Planning a trip to the Americas

[Kevin]

I would avoid Miami in the summer like the plague. It's going to be full of college people getting drunk and My list of places would be :
2.) Chicago. This is my favorite city in the US. I went as a teenager, and wish that I could get back there.

Heh you seem to be the first person to really bring up the "midwest". It's different from either coast as well. Chicago does have some nice touristy things. It's about 4-6 hour drive (depending on where to where) to St. Louis which has a few points of interest as well. Chicago is also about 1-2 hours from Milwaukee. 2.5 to 3.5 hours from Indianapolis, 4.5 to 5.5 hours from Detroit and about 8 hours from Nashville, TN.

I'm not saying you'll get a ton of stuff from those other destinations but they all have tourist industries of some sort and some truly 'American' things to see as well.

It's not as compact as the East Coast or as spread out as the West, but you do have some options for some unique experiences. You'd be 3-4 hours from Baraboo, WI (from Chicago) which has the Circus World Museum which has some of the original stuff that PT Barnum used. It's very close to Wisconsin Dells, which lays claim to the worlds larges water park. There is an Indian Casino for light gambling, the international crane foundation preserve and a few other unique things. You might even get a kick out of The Swiss Historical Village Museum in New Glarus WI (which is about 3 hours from WI). You'd be close to Spring Green, WI (again about 3 hours) which is home to several creations by Frank Lloyd Wright, including The House on the Rock and his Taliesin. There are also several major caves and such that can be toured in this area.

You'd be close to several other smaller pieces of American like Abraham Lincoln's Birthplace, etc.

This would definitely be a different type of trip if you did something like this, but you could see sights in Chicago, a couple of the smaller town attractions in WI, IL, IN, etc, and still be able to hit St. Louis, or Nashville or something else bigger like that. Just depends on what you want to do, but yeah I'm glad someone brought up Chicago as a destination as it sparked memories of some of this smaller stuff that is around Chicago and I think that is some of what [wcip]Angel was looking for. :)