Hawaii Travel Information and Travel Guide - USA. It's easy to see why Hawaii has become synonymous with paradise. Just look at these sugary beaches, Technicolor coral reefs and volcanoes beckoning adventurous spirits. Kaleidoscopic Culture Floating all by itself in the middle of the Pacific, Hawaii proudly maintains its own identity apart from the US mainland. Spam, shave ice, surfing, ukulele and slack key guitar music, hula, pidgin, 'rubbah slippah' (flip-flops) – these are just some of the touchstones of everyday life, island style.
Bountiful Beauty Snapshots of these islands scattered in a cobalt blue ocean are heavenly, without the need for any tourist-brochure embellishment. Why I Love Hawaii By Sara Benson, Coordinating Author On my first trip to Hawaii, I landed on Maui almost broke and with my luggage lost in transit. Muticulturalism & Arts Hawaii is as proud of its multicultural heritage as it is of island-born US President Barack Obama. Play Outdoors Just as in days of old, life in Hawaii is lived outdoors. Southeastern Utah Travel Information and Travel Guide - USA. Nicknamed Canyon Country, this desolate corner of Utah is home to soaring snow-blanketed peaks towering over plunging red-rock river canyons. The terrain is so inhospitable that it was the last region to be mapped in the continental US. Over 65 million years, water carved serpentine, sheer-walled gorges along the course of the Colorado and Green Rivers, which define the borders of Canyonlands National Park, Utah’s largest.
Nearby Arches National Park encompasses more rock arches than anywhere else worldwide. Between the parks lies Moab, the state’s premier destination for mountain biking, river-running and 4WD-ing. South of Moab, ancestral Puebloan sites are scattered among wilderness areas and parks, most notably Monument Valley, which extends into Arizona. This section is organized roughly north to south, beginning with Green River, on I-70, and following Hwy 191 into the southeastern corner of the state. Read more. Grand Canyon National Park Travel Information and Travel Guide - USA. No matter how much you read about the Grand Canyon or how many photographs you've seen, nothing really prepares you for the sight of it. One of the world's seven natural wonders, it's so startlingly familiar and iconic you can't take your eyes off it. The canyon's immensity, the sheer intensity of light and shadow at sunrise or sunset, even its very age, scream for superlatives.
At about two billion years old – half of Earth's total life span – the layer of Vishnu Schist at the bottom of the canyon is some of the oldest exposed rock on the planet. And the means by which it was exposed is of course the living, mighty Colorado River, which continues to carve its way 277 miles through the canyon as it has for the past six million years. The three rims of the Grand Canyon offer quite different experiences and, as they lie hundreds of miles and hours of driving apart, they're rarely visited on the same trip. If it's solitude you seek, make a beeline for the remote North Rim. Read more. Colorado Travel Information and Travel Guide - USA. Colorado was cool with the college crowd long before MTV’s cameras caught on. No, the seven strangers on the hit reality show The Real World Denver weren’t the first to dig this funky Rocky Mountain High.
Their contemporaries have been flocking to the Centennial State for decades to participate in a uniquely Colorado coming-of-age ritual: the act of ski-bumming (definition: living in a mountain ski resort town such as Breckenridge, working in the service industry and riding as much fresh powder as possible in between). And it’s not just the college crowd. Colorado has been catching Californians, New Yorkers and Washingtonians faster than a fly-fisher can snare a cutthroat trout on the Platte River. Simply said, Colorado is a great place to live and play, and common knowledge among the locals is that once you taste that ‘Rocky Mountain High’ John Denver used to croon about you’ll get so addicted to the atmosphere, altitude and attitude you’ll never leave. Read more.
Texas Travel Information and Travel Guide - USA. A darn sight bigger than a whole heap of countries, Texas is largely diverse: big-city lights to small-town simplicity; white-sand beaches to high-country hikes. Why I Love Texas by Lisa Dunford, Author Criss-crossing the state in the 22 years I've called Texas home, I've learned that there isn't much I don't love: hiking to a riverside hot-spring hot-tub made out of adobe ruins and peering across to Mexico from Big Bend; two-stepping in a giant, family-filled tent with the man who would become my husband at the Refugio county rodeo; listening to Ray Price sing 'Crazy Arms' at John T Floore's Country Store...
