was the Sacramento Zoo.

Okay.

And I stopped because they had a— looked like a Kangaroo with a striped tail.

Yeah.

And it just goes downhill from there.

Well, when I start—

oh wait, Thunderland.

Thunderland.

Hang on, we need to know what this is.

While you're getting there, one of the things on my list was the Sacramento Public Library.

Barrels of fun there. I got it. Okay, so just based off the picture, this looks like something from the Lampoons Family Vacation movie, and it looks like it hasn't been updated since then. That's probably true. Funderland in Sacramento, which— wait, what was this? Number 3.

Number 3. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. Hang on, let me get back over there. Number 9 on the list is Funderland. set on 2 beautiful acres, historical William Land.

You wait a minute. My house is on more than 2 acres.

You could open your own Funderland.

I can literally walk from my— what? Um, okay, kids, we got someplace we're gonna be there.

Hang on, I'm not done. Funderland is a family-friendly amusement park with 9 children-sized rides and slides, including a vintage carousel, climbing and playing apparatus, and adventure-themed photo ops. Opened—

and probably a train.

Opened in 1946 and hasn't been updated since. Oh yeah, kids are just dying to go to Funderland and get all up in the 2 acres Yeah.

Yeah.

What is wrong with you, WalletHub? So moving on to number 2, the ever child-appropriate Las Vegas, Nevada.

All right, kids, get your shot glasses. We're going to have fun, right? Like, I don't know.

Nothing says family fun like strippers and booze.

And casinos. That's right.

And losing the family fortune. That's right.

Get your quarters and your shot glasses. We're going out. Oh my God. Okay. I've— look, I would really enjoy going to Las Vegas. I think I've been there once when I was a kid. And here's what I remember.

I really need to ask your parents some questions.

Well, we were, we were kind of touring that north, like the north area.

Give all the excuses you want.

California.

I'm going to ask them.

And we wanted to go to— you can ask them. That's fine. But here's what I remember thinking.

Here's what I remember.

My mom, you gotta know my mom, man. She was like walking around going, check out this nice glass. Like people would just leave like beer glasses everywhere. Like glass, like tumbler glass glasses. Nice ones.

Yeah.

Yeah. Just everywhere. Like they'd take, carry them out of the casino or whatever and just like finish it. And she got like a dozen of them. Take these things home and wash them. They'll be great.

Still has them today.

Oh yeah. But they were great. She wasn't wrong. But I'm like, the souvenirs we find in Las Vegas. Now I will say though, um, it's better than Sacramento. There's no doubt. No doubt. And, and honestly, like, there's mountains close. You can— I mean, there's some hiking probably available.

Oh, there's, there's some really cool parks, like national parks, near, like within driving distance of Las Vegas, but they're not in Las Vegas, right? As we've run into that little bit of legalism in the show already.

Yeah. No doubt.

So, I mean, some things, some things I've run across. So there's obviously, like, some kid-friendly pools, some kid-friendly shows in Las Vegas.

Yeah.

Hershey's Chocolate World is in Las Vegas.

Okay.

There's a Shark Reef Aquarium. There's apparently a Marvel's Avengers Station. What? In Las Vegas. That is a big attraction for kids right now. There is a lot of golf. Siegfried and Roy's Secret Garden and Dolphin Habitat.

Oh, they've got an aquarium too.

So, so, I mean, like, there's obviously— and there's like roller coasters and different things.

The Adventure Dome. Adventure Dome theme park.

Yeah, it's at Circus Circus.

Oh.

So Circus Circus is trying to up their game with adding like thrill rides.

Okay.

Um, and I'm looking at some pictures of Avengers Station. Let's see. Oh, this is in Treasure Island.

Look, I will say this. When you go on to—

so there's, there's obviously stuff for kids.

There's stuff to do.

When you still wouldn't take my kids—

no, no. Uh, when you go to visitlasvegas.com and click on things to do, there are 556 results. I don't doubt it. That's a lot of things.

There's, there's a ton of stuff to do in Vegas. I just don't know that I would ever want to take my kids there.

I— yeah, I don't know.

I, you know, I, I, I get that they're trying to make an effort, but like, I don't care how much of an effort that you make when like hookers are legal. Yeah, like to roam the streets. I don't want to take my kids.

I'm not interested, period.

So that— fix that, Vegas.

Is that not like the ideal thing to not be family friendly, is like roaming hookers? Yeah, I think I mean, maybe— please someone correct me if roaming hookers is actually family-friendly and I've missed something.

Put that in the— put that in the comments, like #roaminghookers.

Oh my goodness.

So, and then we get to number 1, um, which— okay, which number 1 is Los Angeles, California.

Yeah, which, okay, again, LA's huge.

Yes.

Right? There's that— there's no doubt that there's tons of things to do.

So here's my question.

Uh-huh.

Does Disneyland count?

No, it can't. It's, it's not— it's in Anaheim. It's in Anaheim. It is not in— and so are the Angels. Like, they've got the Dodgers, but they don't have the Angels. What about the Rams?

Are the Rams in LA anymore?

No, they're in Las Vegas.

Where'd the Raiders go?

I know the Raiders— The Raiders are Uh, no, the Rams are in Los Angeles.

Okay.

The Raiders are in Las Vegas.

Okay.

Sorry, I feel stupid for the moment.

Right.

But yes, and, and they built an unbelievable stadium for the Rams. Okay. Um, basketball. It's— they have basketball. Uh, sure.

Lakers.

Yeah. Yeah.

Come on.

Exactly.

I even— I knew that.

Oh, I know them. Um, they got the Clippers too. Okay. But still, it's like, meh, who cares? But I will say this, like, there's not very many cities in the nation that have multiple sports teams, right, in the same league. Right, right.

Yeah.

So I mean, like, look at Dallas, for example. I mean, they—

Well, and they also have like one Cowboys. That's it. So, you know, like, for me, I, I prefer college athletics.

Sure.

And even then, you've got UCLA.

Sure.

Um, and you got others. And what are the other ones? I don't know off the top of my head. I don't know.

I don't know. I don't know all that much about, like, that kind of thing. But, like, you know, they've got— but they've got the Dodgers and the Angels. And of course, the Angels are in Anaheim. But that's— again, it's a massive market. You know, they got the Clippers and the Lakers. They've, you know, they had—

Are they called— but they're not like the Anaheim Angels, are they?

They're the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.

Okay.

It's the dumbest name ever, aside from the Washington football team, which now has an actual name.

But like, if you— okay, which airport do you fly in to go to Disneyland?

Uh, probably John Wayne.

John Wayne, which is in LA.

It's in LA.

Okay, so I mean, like, they're getting the traffic from it. I mean, like, it counts.

No, no, no, it absolutely does.

I mean, and then LA is a huge place, and then Hollywood, and—

but, but that— but again, there's a lot of stuff in the area, don't get me wrong. Um, and, and I'm sure the things that are there are, are pretty amazing, but, uh, I, I just feel like there's got to be funner places for, for families. For families, for sure.

And more affordable places. Yeah, I mean, and like, because the whole point of us even talking about this is like, would you want to move there? And like, of these cities, maybe one of them.

People are literally leaving there.

Yeah. Aren't they? Like, the 3 funnest cities on this list, people are evacuating, right? Because it's too expensive to live there, right? Hands down.

Yeah.

And so like, I don't know. I mean, like, does the fun actually weigh heavily on the total score?

It should. I mean, but, but that being said, like, like California has things that other people don't. It's a massive coastline of beautiful water, right? It's cold as everything, but it's still— it's got some of the greatest surfing.

Um, I'm gonna, I'm gonna run the numbers real quick and see if any of these— so none of these cities that are the funnest Show up in the— hang on, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. None of them show up in the top 5 overall. I'm not going to give away the top 5 yet because we're going to save that for the last episode, but none of these cities show up in the top 5 cities for families.

So here's what's interesting about that. Because it feels to me like the funnest cities are destinations.

Yes.

Instead of places to live.

Places to live.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I— it is interesting.

All of these places I would not mind visiting. No, not a single one of them.

