The United States’ sheer scale and diversity is enough to awe any traveller, and the country has a roster of big-ticket attractions to match its titanic size. Here you can explore cities packed tight with world-famous landmarks — think star-spangled Los Angeles or museum-packed DC — or strike into a backyard filled with red rocks, rippling desert and ridges rising from the Great Plains.
Whether you’re most at home behind the wheel, getting lost in a concrete jungle or trekking the trails, these are the best things to do in the US.
Main photo: the historic dwellings of Taos Pueblo in New Mexico (Alamy)
A paddle steamer on the Mississippi (Alamy)
1. Drift down the Mississippi
Cruising down the Mississippi (preferably on a paddle wheel steamboat) is a quintessentially Southern experience, but don’t be deceived by its languid appearance — you’ll pack a hell of a lot into even a short trip. Cruise itineraries tend to be jam-packed, so you’ll visit a huge variety of sights: from historical landmarks to quaint and welcoming little towns. It also means there’s more to see from the deck, as you drift past ever-changing scenery.
• Discover the best US cruises Vermont (Getty Images) Whether it’s a few trees surrounding the white steeple of a clapboard church, or sweeping mountainsides ablaze with colour, the autumn foliage of New England is always a showstopper. Join the leaf peepers on a pilgrimage to the northeastern US and you’ll be dazzled by this fall firework display — and be sure to punctuate your road trip with pit stops for maple creemees and apple cider donuts. • How to see New England in autumn Endicott in Alaska (Getty Images) You simply can’t beat the wow factor of Alaska. From catching a glimpse of a brown bear to gliding past intensely blue glaciers, the sights you’ll see sailing in Alaska will stay with you forever. For a more diverse experience, opt for one of the smaller ships; they can access the fjords and smaller ports that the larger ones cannot. If you’re looking for adventure, book a cruise that offers excursions such as kayaking or whale-watching. If you’d rather watch the action unfold from the ship, choose an itinerary that includes more scenic crossings, for killer views from the comfort of your deck. • Best time to visit Alaska Sunrise over the Empire State Building and the Hudson River (Getty Images) Sailing into New York on a transatlantic cruise is an impossibly romantic introduction to the city. As you pass under the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge at dawn, the misty light casts a rosy glow on downtown Manhattan as the skyline stretches out before you. Set your alarm and nab your place on the deck while it’s still dark — the glimmering morning light hitting the city’s skyscrapers is a view you’ll never forget. Once you disembark, attractions such as buzzing Times Square, the Statue of Liberty and Central Park await. • Best affordable hotels in New York The Spotted Cat Music Club in New Orleans (Getty Images) If there’s one thing that New Orleans does well, it’s jazz. Skip the touristy bars of Bourbon Street and head to Frenchmen Street for a more authentic flavour. There’s no cover charge at the Spotted Cat Music Club, a teensy but lively joint, and you’ll get a good taste of all styles at the Blue Nile. After an all-nighter, call into Café du Monde for a pile of warm, fluffy beignets — it’s open 24 hours a day. • Best hotels in New Orleans The Walk of Fame (Alamy) Over 2,600 brass stars compete for your attention along the Walk of Fame in Los Angeles. Some will give you an insight into figures from American history — Stanley Kramer is the first star — while others such as Dean Martin and Bing Crosby show off their popularity with three stars each. • Best hotels in Los Angeles With towering sequoias, dramatic mountains and boulder-strewn lakes, Yosemite is a hiker’s dream. But you don’t need to trek for hours to get your money’s worth; some of the best trails are just a mile or two long. Hike the short loop at Mist Trail and you’ll be met by stunning waterfalls, or stroll to the gorgeous May Lake for a killer view of still blue waters, shrouded with mountains. • Best national parks in the US The neon strip of Nashville’s Lower Broadway comes to life at night, with music spilling out of open doors and locals shooting back cinnamon whiskey with tourists. Nip between the different bars for a broad taste of the country music rainbow, whether you fancy stomping your boots or enjoying the tunes while sipping a beer. If you’re there during the day, don’t miss the Johnny Cash museum nearby — it’s a beautiful tribute to the local legend. • Best things to do in Nashville Key West in Florida (Alamy) You can’t beat a classic American road trip. And a drive down the length of the Florida Keys is a doozy — you’ll pass over vast expanses of turquoise waters, past mangroves and cute seafood shacks. Stopping off for a slice of key lime pie is all but mandatory, as is a gaudy co*cktail sipped at the water’s edge as the sun dips below the horizon (keep an eye out for dolphins, too). • Family-friendly things to do in Florida The Grand Canyon (Getty Images) Whether you drive up to one of the lookouts, or land in its belly via helicopter, the Grand Canyon will never fail to stop you in your tracks. If the viewpoints are crowded, take a short walk on one of the trails for a unique (and quieter) perspective. Or, if you have nerves of steel, stroll the Skywalk, a horseshoe-shaped glass walkway that juts 20m out over the edge of the canyon (with 1,200m between you and the bottom). • Best time to visit the Grand Canyon The pool room in Elvis Presley’s Graceland Mansion (Alamy) It’s the pilgrimage that every Elvis Presley fan was born to make. A walk around the gaudy, deliciously bonkers home of the King is certainly an experience — you’ll see his kitchen, fabric-lined pool room and, of course, the Jungle Room. Don’t miss his customised private planes, either — almost every inch is bedecked with gold, from the seat belts to the sinks in the bathroom. • Best US tours: from New York to New Mexico Sculpture on the Enchanted Highway in North Dakota (Alamy) There is some gloriously kitsch Americana along the highways and byways of the US, and you could plan entire trips around the country’s roadside sights. Route 66 — the grande dame of American road trips — has her own roster of attractions. A highlight is Cadillac Ranch, a series of classic cars brightly spray-painted and arranged Stonehenge-style in a field outside of Amarillo, Texas. In North Dakota, you can drive the Enchanted Highway: metal sculptures, including giant pheasants and leaping deer, are lined up along 32 miles of road. • Best stops on Route 66 Hot-air balloons in Monument Valley, Arizona (Alamy) There’s a certain kind of magic to the desert at dawn and there’s no better place to take it all in than in a hot-air balloon, rising into the sky alongside the sun, as you drink in the glory of the Sonoran desert. As the sky brightens, swathes of land morph into vibrant shades of pink, orange and red in the sunshine (which is all but guaranteed in this neck of the woods). Priest Ranch wine-tasting room in Yountville (Alamy) Somehow, a glass of wine always tastes better when you’re on holiday. And it tastes better again when you drink it at the source, among undulating vines and hills aglow with the California sun. Visit the vineyards of Napa and you’re in for a treat — every roadside is scattered with top-notch wineries, most of which happily provide tastings. • Best Napa Valley vineyards The US capital has some of the best museums in the world. And the good news? Most of them are free to visit (something of a novelty in the States). The National Museum of African American History and Culture has secured its place as one of the most important experiences in the country. Other standouts are the National Air and Space Museum and the National Spy Museum. While you’re in Washington DC, you can also peer at the Lincoln Memorial and take a free tour of the White House — but you’ll have to plan ahead; requests need to be submitted at least 21 days in advance. • Best hotels in Washington DC Few sights are more spectacular than the Milky Way on a clear night, and Utah’s jet-black skies are a perfect canvas. The stars put on quite a show here; they swirl over the hoodoos of Bryce Canyon National Park, and arch above the plains of Antelope Island, a stark peninsula jutting into the Great Salt Lake. In fact, from state parks to national monuments, Utah has more designated dark-sky spots than anywhere else in the world. Join other budding astronomers on a “star party” or photography session: guides will point out constellations as you peer through your telescope, or help you snap that perfect night-time shot. And when the sun comes up, you can hit the hiking trails. The lights of Las Vegas (Alamy) Feeling lucky? Make a beeline for the Strip, the main artery of Las Vegas. It’s a