Readers' Choice Awards 2009

Poll categories (Cities, Hotels, etc.) appear below, followed by the criteria for each. Questionnaires contained lists of candidates (individual cities, hotels, etc.), and write-ins were allowed. Only candidates that received a required minimum number of responses were deemed eligible for an award.

Each candidate was rated, criterion by criterion, on a five-point scale: excellent, very good, good, fair, poor. Criterion scores, which represent the percentage of respondents rating a candidate excellent or very good, were averaged to determine the final score; e.g., in the category of Islands, Maui's 90.1 is the average of its scores for Activities, Atmosphere/Ambience, Beaches, Friendliness, Lodging, Restaurants, and Scenery.

Individual categories were rated on the following: