Valentine’s Day is right around the corner, and that has us in the mood to find the most romantic (and least romantic) states in the USA. 

Because while hitting 21 in Blackjack at the best online casinos is a rush, not everybody can be as lucky, especially when it comes to love. 

So who is looking up 'Valentine’s Day' on Google most often to purchase that special gift or come up with a romantic idea for their significant other? And which states just can't be bothered? 

We used Trends data to map the nation and determine which states care most (and least) about Feb. 14.

Methodology

For this project we utilized Google Trends data going back over the previous 6 years (2017 through 2022). For each year, we broke down the raw search data for each state for the term: Valentine's Day. We only looked at data in the 30 days prior to Valentine's Day each year.

All states were assigned a numerical value from 1-100 depending on their search traffic data for each individual year (with the most searches getting a higher number and the least searches a lower number).

That data was then averaged over the six-year dataset and ranked from highest (most romantic) to lowest (least romantic).

Which Is The Most Romantic State?

Country roads, take me home...for some action

Something’s in the water in West Virginia. Not only was this state our highest ranked when averaging out the last six years of data, it ranked first each year. Seriously. 

Despite having one of the smallest populations of any state in the U.S., the Mountaineers love themselves some Valentine’s Day. The state flower is the rhododendron, so we’re guessing those are flying off shelves during the second week of February. Color us shocked, impressed, and everything in between here. 

Love is in the air in the Mountain State, apparently.

East Coast bias?

Maybe because Valentine’s Day arrives earlier on the East Coast, but states along the Atlantic Ocean dominated this competition. Each of the five most romantic states (West Virginia, Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and New York) are on Eastern Standard Time, and you’ve got to go down to No. 7 (Texas) to find a state west of the Mississippi River. 

Meanwhile, you have a couple of New England states right around the middle of the pack (Massachusetts and New Hampshire). Of note, Massachusetts betting apps will finally go live in March - and we LOVE that.

Conversely, the two least romantic states are on the West Coast (more on that later).

The top 10

Much like college sports, there’s something to be said for finishing the season in the top 10. That’s no different here (OK, that’s just our made-up feelings toward the list). 

But while averages are great, we wanted to look at the states that finished individual years in the top 10. Here’s how many times they featured on the top-10 most romantic list in the last six years:

• 6 times (i.e. every time): West Virginia, New Jersey, Delaware
• 5 times: Pennsylvania
• 4 times: Texas, Illinois
• 3 times: Arkansas, California, Kentucky, New York, North Carolina
• 2 times: Connecticut, Nebraska, Rhode Island
• 1 time: Florida, Georgia, Maine, Massachusetts, Maryland, Mississippi, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Ohio, South Dakota, Virginia, Washington D.C.

Trending in the right and wrong directions

Averages are nice, and top-10 appearances are always good. But we’re living in the present here. Which states are trending in the right direction heading into 2023? And which states aren’t feeling as much love as they used to? Here are a few that stood out:

• Arkansas: Arkansas finished in the top-10 each year from 2018 to 2020 but has suffered a serious drop-off since then: They were 47th in 2021 and 35th in 2022.
• Texas: Four consecutive years in the top-10 from 2017 to 2020 were nice, but Texas has slipped each of the last two years. Love is no longer in the air in Texas.
• Connecticut: A state heading in the right direction. Connecticut wasn’t in the top-10 between 2017 and 2020 but exploded into that range each of the last two years. We don’t know where to pinpoint the surge, but the Huskies will take it.

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Where is the love? Not Oregon, apparently

The state flower here is the Oregon Grape flower, which could be the worst state flower in the country. Maybe that’s why Oregon is dead-last on the romanticism rankings, including the 51st spot (we counted D.C.) in five of the six years we looked at. Maybe there’s some hope, with Oregon finishing 50th in 2022 (thanks, Montana) but this still surprised us. Spread the love!

We won’t pick on Oregon the whole time, though. Rounding out the bottom 5 are Washington State, Minnesota, Colorado, and Wisconsin. All cold-weather states, so maybe not surprising.