neon-drenched drag of Las Vegas Boulevard, where giant hotels, ritzy casinos, restaurants and bars all jostle for space. At the south end, the “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas” sign marks the start of the action. Highlights include Bellagio, a juggernaut of a hotel with famous dancing fountains and a conservatory filled with floral displays. Farther north you’ll come to the Venetian, complete with its own bridge-studded Grand Canal and gondola rides. You’ll not go hungry, either — there’s everything from steakhouses and swanky chef-led spots to buffets and fast-food joints. • Best Las Vegas hotels The Portside Picnic food truck in Portland’s Back Cove (Getty Images) Portland’s popularity is easily explained: food truck, donut, coffee and craft beer scenes thrive in America’s hippest (and perhaps most laid-back) city, accompanied by the longstanding Pine Street Market food hall. Epicureans can join themed tours of the best spots. Elsewhere, the vast Japanese Gardens make for a more sedate outing, as does a day spent surmounting Mount Hood, the volcano that towers over the city. Or you could just go rummaging in artisan Pearl District boutiques. • Best affordable hotels in Portland San Francisco at sunset, seen from a helicopter (Getty Images) There’s plenty to do on the ground in San Francisco, but get up high and the city really shines. Various operators have helicopter tours that sweep over the Golden Gate Bridge — its red-orange expanse is even more handsome when part-swaddled by fog. Keep your eyes peeled for other big hitters such as Alcatraz Island and the striking Transamerica Pyramid. • Best things to do in San Francisco Films including Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet were filmed at Venice Beach boardwalk (Getty Images) Set-jetting — visiting memorable shooting locations from beloved movies or TV shows — is all the rage right now, and nowhere has more options than the US. In LA, Venice Beach’s brash boardwalk is a beacon for Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet and Barbie film fans while New York’s streets have hosted everything from Sex and the City to Netflix’s smash series The Watcher. Meanwhile, Louisiana’s swamps were the scene of True Detective’s atmospheric first season and Breaking Bad was primarily filmed in Albuquerque, New Mexico. • Best affordable cities in the US America’s first national park is stirring at any time of year. But there’s an extra charm about it in winter, when its wonders are bound up in an inevitable layer of snow. Even in the belly of the cold season, you can still drive right down to Mammoth Hot Springs — its frost-bitten travertine terraces will look extra special. Other celebrity sights, such as Old Faithful geyser and the Grand Prismatic Spring, can be reached on guided tours by snowmobile. • When is the best time to visit the US? Quincy Market on the Freedom Trail in Boston (Getty Images) The streets of Boston are ripe with history. It was here that the Boston Tea Party protest took place, sowing the seed for the Revolutionary War; explore the Freedom Trail, which knits together sites relating to this portion of history. There’s also the Granary Burying Ground, where Founding Fathers including John Hanco*ck are buried, and Faneuil Hall, which served as an important meeting place for revolutionaries. Boston’s Black Heritage Trail gets to the heart of the city’s Beacon Hill neighbourhood, whose North Slope was home to a free African-American community in the 18th and 19th centuries. You’ll discover sights including the African Meeting House and the Lewis and Harriet Hayden House, once home to prominent African-American abolitionists. • Best hotels in Boston The Aloha Tower in Honolulu (Getty Images) Want to see as much of Hawaii as possible, without schlepping from one plane to another? A cruise is the perfect solution. You’ll get to coast between the different islands, without the hassle of packing up every few days. Depending on what you’re after, you can start your cruise in Hawaii itself or set sail from California if you fancy a few days at sea. Either way, you’ll take in around four islands on the average itinerary, so you can get your fill of volcanoes, gorgeous beaches and surfers showing off on the waves. • Best hotels in Hawaii America has no shortage of unforgettable road trips, but this Golden State odyssey takes some beating. Skirting America’s west coast, between Los Angeles and San Francisco, the route