And the folks here are just as friendly as can be; seems like each time I visit a new place, I come away with new friends. That's Country Country is as much about a way of life as a place. Fun Foods There's just something about eating a big pile of brisket off a butcher-paper 'plate'. Cities & Towns Bright lights, big cities? As Big as All Outdoors Read more. New Orleans Travel Information and Travel Guide - USA. A heady confluence of the haughty European and the boisterous third-world, New Orleans is often referred to as the northernmost Caribbean city. Precious architecture stands alongside careening overloaded junk trucks, sumptuous delicacies tickle palates while offal in the streets offends the eyes.
Never be in a hurry, and any time you step outside, be ready for a meandering conversation with a total stranger. In August 2005 New Orleans' various strata were laid bare when Hurricane Katrina lashed the city and levee breaks left residents scrambling for their lives. But even after her hardships, the town’s unofficial motto and pervading gestalt is Laissez les bons temps rouler (Let the good times roll). The people of New Orleans have embraced the process of rebuilding, and though the population in town has been halved by the post-storm diaspora, the areas along the river, most-frequented by visitors, never saw flooding and are rich once again with the city’s trademark joyfulness. Read more. New York City Travel Information and Travel Guide - USA. 'As for New York City, it is a place apart. There is not its match in any other country in the world.' Pearl S Buck Lady Liberty One hundred years ago the torch-wielding icon, clad in copper greens, welcomed the ‘tired, poor, and huddled masses’ – she was quite the sight for sore eyes after a long journey from the other end of the globe.
Today, Lady Liberty stands guard over a modern set of human pursuits. New York has become so much more than the gateway to opportunity – it’s a city of triumph, a capital of exploration and experimentation; it’s a place where one is truly free to be themselves. So come as you are, shed your apprehensions, let it all hang out and join the fray. A New York Minute Although the city may present itself as rather straightforward – especially when one navigates the relentless stripes of perpendicular gridiron – New York is infinitely complex; it’s intricate parts twisting in tandem like the cogs of a clock.
Take A Bite of the Big Apple It's Up to You... Read more. Savannah Travel Information and Travel Guide - USA. Like a Southern belle with a split personality, this grand historic town revolves around formal antebellum architecture and unbridled public debauchery. It sits alongside the Savannah River, about 18 miles from the coast, amid Lowcountry swamps and mammoth live oak trees dripping with Spanish moss. With its gorgeous mansions, cotton warehouses and Colonial public buildings, Savannah preserves its past with pride, grace and a slight smirk. Unlike its sister city of Charleston, SC, which retains its reputation as a dignified and refined cultural center, Savannah revels in being the bad girl – the town has been described as ‘a beautiful lady with a dirty face,’ and in some ways it resembles a pint-sized New Orleans.
Savannah loves its sinful pleasures, be they cheese grits, cocktails, or the bump and grind of partying local students. Savannah has a somber side, but she never takes herself too seriously. Read more. Palm Springs & Coachella Valley Travel Information and Travel Guide - USA. The Rat Pack is back, baby, or at least its hangout is. In the 1950s and ‘60s, Palm Springs, some 100 miles east of LA, was the swinging getaway of Sinatra, Elvis and dozens of other stars, partying the night away in fancy estate homes. Once the Rat Pack packed it in, though, the 300-sq-mile Coachella Valley surrendered to retirees in golf clothing. That is, until the mid-1990s, when a new generation fell in love with the city’s retro-chic charms: steel-and-glass bungalows designed by famous modernist architects, boutique hotels with vintage decor and kidney-shaped pools, and hushed piano bars serving the perfect martini.
In today’s Palm Springs, retirees mix comfortably with hipsters and a significant gay and lesbian contingent. Palm Springs is the principal city of the Coachella Valley, a string of desert towns ranging from ho-hum Cathedral City to glamtastic Palm Desert and America’s date capital of Indio, all linked by Hwy 111.
Read more. California Travel Information and Travel Guide - USA. The moment you arrive in the Golden State, you may suspect you’ve been cast as the ingenue in a road-trip movie. Everything seems staged for a script riddled with exclamation points: no way are they going to surf those skyscraper-sized waves at Mavericks! That can’t be the Terminator in the governor’s mansion – in his second term! Brrrrrrr...don’t all those naked people ever get cold?! Even if you’ve seen it on TV, California still comes as a shock to the system.
The Venice Beach's skateboarders, San Francisco's same-sex-wedding planners, Santa Cruz's wild-mushroom hunters, Rodeo Dr-pillaging trophy wives and cheerful San Diego's doomsday cult members aren’t on different channels. They live here. Unless you want to stir up old NorCal/SoCal rivalries dating from the 19th century – a diverting local pastime when played with good sports – don’t get Californians started about water. Ready to go? These tours & activities make it easy: Read more.