Condé Nast Traveller's Readers' Choice Awards 2026 put Edinburgh, London and Bath ahead of Glasgow in its list of the UK's best cities — a result one local writer isn't taking lying down. In a spirited piece for the magazine, she argues that Scotland's biggest city deserved the top spot, and her case doubles as a handy pitch for anyone considering a trip.

Her argument rests less on sights and more on spirit. Glasgow has a reputation problem — an old stereotype about danger she dismisses as snobbery — but the city's track record of community speaks for itself. In 2021, hundreds of residents famously surrounded an immigration van during a dawn raid in Govanhill and refused to let it leave until two detained men were freed. Years earlier, baggage handler John Smeaton became a national folk hero when he helped tackle attackers at Glasgow airport, telling reporters: "This is Glasgow, we'll just set aboot ye."

Then there's the culture. The city revolves around an iconic art school, a music scene the writer calls unrivalled, and a comedy lineage stretching from Billy Connolly to Frankie Boyle and Kevin Bridges. Edinburgh may host the Fringe, she quips, but Glasgow breeds the acts that make it funny.

Practically speaking, her recommendations skew deliciously local. On the food front: Big Counter on the Southside, Celentano's in the city centre and Gloriosa in the west end. For drinks, she name-checks The Absent Ear, Lunar and The Gate — inventive bars with a distinctly Glaswegian character — alongside the old-school pubs, live music venues and underground comedy clubs that fill in the gaps.

The architecture is the sleeper selling point. The Italianate City Chambers allegedly hold more marble than a Vatican building, the Gothic university is a showstopper, and the Victorian and Art Deco streetscapes stand in for New York so often in film and TV that you may experience déjà vu on arrival. Clydebank, flattened in the Blitz in 1941, is part of a broader story of a city that has repeatedly rebuilt itself without losing its humour.

For travellers, the takeaway is simple: Glasgow rewards curiosity more than checklist tourism. It's wetter and scruffier than Edinburgh, but cheaper, friendlier and arguably more fun — a city of neighbourhoods (Southside, west end, city centre) each with its own personality. If your UK trip so far consists of Edinburgh's Royal Mile and a London pint costing as much as a Glasgow dinner, this is your sign to take the 45-minute train west.