Believe it or not, celebrities really are just like the rest of us. Sure, they get to spend their days professionally playing pretend, and they get paid a ton to do it. But when it comes to their downtime, they enjoy all the same things we do, including taking a little vacation. And while you may assume most split their time between major hubs like Los Angeles and New York City, it turns out that celebrities love hidden gems, too.
In February, Casino.org released a study that looked at the places where people are most likely to have a celebrity sighting across the globe. And the No. 1 place is a Swiftie hot spot that may surprise you.
“Watch Hill, Rhode Island, ranks No. 1 worldwide for celebrity sightings (per capita)—especially for Taylor Swift, Blake Lively, and Ryan Reynolds fans,” the company said in a statement obtained by Travel + Leisure. (Watch Hill is a neighborhood in Westerly, Rhode Island, that is about an hour from Providence and Newport.)
Methodology
To find these destinations, the team scraped data from a popular celebrity-sighting Instagram account over the past six months, identifying the 42 global cities where celebrities have been seen the most.
The small town got a significant celebrity boom when Taylor Swift moved in, though it’s a place well worth visiting even without the promise of seeing the world’s most famous touring artist. In Westerly, travelers can check into iconic hotels like the Ocean House, which gives everyone the A-list treatment and also has a private stretch of beach, a zen spa, and opulent bedrooms for all. (It’s also a stone’s throw from Swift’s house, so who knows who you may see while there.)
But Rhode Island isn’t the only place for celebrity sightings. Coming in at No. 2 on the list is a mountain favorite: Aspen, Colorado. It ranked second with “151 celebrity sightings per 100,000 people,” with regulars like “Hailey Bieber, Kendall and Kylie Jenner, and Kevin Costner” frequently seen strolling the streets and shredding the mountain in winter.
Aspen was followed by several Californian cities, including West Hollywood, Malibu, and Bel-Air, rounding out the top six spots, while Santa Monica came in at No. 10.
However, celebrities don’t spend all their time in the U.S. In No. 7 is St. Barts, a gorgeous Caribbean island with 17 sightings per 100,000 people. Visiting the island also gives you a “high chance of spotting Leonardo DiCaprio.”
St. Barts is followed by Shoreditch in the U.K., where you could see Emilia Clarke and DJ Bassi Fox. Cottesloe, Australia, cinched the ninth spot, with 2.5 celebrity sightings per 100,000 people, with “Drake among the stars frequently seen there.”
However, if you do see a star, remember that they’re on their downtime too, and let them relax just as you are—even if you may be freaking out a little on the inside.
