DESTINATION USA

Facts at a Glance

Sometimes it really looks like God blessed America (20K)

The Atlantic Coast is the most heavily populated area and retains strong traces of its European heritage. This is where the oldest American cities like Boston, New York, Washington DC and Philadelphia are located, and where most of the major events in early American history took place. The central north-east is marked by the humungous Great Lakes (Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie and Ontario), which occupy an area larger than most European countries. The rivers and canals linking the lakes to the Atlantic Ocean made virtual seaports out of Midwestern cities like Chicago and Detroit.

The central area drained by the Mississippi, Missouri and Ohio rivers is the grain basket of the country. Further west, on the Great Plains, are the country's chief grazing areas. This is cowboy country, though today their trusty steeds tend to be battered pick-ups rather than hi-ho Silvers. Desert predominates in the south-west, where the climate and degraded soils keep population density to a minimum, and where you really don't need much of a wind to see tumbleweed bouncing across the highway. Cross the Sierra Nevada and you're on the West Coast, which was settled by Americans only 150 years ago but has been on a headlong rush into the future ever since.


Horse-less American icons survey the scene (13K)

With such varied topography, the US has extremely diverse ecosystems. The most impressive flora are the huge evergreens of the West Coast, the sequoia and the redwood, some of which are believed to be the oldest living things on Earth. The eastern states are home to leafy hardwood forests of maple, oak, and elm, which burst into color in fall (autumn). The three most famous national parks are Yellowstone, in the Rockies; Yosemite, in the Sierra Nevada; and the Grand Canyon, in Arizona. The largest land mammals, such as black and grizzly bears, elk and deer, roam the northwestern states. The southern states are home to some of the most interesting fauna: the marsupial opossum and the mean old alligator. Beasties to avoid include rattlesnakes, bears, wild boar, alligators and Hank, a gas station attendant from Perth Amboy, New Jersey.

The climate is temperate in most parts of the US. Generally speaking, it gets hotter the further south you go and seasonally more extreme the further you are north and inland from the coasts. Winters in the northeast and upper midwest can have long periods below freezing while it's still warm enough to swim at the beaches in Florida (which has a tropical climate) and southern California.

History

The Norwegian explorer, Leif Eriksson, was probably the first European to reach North America, some 500 years before a disoriented Columbus created semantic confusion by finding 'Indians' in Hispaniola (now the Dominican Republic) in 1492. By the mid-1550s, most of the Americas had been poked and prodded by a parade of explorers from Spain, Portugal, England and France. The first colonies attracted immigrants looking to get rich quick and return home, but they were soon followed by migrants whose primary goal was to colonize.

Early colonization of North America was multi-national and multi-pronged. The Spanish founded the first permanent European settlement in St Augustine, Florida in 1565; the French moved in on Maine in 1602 and Jamestown, Virginia became the first British settlement in 1607. It took only 12 years of labor shortages to convince the Brits that slaving might be a lucrative activity and the first Africans arrived as 'indentured laborers' a year before 100 English Puritan pilgrims escaping religious persecution arrived on the Mayflower and founded a colony at Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts, in 1620. The pilgrims signed the famous Mayflower Compact - a declaration of self-government that would later be echoed in documents like the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution.

Land of the free, home of the depraved

As the 18th century progressed and more settlers arrived, the British government ditched its laissez-faire policy and attempted to assert authority in its 13 North American colonies. This led to conflict with French settlers and their Native American allies in the French and Indian War (1757-1763). The British were victorious but were left with a nasty war debt, which they tried to recoup by imposing new taxes on the colonies. The catchcry 'no taxation without representation' united the colonies in anti-British sentiment, and when their protestations were ignored, colonists sneaked aboard several British ships in Boston harbor and ceremoniously dumped cargoes of tea overboard. The Boston Tea Party, as it became known, signaled the start of widespread civil disobedience.

One of those feverishly dumping the Earl Grey into the harbor was Paul Revere, who became an American folk hero when he rode from Boston to Lexington in April 1775 to warn revolutionaries that British troops were coming. Thomas Paine published Common Sense in January 1776, arguing that the conflict should be a war of independence, not a revolt against taxation. His pamphlet became an unlikely bestseller, selling half a million copies within months, and theoretically paved the way for the colonies' Declaration of Independence on the 4th of July that year. It took another five years to whup the Brits, with final victory at Yorktown, Virginia, in 1781, when the besieged British general, Cornwallis, surrendered to American commander George Washington.

Cowboy country, Garden of the Gods, Colorado Springs (22K)

In the 19th century, Americans followed their 'Manifest Destiny' to colonize the continent, expanding westward across the plains and prairies and up and over the Rockies to the West Coast. A combination of land purchases, diplomacy and outright wars of conquest had by 1850 roughly given the US its present shape. In 1803, Napoleon flogged the entire Great Plains to the United States for a pittance, and Spain chipped in with Florida in 1819. The Battle of the Alamo during the 1835 Texan Revolution resulted in defeat but paved the way for Texan independence from Mexico. The war with Mexico between 1846 and 1848 secured most of the south-west, including California. These were the legendary days of wagon trains on the Oregon and Santa Fe trails, the era of the mythic Wild West, the Pony Express, Dodge City, cowboys on cattle drives, gunfights at the OK Corral, the building of the Transcontinental Railroad and the extermination of Native Americans who were in the way.

The systematic annihilation of the buffalo hunted by the Plains Indians, encroachment on their lands, and treaties not worth the paper they were written on, led to Native Americans being herded into reservations, deprived of both their livelihoods and their spiritual connection to their land. The Hollywood image of heroic settlers circling the wagons and defending their women against marauding scalp-hunters is about as far from the truth as New York City is from LA.

Bison once roamed the Great Plains in gigantic herds (18K)

Immigration in the mid-19th century began to alter the demographics of the US as settlers of predominantly British stock were joined by Central Europeans and Chinese, many attracted by the 1850 gold rush in California and industrial jobs in the growing cities of the northeast. The South meanwhile was firmly committed to an agrarian life almost totally reliant on the labor of slaves. As northerners began to call for an end to slavery, tensions between the states rose. When the abolitionist Abraham Lincoln was elected president in 1860, the southern states ceded from the Union, and the Civil War, by far the bloodiest war in America's history, began the following year. The northern states prevailed in 1865, freed the slaves and introduced adult male suffrage. Lincoln's vision for the reconstruction of the South dissipated after his assassination, and when northern troops returned home in 1877, blacks were inexorably disenfranchised and segregation took root in the southern states.

The trouncing dealt to the Spaniards in the 1898 Spanish-American War marked America's ascendancy as a world superpower and woke the country out of its isolationist slumber. The US still did its best not to get its feet dirty in the trenches of WW I but finally capitulated in 1917, sending over a million troops to help sort the pesky Germans out. The celebrations after the war were cut short by the introduction of Prohibition in 1920, when the manufacture and sale of alcohol were made illegal. The main players in the Roaring Twenties took little heed, ushering in an era of organized crime and urban lawlessness - especially in Chicago. These were the days of speakeasies, Al Capone and the St Valentine's Day Massacre, when guys were guys and gals were molls. The 1929 stockmarket crash signaled the start of the depression that plagued America throughout the 1930s and heralded Roosevelt's New Deal - a political program that marked the beginning of large-scale government intervention in the toings and froings of the national economy.

When the Japanese dropped in uninvited on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the US cranked up onto a war footing and played a major role in defeating the Axis powers in Europe and the Pacific. The atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 not only ended the war with Japan, but ushered in the nervous nuclear age. The end of WW II segued into the Cold War - a period of great domestic prosperity and a surface uniformity belied by paranoia and betrayal. Politicians like Senator Joe McCarthy took advantage of the climate to fan the flames of anti-communism in America with his 'Reds under the bed' nonsense, while the USSR and USA stockpiled nuclear weapons and fought wars by proxy in Korea, Africa and South-East Asia. Tensions between the two countries reached their peak in 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis before Kruschev blinked and agreed to remove recently installed missiles from America's backyard.

The 1960s was a decade of profound social change, thanks largely to the Civil Rights movement, the growth of the Vietnam War protests and the discovery of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll by America's middle class kids. The Civil Rights movement gained momentum in 1955 with a bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, led by Martin Luther King. It spread to become a non-violent mass protest movement aimed at breaking down segregation in schools, hospitals, restaurants and other public facilities in the South, and at regaining the vote for millions of disfranchised Southern blacks. It peaked with Martin Luther King's 'I have a dream speech' at a mass rally in Washington in 1963 and the passage of the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act and 1965 Voting Rights Act.

Meanwhile, the youth of America were rejecting the conformity and materialism of the previous decade, growing their hair long, smoking dope and imagining great shared sympathies with Nature, Native Americans, militant blacks and oppressed peasants in South-East Asia. 'Tune in, turn on and drop out' became the mantra of a generation of American youths, who protested heavily (and not disinterestedly) against the war in Vietnam. The assassinations of so many prominent political leaders during this era - John and Robert Kennedy, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King - took a little gloss off the party, and the 500,000 American troops mired in southern Vietnam, fighting a brutal war that became increasingly impossible to justify, took off the rest. The landing on the moon by three American astronauts in 1969 restored some national pride, but also pointedly indicated how worthless and useless such technological sophistication was when employed indiscriminately in South-East Asia. By the time the last American troops had scarpered from Vietnam over 50,000 Americans, with an average age of 19, had died or were missing, and over four and a half million Vietnamese were either dead or wounded.

In 1974 Richard Nixon became the first US president to resign from office due to his involvement in the cover-up of the Watergate burglaries, bringing American patriotism to a new low. The 1970s and 1980s were a period of technological advancement and declining industrialism. Self-image took such a battering at the hands of Iranian Ayatollah Khomeni that a conservative backlash, symbolized by the election and popular two-term presidency of the 'B' movie actor Ronald Reagan, sought to put some backbone in the country. The US then concentrated on bullying its poor neighbors in Central America and the Caribbean, invading or meddling in the affairs of El Salvador, Nicaragua, Panama and Grenada. The collapse of the Soviet Bloc's 'Evil Empire' in 1991 left the US as the world's sole superpower, and the Gulf War in 1992 gave George Bush the opportunity to lead a coalition supposedly representing a New World Order into battle against Iraq. The 'Desert Storm' operation brought warfare down to the level of video games and gave birth to a myth of clinical warfare with its terminology of 'surgical strikes' and 'precision bombing.'

Domestic matters, such as health reform, gun ownership, drugs, racial tension, gay rights, balancing the budget and the tenacious Whitewater scandal tended to overshadow international concerns during the administration of President Bill Clinton. In a bid to kickstart its then-ailing economy, the United States signed the NAFTA free trade agreement with Canada and Mexico in 1993, invaded Haiti in its role of upholder of democracy in 1994, committed thousands of troops to peacekeeping operations in Bosnia in 1995, hosted the Olympic games in 1996, and enjoyed, over the past few years, the fruits of a bull market on Wall Street.

Economic Profile

GDP: US $6.7 trillion
GDP per head: US$ 25,850
Annual growth: 4.1%
Inflation: 2.6%
Major industries: Oil, electronics, computers, automobile manufacturing, aerospace industries, agriculture
Major trading partners: Canada, Japan, the EU

Culture

It's easy to forget what a multicultural nation America is, until you hear strange statistics that reveal Los Angeles to be the 'second city' of several Central American countries in terms of population; that Irish-Americans outnumber the population of Ireland by over 10 to 1, and that half the population of Miami is Hispanic. For a country with such a mixed racial background, the US can be extremely insular and xenophobic. Native Americans and blacks endured the brunt of these prejudices, but Jews, Mexicans, Asians and Arabs have all been subject to degrees of bigotry, intimidation and discrimination.

The Statue of Liberty stands proud in the New York murk (6K)

In the past 30 years, the old notion of America as a melting pot - a stew in which immigrants' individual differences are lost in a bland new uniformity - has given way to the salad bowl model, in which the individual pieces still retain their flavor while contributing to the whole, since not all ethnic groups in America aspire to WASP norms. Many groups have begun to assert their ethnicity, and there are now increasing concerns about juicy social topics like 'tribalization.' Racial tensions exploded into violence in the 1992 Los Angeles riots following the acquittal of police officers who'd been videotaped beating Rodney King, and the defamation trial of Tawana Brawley and her attorneys in 1997 stoked coals of racial antagonism that had been smoldering for a decade.

