Planning a trip to the Americas

[Roland]

For America in Summer: Idaho and Montana for a purely American non urban experience. Both the Sawtooth mountains of Idaho and the Missouri Breaks of Montana are spectacularly American. I also recommend, for that trip if you take it, to read up on Lewis and Clark, the explorers who were some of the first European American sorts to show up out there, and who did it on behalf of President Jefferson. The Lewis and Clark Expedition was an amazing undertaking. (Stephen AMbrose wrote a great book about it, Undaunted Courage.)

More urbanly, try San Francisco, Portland, or Seattle. If you do Seattle, Vancouver BC is Canada just over the border. I recommend against the North East due to personal prejudice, but Boston can be a great time. It surely can.

I'd love to see you, but Corpus Christi, Texas in the summer is so hot, my dear Swedish friend would melt. If you want to experience heat and humitidy like nobody in Sweden has, come down. I shall be your host. But I doubt you'll want to do that.

For the South Americas, I'd recommend Chile over Argentina. But again, I may be biased due to a couple of friends who are from there.

Other Summer destinations might include Lake Tahoe, California. Gorgeous country and gambling if you like it. Hiking if you like it. A lake if you like it. Sacramento airport a good way in, or San Francisco.

Bring money, nowhere is cheap anymore.

IMO, avoid Florida like the plague.

Also beautiful, albeit warm, is the Shanendoah Valley of Virginia and the Smokey Mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee. Drop Dead Beautiful.

Occhi

You damn well better like Boston, you old Rogue, or I'll start quipping on Texas.;)

If you ever find your way up here to the Northeast, the first pint's on me.

And, truly, if you're looking for real American places, D.C. is probably as far northeast as I'd go as a tourist. New England is sort of its own place, somewhat close-knit (which means not big on the tourist attractions, except for those who like NE country bumpkin sorts of things), and filled with rural, mountainous scenery... but not much else to draw you here. It's very quaint, very cozy, but not a whole lot of flash.

I would strongly urge putting D.C. as a high priority, though. You can, with some solid planning, pack almost the entire city into a long weekend. So many things to see there, lots of museums and whatnot, full of history and culture (not just of America - the Holocaust Museum, while perhaps a bit morbid for some, is definitely something worth seeing in your life time. That's to say nothing of the various monuments, the aviation museum, etc. Truly many sights to be seen.

I can't say anything about out west - never been past Ohio, and even then, never seen much. I'll leave that advice to those more versed in such places. One little traveling tip, though - when planning out your stays, sometimes you can save a bit of dough going just a ways out of the big cities. At least, that works up here in the northeast. What may cost an arm and a leg in the cities costs barely more than a smile and a handshake out just a little ways into the suburbs. Food for though, and it may vary by geography.

Have fun on your trip, and be sure to keep us updated!