Overview
The United States is so grand and varied it's almost impossible to contemplate it as a single place. The sultry swamps of Florida and Georgia, the frozen tundra of Alaska's north slope, and the volcanic tropical islands of Hawaii don't fit in the same picture, but they're all part of this astonishing country. The U.S. is the Manhattan skyline and the Statue of Liberty, Hollywood and the sprawl of L.A., Chesapeake Bay and the Washington Mall, redwood forests and the geysers of Yellowstone, the Boston Tea Party and the Liberty Bell, penthouse dining and isolated truckstops, concrete jungles and wide open spaces, cities, towns, and villages of ...
The United States is so grand and varied it's almost impossible to contemplate it as a single place. The sultry swamps of Florida and Georgia, the frozen tundra of Alaska's north slope, and the volcanic tropical islands of Hawaii don't fit in the same picture, but they're all part of this astonishing country. The U.S. is the Manhattan skyline and the Statue of Liberty, Hollywood and the sprawl of L.A., Chesapeake Bay and the Washington Mall, redwood forests and the geysers of Yellowstone, the Boston Tea Party and the Liberty Bell, penthouse dining and isolated truckstops, concrete jungles and wide open spaces, cities, towns, and villages of every size, and people of all colors and convictions. No matter what you're looking for you'll find it here, from urban sophistication to down-home informality, in a place that offers every possibility, including what some consider a planet all its own set incongruously in the middle of a desert, Las Vegas, a city that lives by its own rules.
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About the Expert
Larry Habegger is Triporati's editor-in-chief and executive editor of Travelers' Tales, where he has edited or coedited dozens of books including Travelers' Tales Australia and Ireland.
— Larry Habegger for Triporati
If time is short, save these attractions for a second visit.
Must See Skip It 'til Next Time
- National parks: Yellowstone, Grand Canyon, Yosemite, Glacier
- Cities: New York, San Francisco, Chicago, New Orleans
- Museums: National Gallery and Smithsonian, Washington, DC; Metropolitan Museum, New York; Getty, Los Angeles; Art Institute of Chicago; California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco
- Pop culture: Graceland, Hollywood
- History: New England (Massachusetts); the South (Georgia, Virginia); the West (Colorado, Arizona, California)
- The country is too big and diverse to say definitively what a visitor should skip the first time around
- Prairie states: they have their appeal, but lack the drama many first-time visitors come to the U.S. to experience
- Midwest: except for notable cities such as Chicago or Minneapolis/St. Paul, the Midwest doesn't measure up to the two coasts for a first visit
- Texas cities are unremarkable except for Austin
- Out west the landscape is vast and distances between cities is great, so plan driving trips accordingly
Facts at a Glance
- Location: Central North America between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, bordered by Canada to the north and Mexico to the south
- Research: Wikipedia