Americans are constitutionally guaranteed freedom to worship. Protestants have traditionally formed the backbone of middle-class America, while Irish, Italian and Polish migrants have been the foot soldiers of Catholicism. There are more than five million Jews, whose prowess in the arts, business and sciences has enabled them to successfully play a far larger role inventing and defining America than their numbers would suggest. Just about every one of the world's major religions has a significant following in the US, and there are plenty of indigenous faiths, such as Christian Scientists, Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons. Cults are equally prevalent and far more sinister: Charlie Manson, Jim Jones and the militant Branch Davidians from Waco, Texas, providing climactic examples.

Religion has become a powerful secular force in America as the God, family-values and picket-fence morality of middle America has segued into the crusading right-wing Christian fundamentalism of the kind espoused by TV evangelists and perennial presidential hopeful Pat Buchanan. Abortion, rock lyrics, one-parent families, homosexuals and the theory of evolution have all copped it from the politico-pulpit of the religious right - a lobby with serious clout during the Republican administrations of Reagan and Bush.

Don't be misled by the fact that you already know English, since some say 'tomayto' and some say 'tomahto.' American English has a multitude of regional accents of differing degrees of intelligibility: New Yorkers are renowned for their blunt nasal delivery; Californians for their flat drawl and rich beach slang; Southerners for their slow-motion speech; and urban blacks for a street patois unintelligible to outsiders. Spanish has effective dual language status in parts of southern California, New Mexico, Texas and Miami. Approximately 400,000 Americans speak Native American dialects and there are 375,000 Yiddish speakers. American English has revitalized the English language with words like 'egghead,' 'nerd' and 'dweeb.'

Native Americans excelled at making masks, charms, jewelry, pottery, basketry, rugs, shields, bags and totemic carvings using materials ranging from rawhide, buckskin and beads to ivory, stone and wood. Designs tended to be abstract and symbolic and unconcerned with naturalism or perspective. Generally speaking, the Native Americans didn't perceive of these creations as being 'art' in the sense that we do today, but rather as functional objects that tended to be completely integrated into daily life and ritual. The rest of America tends to consider these 'objects' as trinkets or, if they find their way into a museum, as 'primitive' art. Today, the American art market is flush with Indian 'products' such as rugs, totemic carvings and silverwork, though this artwork is now produced on a commercial basis.

Modern American culture is a juicy burger combining mass culture and the phenomenon of stardom. It owes as much to marketing savvy, communications technology and mass production techniques as it does to the artists and entertainers responsible for the material. Radio, television, music recordings, jukeboxes, film and cable TV - you name it and American companies have invented, packaged and disseminated it to as many consumers as cheaply and conveniently as possible, helping in many ways to forge a WASP-centric national cultural unity of co-optation and consumption. The poetry of cross-promotion means that Steven Spielberg has a dream which becomes a video game, an icypole and a free gift with chicken nuggets before it becomes a movie. The same goes for the most raw-edged looks and sounds of the country's ghettoes: from the street to heavy rotation on MTV and a pedestal at NikeTown. Cross-promotion is the glitziest cross-dressing, making politicians out of movie stars, philosophers out of singers and talkshow hosts out of supermodels.

What religion and politics were to defining the essence of what it meant to be an American until the end of the 1800s, cinema and television are to the twentieth century. For most of this century 'Hollywood' has been searing every national dream and nightmare onto celluloid, making movies the public subconscious of America. The advent of television in the 1950s shook Hollywood to its core, but both media have managed to coexist, even benefit from one another. The global distribution of American movies and TV shows has shaped the world's perception of the country to such a degree that audiences worldwide find the steamy streets of New York and the palm-studded boulevards of LA as recognizable as their own back yards. American cop shows, soaps, sitcoms and talk shows dominate the airwaves, and its action, comedy and romantic films monopolize the cinemas - to the displeasure of cultural nationalists worldwide. Television especially has become the accessible self of America, the universal beanbag where an incessant parade of personality-as-public-property discusses addiction, weight loss and how failure is really success, with a phalanx of psychiatrists, psychics and personal trainers.

The American music industry is the world's most corporate, powerful and pervasive, though low-key groundswell movements have always been the driving force of American pop. The influence of blacks on American music - and therefore music worldwide - can hardly be exaggerated. The worksongs of African slaves in the South mutated into the blues, a formulaic 12 or 16-bar form played off-pitch and full of the contradictions of the African-American experience in America. Jazz emerged primarily from early twentieth-century New Orleans, where self-taught black musicians playing instruments left over from the Spanish-American War in Cuba invented a heavily syncopated stew of ragtime and blues, improvising in funeral marches or late into the wee hours while entertaining the patrons of nightclubs and brothels.

