{"id":166862,"date":"2026-04-15T20:29:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T20:29:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/166862\/"},"modified":"2026-04-15T20:29:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T20:29:09","slug":"bethlehems-main-street-is-again-voted-best-in-us-in-nationwide-poll","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/166862\/","title":{"rendered":"Bethlehem\u2019s Main Street is again voted best in US in nationwide poll"},"content":{"rendered":"

Downtown Bethlehem is once again in the national spotlight.<\/p>\n

Bethlehem\u2019s Main Street was named the best in the country by USA Today for the second year in a row<\/a>. The announcement was made Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur local community already knows Bethlehem\u2019s star shines brighter than any other but it\u2019s great to see that message make its way across the country,\u201d Hotel Bethlehem General Manager Kelly Ronalds said. \u201cThe hotel\u2019s marketing team created a campaign to support this year\u2019s Best Main Street competition. The \u2018Our Star Shines All Year Round\u2019 initiative demonstrated that while Bethlehem is well-known as a Christmas destination, there are great reasons to visit all year long.\u201d<\/p>\n

To promote the campaign, T-shirts, which featured a QR code to vote in the 10 Best competition, were distributed by the chamber of commerce and Downtown Bethlehem Association. Staffers at Hotel Bethlehem including bellhops and housekeepers also wore them.<\/p>\n

A panel of USA Today travel experts selected the top 20 finalists. Then it was up to the public to vote for the top 10 on the USA Today website. Voting, which lasted about a month, ended April 6.<\/p>\n

Hotel Bethlehem, which anchors Christmas City\u2019s downtown, has also been an annual winner in the USA Today\u2019s 10Best contest, taking first place in the Historic Hotel\/Resort category for five consecutive years.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe beloved town, which is home to [Lehigh] University and Moravian University, makes visitors feel as if they\u2019re taking a step back in time,\u201d USA Today wrote<\/a>. \u201cWith brick buildings varying in red, white, and brown that line the main street, there\u2019s something for everyone who visits this historic town.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tammy Wendling, senior vice president for Bethlehem Initiatives at the Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce, said the honor is a win for the entire historic district, which includes the Moravian Church Settlements, a UNESCO-recognized World Heritage Site.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhether you visit in winter, spring, summer or fall, you\u2019re going to have a great time exploring Bethlehem,\u201d Wendling said. \u201cWhile we\u2019re incredibly proud of our Main Street being recognized as No. 1, now two years in a row, we know this honor reflects something even bigger.\u201d<\/p>\n

The rest of the top 10 included Waynesville, North Carolina; Emporia, Kansas; Howell, Michigan; Paso Robles, California; Ogden, Utah; Ocean City, New Jersey; McMinnville, Oregon; Grapevine, Texas; and Virginia City, Nevada.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Downtown Bethlehem is once again in the national spotlight. Bethlehem\u2019s Main Street was named the best in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":133787,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[153,155,154,1391,60,3487,157,182,139,434,28,432],"class_list":{"0":"post-166862","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bethlehem","8":"tag-bethlehem","9":"tag-bethlehem-headlines","10":"tag-bethlehem-news","11":"tag-bethlehem-area","12":"tag-business","13":"tag-hotel-bethlehem","14":"tag-lehigh-valley","15":"tag-local-news","16":"tag-news","17":"tag-northampton-county","18":"tag-pennsylvania","19":"tag-top-stories-tmc"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=166862"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166862\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=166862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=166862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=166862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}