serves up epic scenery in spades: think sheer cliffs, honey-coloured beaches and ridges covered in redwood forest. Take your time, pulling up in little places such as Carmel-by-the-Sea — this small beach city is known for its fairytale houses designed by Hugh Comstock. An 18th-century mission and a thriving food scene are reasons to stop by San Luis Obispo too. Big Sur is the most talked-about stretch and, happily, this slice of the Central Coast lives up to the hype. Take advantage of the many viewpoints: most drivers stop for a photo of Bixby Creek Bridge, a dizzying span soaring over a canyon. • Best things to do in California The National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel (Alamy) The US Civil Rights Trail wiggles through the American South, joining up sites connected to the fight for social justice. Plan a road trip that weaves between the museums, historic churches and monuments and learn about the pivotal moments that advanced the civil rights movement. The National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee, is not to be missed. Its poignant exhibits are located at the Lorraine Motel, where Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated. In Birmingham, Alabama, you’ll find the 16th Street Baptist Church: it was here that four young black girls were killed when the site was bombed by white extremists. Beyond that, Arkansas’ Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site remembers the Little Rock Nine: a group of African-American students whose enrolment here became a milestone in the movement. civilrightstrail.com When it comes to theme parks, the US doesn’t do things by halves. America’s Disney parks (in Anaheim, California and Orlando, Florida) are the titans, with larger-than-life firework displays, costumed characters and rides promising white knuckles. Also in California is Knott’s Berry Farm, a family-focused park that began life as a berry farm. It’s famous for its home-style fried chicken and its mammoth wooden rollercoaster. Then there’s Dollywood in east Tennessee’s Appalachian Mountains; expect music-filled shows, head-spinning rides and a museum fit to burst with Dolly Parton memorabilia. disneyworld.co.uk • Best family hotels in Orlando Buffalo Bill’s Irma Hotel & Restaurant in Cody, Wyoming (Alamy) The Wild West exists more in spirit than as a pin on a map — but you’ll come as close to it as possible on America’s Great Plains. You can imagine gun-slinging cowboys in old gold-rush towns such as South Dakota’s Deadwood, and peer at 19th-century frontier buildings in Cody, Wyoming. Then there are the landscapes: the rippling, colour-splashed Badlands, the wide-open plains, and the awesome peaks and lakes of Montana’s Glacier National Park. Peering out from the Black Hills of South Dakota, near Keystone, are the faces of four American presidents, too: the giant profiles of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt are carved in rock in the Mount Rushmore National Memorial. Tours led by Native American guides, from tribes including the Blackfeet Nation, also provide insights into indigenous cultures, as you explore mind-blowing slices of American wilderness. aianta.org It doesn’t matter who’s competing, or even what sport they’re playing, an American sports game is like no other, with T-shirt cannons, cheerleaders, mascots and a never-ending supply of sinfully gloopy food. You’ll probably find more people at the concession stands than in their seats, but that’s all part of the fun. Grab a giant foam finger, an ice-cold beer and cheer when everyone else does. fixturecalendar.com White Sands National Park (Getty Images) Whether it’s White Sands National Park’s haunting gypsum dunes or mud-brick Indian pueblos, there’s something undeniably picturesque about New Mexico. Perhaps that’s why the southern state has always had a prolific arts scene. Georgia O’Keeffe’s upbeat landscapes — lining a namesake Santa Fe museum — are the headline act, but there are also avant-garde collectives and 80 galleries in the creative town of Taos. Other reasons to head here include Billy the Kid’s grave, the Rio Grande gorge, Roswell’s UFO history and a food scene fusing Native American, Mexican and Spanish heritage. okeeffemuseum.org It’s the world’s most watched golf tournament. To be invited to play in the Masters, which takes place in the Georgia town of Augusta in April, is the high point of many professional golfers’ careers; to attend the event as a patron (attendees are always patrons, never fans) is the highlight of many a golf lover’s life. masters.com Performers at Chicago’s iO Theater It’s the birthplace of US comedy, with stars such as Robin Williams, Tina Fey and Bill Murray passing through the city — so sitting down to a comedy set is a must when you’re in Chicago. There are multiple shows every night at the Second City, be it a headlining performance from the revue cast or a short set of improv at midnight. Also worth checking out is the iO Theater, former home of Amy Poehler and Seth Meyers. ticketmaster.com Tierinii Jackson of Southern Avenue sings at the Bourbon & Beyond music festival in Louisville (Getty Images) Kentucky has carved out quite a niche for producing bourbon, that quintessentially American whiskey distilled from a fermented grain mix containing at least 51 per cent corn. For willing road-trippers, that means a glorious route through the heart of the Bluegrass State, where the undulating landscape gives way to historic centres like Louisville and Bardstown where this golden nectar is at the centre of everything. Aim for September, when the Bourbon & Beyond music festival is in full swing, to pack your itinerary with live music, guided tastings of rare spirits and whiskey-soaked dinners. kybourbontrail.com Flowers bloom in Death Valley (Getty Images) It might be one of the hottest and driest places on earth, but Death Valley is alive with experiences. Explore it by day and you might put the startling landscape down to a mirage. For you can stumble through colourful canyons one minute, and scale sand dunes the next. But stay on at night and you won’t have to do much exploring at all — simply lie back, look up, and the night sky will reveal its dazzling blanket of stars to you. And in winter, if you’re lucky, it might even rain, reawakening the wild flowers that lie dormant, sometimes for years at a time. nps.gov/deva/index.htm Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona is perhaps the one place where you won’t see any greenery at all. Instead, the landscape is dominated by desert and rock formations. Petrified trees are of course the highlights here, and they can be found throughout the park. The trees are essentially fossilised trunks where the wood has turned into colourful quartz, and you can still see the concentric rings inside. It’s incredible to think that, based on radioisotopic dating, these are over 200 million years old. nps.gov/pefo/index.htm The Decopolis art deco centre in Tulsa (Alamy) New York and Miami are the obvious places to find art deco architecture in the US, but you may be surprised by the number of fine examples in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Oil wealth in the 1920s enabled a huge number of art deco buildings to be constructed in the midwestern city, including the Philcade Building downtown. The exterior is comparatively demure, but walk into the lobby and you’ll be wowed by a lavishly gilded interior. tulsaarchitecture.org Additional reporting by Qin Xie Sign up for the Times Travel Newsletter here.Advertisem*nt
2. Visit New England in the autumn
3. See the wildlife in Alaska
4. Cruise into New York at dawn
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5. Hit the jazz clubs in New Orleans
6. Mingle with the stars on the Walk of Fame
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7. Go hiking in Yosemite
8. Drop into the honky tonks in Nashville
9. Drive the Florida Keys
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10. See the Grand Canyon
11. Go to Graceland
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12. See weird and wonderful roadside attractions
13. Fly in a hot-air balloon in Arizona
14. Go wine tasting in Napa
15. Museum hop in Washington DC
• Best things to do in Washington DC16. Stargaze in Utah
17. Hit the Las Vegas Strip
• Best things to do in Las Vegas
18. Get crafty in Portland
19. Soar over San Francisco
20. Go set-jetting
21. Visit Yellowstone National Park in winter
22. Discover a history trail in Boston
• Best things to do in Boston
23. Explore Hawaii
24. Cruise down Highway 1
25. Follow the US Civil Rights Trail
26. Get your thrills at a theme park
• Best things to do in Orlando
27. Explore cowboy country
28. Watch a sports game
29. Tour New Mexico’s art scene
30. Watch the Masters golf
31. See a comedy show in Chicago
32. Sip your way through Kentucky
33. Visit Death Valley
34. Marvel at 200 million-year-old trees
35. Admire art deco architecture