A good chunk of the early commercial history of American popular music was a story of white businessmen hiring black musicians to play and record for white audiences, but when Elvis Presley began convulsing his hips and singing like a black man, white boys realized they could strut their stuff too, took up R&B and the rest is just a load of rock and roll. Rap, the sound of ghetto America, places an equal emphasis on an ultra heavy beat, sound montage, street cred and macho posturing. Its appeal to middle-class white Americans will keep sociologists busy for decades.

Despite the pervasive American fear of illiteracy sweeping the next generation, the US has churned out a veritable forest of literature, with an A-team and a swag of Nobel Prizes that proves not everybody is spending 6.75 hours a day watching television. The illustrious line-up begins way back with Walt Whitman, Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Emily Dickinson, Henry James and Edith Wharton, and moves into the modern era with William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, Scott Fitzgerald, John Steinbeck, Backpack Kerouac, Arthur Miller, both the Williamses, Saul Bellow, John Updike, Toni Morisson and Richard Ford. Traditionally, the Grand Sweeping Generalization Number One of American literature is this: the single most important American novel is Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

After WW II, the focus of the international art world shifted from Paris to New York City. Artists leaving war-torn Europe brought the remnants of surrealism to the Big Apple, inspiring a group of young American painters, including Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko, to create the first distinct American painting style, which we now define as Abstract Expressionism. The relentless ascendancy of mass media such as television and advertising gave birth to the quintessential American art movement, Pop Art. Slick, surface-oriented and purposely banal paintings like Andy Warhol's Campbell's Soup Cans and Roy Lichtenstein's giant comic-book canvases have become American icons. Warhol was one of the first painters to become a pop culture icon himself, with his shock of white hair and his pithy quote about fame eventually becoming more recognizable than anything he ever put on canvas. American painters have been at the forefront of the Post Modern movements of Neo-Expressionism (Susan Rothenberg's tense and emotive portraiture) and Neo-Abstractionism (Elizabeth Murray's disquieting plays on perspective).

When we think of US cities, we think of skyscrapers (best not to think of the suburbs) - those architectural testaments to market forces and American optimism. Chicago is a living museum of skyscraper development and you don't need to know anything about steel frames and curtain-walled building techniques to appreciate gems like the Manhattan Building, and the Tribune and Sears towers. New York boasts its fair share of stunners too, including the much-loved Flatiron Building; King Kong's perch, the Empire State Building; and the Art Deco Chrysler Building. Although America invented much of the iconography of the world's urban landscapes, today several of its cities, notably Detroit, are bankrupt and crime-ridden, grappling with the exodus of the prosperous middle classes to the suburbs. Despite the increasing standardization of towns across the country, rural America retains idiosyncrasies, and distinctive regional architectural styles exist in New England (Clapboard), California (Spanish Mission) and New Mexico (Adobe). Los Angeles has some incredibly inventive 21st-century architecture, but is also the best place to see why extreme wealth and bad taste should never be allowed to play with building blocks.

The baseball diamond at Comiskey Park, Chicago (19K)

American sports developed separately from the rest of the world and, consequently, home-grown games such as baseball, football and basketball dominate the sports scene. The success of the American-hosted 1994 World Cup has raised the profile of soccer, especially among recent immigrants, but ice hockey continues to be the most popular runner-up to the established sporting trinity. Urban America also invented the great indoors: aerobics and the gym, indoor rock-climbing and indoor beach volleyball - all examples of what can go wrong when too much disposable income hits up against too little leisure time.

Events

Harley riders in 4 July parade, Aspen (17K)

Independence Day on 4 July is celebrated with lots of flag-waving patriotism, fireworks and the odd bevvy. Inveterate travelers should drop into the National Hobo Convention in Britt, Iowa, in August. Halloween on 31 October is a big deal for kids who go trick-or-treating around their neighborhood in even worse clothes than they normally wear; in Greenwich Village, West Hollywood and San Francisco it's subversively celebrated with glam parades. Americans go home to Mom and Pop for a big feed on Thanksgiving, held on the last Thursday of November.