Right. But that being said, like, I would say that even the top 10, it's interesting to me that Los Angeles and San Diego, I mean, they're like an hour away from each other. Sure. And they're 2 of the funniest places. So there's a lot of fun to be had.

Number 5 and number 1.

Southern California. Yeah, without any doubt. You know, I, I know people that do live in San Diego, um, and they absolutely love it. Yeah, there, uh, but they're older. I don't know anybody that has kids there. I mean, I'm sure they're— I take that back, I probably do, but The people that I know well, they're, they're older. Their kids are, you know, graduated, whatever. Um, they love it there.

Yeah.

But I, I do think this is my contention, and maybe I'm wrong, but here's what I'm thinking. I think that in order to love living in California, you need to be from California. That's probably not wrong. I don't know. I mean, like, I, I can't— I could not imagine moving my family out there.

Well, but that's because, I mean, like, that's, that's kind of like a Texas thing that we have here, right? Is like, there's, there's a big, like, conversion therapy that happens when you move here. Sure.

But it's like, you know, California is—

I'm not from here, but I got here as quick as I can. Like, you don't see that bumper sticker in, like, any other state. Like, we, we drink the Kool-Aid pretty heavy here.

Oh, yeah.

And, like, I get it. It's It's deserved. Sure, it's a great place to live, of course. And, um, but like, there's just not another place— like, I've never heard of anybody like moving from anywhere else to California and be like, uh, can't believe I didn't make this move sooner.

Yeah, yeah. I feel like those 2 places are Texas and Florida. Those seem to be the places.

And increasingly more Tennessee, dude.

Nashville, man, it was not just Nashville, man.

Like, oh yeah, Memphis. I know. Um, I know. I mean, there's, there's some other good, uh, yeah, absolutely. What's the other one?

I'm thinking of mountains out there.

Oh, well, like Pigeon Forge and, um, Gatlinburg. Gatlinburg. But that's like a destination place. I mean, like, no, it is. That's not like a place you wanna, like—

But Nashville was one of those places where, like, it was a hidden gem for a long time.

Oh yeah.

And they have now been found out. It is a great place to live. It's a really cool place too. They got tons and tons of stuff to do. Why is that not on the list? I mean, Nashville is an incredible place for families. Um, so I don't know, dude.

There's a ton of places that aren't on the list. Yeah, I mean, like, I'm just going through like the top 20 and I'm like, this is— this— I don't get it.

Didn't you say number 7 was New York?

Yep.

Really? How? Oh.

Number 10 is Philadelphia. Uh, I mean, there's just—

I've been to Philly. I like it. It's—

Dude, number 15 is Bakersfield, California.

Where's that?

That's—

oh, it's right there. It's by— it's just like maybe 45 minutes north of Los Angeles.

Yeah. And I'm sorry, like, number 19 is El Paso, Texas. El Paso, it— like, if you're gonna list any city in Texas as fun, why in the hell would you list El Paso?

Why is it on the list?

I'm not knocking El Paso. Like, don't get me wrong. Like, I'm sure El Paso is a cool city.

It's not.

But like, is it funner than Houston? Is it funner than Fort Worth?

No.

Dallas? San Antonio?

Austin?

Is it—

Lubbock. Like, let's, let's say—

Come to El Paso. You can get shot by a—

Oh, I mean, I don't know what happens in El Paso. Nothing good.

It's a border town.

Yeah. No, I don't know.

I don't know what's wrong with these people.

I don't either. We, we do not like this list.

Well, the family fun list, no.

No, the, the rest of it, we'll see how things progress. Yet to be said.

Yeah.

So anyway, I don't have anything else to say.

No, we've, we've beat up on this list long enough.

That's right.

Anything else?

Well, the only thing I would say is this, is look, if you have a disagreement with us, let us know.

Shove it.

info@homeownersshow.com. We will read what you say.

Yep.

Possibly on the air. I will care. And, uh, yeah, it doesn't matter. But if you haven't already—

It matters. It'll be good content.

Just go like and subscribe.

I will argue with it vehemently.

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Without you having the chance to reply.

It's good for you to be here. Thank you so much. Till next time, we'll see you later.

See ya!