The Cities Where You'll Rake in the Most Candy on Halloween

As kids planning our suburban trick-or-treat route, my friends, siblings and I knew where we needed to go: The Big Houses. Those were the ones with full-size candy bars (and most certainly not popcorn balls or wrapped pennies). It wasn’t foolproof — sometimes the owners of The Big Houses weren’t home on Halloween, or they gave out fun-size candy bars like the average American homeowner — but it was better than having no plan. After all, you only have so many hours to fill that plastic pumpkin with as many scrumptious treats as possible, and you don’t want to waste it wandering through a neighborhood that hasn’t proved its worth as a trick-or-treat destination.

You also don’t want to waste time going to places where no one is home. That’s not something most people can predict, but neighborhood app Nextdoor is making that easier by asking its members to indicate whether they plan to give out Halloween candy. It was only a matter of time before trolling subdivisions for candy became scientific and now, to the delight of children jonesing for refined sugar, it is.

Nextdoor allows people to sign up for a private social network in their neighborhood, on which they can post about all sorts of goings-on and get to know those around them. Now that Halloween is coming up, you can indicate whether or not you’ll be giving out candy on Halloween, allowing people to plan their trick-or-treat circuit in advance.

Nextdoor looked at cities where more than 5,000 people are using Nextdoor, and it calculated the ratio of neighbors in the network to those who have said they’re passing out candy on Halloween (no information on who is offering full-size candy bars, unfortunately). That produced a list of the best cities for trick-or-treating. If you live in any of these municipalities, you’re in luck (or not, depending on how you feel about children having access to vast amounts of candy).

10. Boise, Idaho

9. Baton Rouge, La.

8. Greenville, S.C.

7. Downers Grove, Ill.

6. Orlando, Fla.

5. Frisco, Texas

4. Columbus, Ohio

3. Omaha, Neb.

2. Ann Arbor, Mich.

1. Cary, N.C.