Facts for the Traveler

Tipping is expected in restaurants and better hotels. The going rate in restaurants is 15% of the bill; never tip in a fast-food or self service environment. Taxi drivers, bartenders and hairdressers depend on similar-sized gratuities. Sales taxes vary from state to state but are typically 5-8%, though some states have no sales taxes at all. Top-end accommodation also often attracts a bed tax, which can be as high as 15%. It's worth checking whether quoted prices for lodging include all relevant taxes.

When to Go

Attractions

San Francisco
Even people who hate the States love San Francisco. It has a self-effacing flutter of the eyelids so blatantly missing from brassy New York and LA, an atmosphere of gentile chic mixed with off-beat innovation. This is a place that breeds alternatives: it's the home of the Beat Generation, flower power, student protest and gay pride. One of the country's most attractive cities, San Fran's hilly streets provide some gorgeous views of San Francisco Bay and its famous bridges. This is a mosaic of a city, a big picture made from the colorful tiles of the Latino Mission, gay Castro, bustling Chinatown, clubby SoMa, hippie Haight-Ashbury and Italian North Beach. Fisherman's Wharf is the epicenter of tourist kitsch (check out Ripley's Believe It or Not! Museum) and the gateway to Alcatraz, while Union Square is where the classy shoppers congregate.

Los Angeles
It's possible that Los Angeles is a figment of its own imagination. No other city studies itself so intently - on film, television or in glossy magazines. Los Angeles is a monster of a city to get around, a tangle of freeways and sprawling suburbs where anyone without a car is considered intellectually impaired. This is where the American Dream is manufactured, and if you're not prepared to embrace the dream you'll doubtless find LA filthy, irritating, frightening or just plain dumb. But if you long to stand in the footsteps of stars and breathe their hallowed air, you've come to the right place. This is a town where chefs are household names and nobodies erect billboard shrines to themselves. LA is a feast of fame-associated sights - cruise Sunset Strip, walk Rodeo Drive or Hollywood Boulevard, be seen on Melrose or Venice Beach, gawk at babes in Malibu or poke your nose through the gates of Beverly Hills. No-one does a theme park like the Angelinos: Disneyland is the mother of them all, and Universal Studios turned its back lot into a thrill ride years ago. When the glitz starts coming out your ears, head for the almost-reality of Little Tokyo and El Pueblo de Los Angeles or Pasadena's Huntington Gardens.

Miami
Fat old people in Bermuda shorts, street stabbings, Cuban plots, drug dealers, sandshoes without socks and an excess of pink - Miami is none of these things. Desperately redefining itself, Miami (and in particular, South Beach) has declared itself the Most Fabulous Spot in the US. As evidence, it cites the recently restored pastel-riot of the Deco District, a friendly neighborhood feel and a fledgling art and culture scene looking for a sunny alternative to New York. And of course there's Miami Beach itself, a glorious stretch of white sand lapped by clear blue water. The heart of all this new-found fashionableness is Ocean Drive, flanked on the east by the city's hippest beach and the west by a string of sidewalk cafes. This is where the late Gianni Versace lived, and his acolytes still throng here to pose waifishly over rocket salad. Miami also has the world's most beautiful swimming hole, the Venetian Pool, one of the world's best zoos and a bunch of old Cuban guys playing dominoes in Máximo Gómez Park. In stark contrast with the hedonistic lightheartedness of the rest of Miami, the Holocaust Memorial is one of the most exquisite and moving memorials you'll ever visit.

New Orleans
If New York makes you nervous, you'll hate New Orleans. Others will find that the sleazy touch of danger in the air is what makes this southern city so compelling. A steamy brew of zydeco, voodoo, gumbo and antebellum ambiance, New Orleans grows on you like a strangler vine - you might as well lie back and enjoy it. Most people know New Orleans for its parties, particularly the orgiastic indulgence of Mardi Gras or the year-round bacchanal on Bourbon Street. But if crowds and alcohol poisoning aren't your thing, don't despair. Aficionados of historic architecture will drool with excitement in the crowded French Quarter and grandiose Garden District, while those with a hankering to take history home will adore the antique shops of Royal Street. New Orleans has a tendency to bring folks out in a rash of Lestatesque gothic brooding - have a wander among the city's ornate above-ground cemeteries or shed a tear for Jeff Buckley on a ferry cruise of the Mississippi River, then forget your troubles with a crawfish, some cool jazz and a mint julep or 10.

National Icons

White House
Every president since 1800 has snuggled down in the White House, ensuring that 1600 Pennsylvania Ave is the most famous address in the nation. The White House is a cosier-than-it-looks Neoclassical manor which has survived a torching by the British in 1814, a Jacqueline Kennedy redecoration campaign in the 1960s and Ronald Reagan doing broomstick reruns of the Kentucky Derby through the 1980s. Presidents have customized the property over time: Jefferson added toilets, FDR Roosevelt put in a pool, Truman installed a second-story porch, Bush added a horseshoe-throwing lane and Clinton put in a jogging track and a seven-seat hot tub. Some residents never leave: it's said that Eleanor Roosevelt and Harry Truman both sighted the ghost of Abe Lincoln in Lincoln's old study. Daily tours herd visitors through eight interior rooms but the grounds are only open on Easter Monday for the traditional Easter Egg Roll.

Vietnam Veterans Memorial
The most visited memorial in DC is the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, a stark, powerful structure designed by Maya Ying Lin, whose design was selected from a national competition when she was a 21-year-old architecture student at Yale University. Two walls of polished black marble that come together in a V shape are inscribed with the names of 58,202 veterans killed or missing as a result of the Vietnam War. Names are inscribed chronologically from date of death; alphabetical rosters are available nearby. On request, volunteers will help you get rubbings of names from 'The Wall.' The most moving remembrances are the notes, medals and mementos left by survivors, family and friends since the memorial was completed in 1982. Opponents to the design insisted that a more traditional sculpture be added nearby; a memorial to the women who served in the war was another later addition.

Independence Hall
As well as being one of the country's best examples of understated Quaker-influenced Georgian architecture, Philadelphia's Independence Hall was the site of many of the fledgling nation's early twitterings. It was built between 1732 and 1756 as Pennsylvania State House, the colony's headquarters, at which time it was on the outskirts of the city. The Second Continental Congress met here from 1775 to 1783. The Assembly Room is where the delegates from the 13 colonies met to approve the Declaration of Independence (4 July 1776), where the design of the US flag was agreed upon (1777), the Articles of the Confederation were drafted (1781) and the Constitutional Convention was held that produced the US Constitution (1787). The assassinated body of President Abraham Lincoln lay in state here on 22 April 1865.

Paul Revere House
The Paul Revere House, a small clapboard affair originally built in 1680, is worth a visit - and not just because it's the oldest house in Boston. The blacksmith Revere was one of three horseback messengers who carried advance warning to American rebels on 18 April 1775, of the British night march into Concord and Lexington that sparked the War of Independence. He lived here right through the revolutionary period, managing to father a good dozen kiddies when he wasn't out riding for the righteous.

Statue of Liberty
The Statue of Liberty, the most enduring symbol of New York City - and indeed, of the US - can trace its unlikely origins to a pair of Parisian Republicans. In 1865, political activist Edouard René Lefebvre de Laboulaye and sculptor Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi went to a dinner party and came away with the notion of building a monument honoring the American conception of political freedom, which they would then donate to the Land of Opportunity. Twenty-one years later, on 28 October 1886, the 151ft (45m) Liberty Enlightening the World, modeled on the Colossus of Rhodes, was finally unveiled in New York harbor before President Grover Cleveland and a harbor full of tooting ships. It's a 354-step climb to the statue's crown, the equivalent of climbing a 22-story building, and if you want to tackle it, start early to avoid the crowds - it's hard to contemplate the American dream with your nose to the tail of the person in front.

Times Square
Dubbed the 'Great White Way' after its bright lights, Times Square has long been celebrated as New York's glittery crossroads. The Square went into deep decline during the 1960s when the movie palaces turned triple X and the area became known as a hangout for every colorful, crazy or dangerous character in Midtown. These days the sleaze has mostly given way to an infectious vibrancy, and the combination of color, zipping message boards and massive TV screens makes for quite a sight. Up to a million people gather here every New Year's Eve to see a brightly lit ball descend from the roof of One Times Square at midnight, an event that lasts just 90 seconds and leaves most of the revelers wondering what to do with themselves for the rest of the night.

Mount Vernon
A visit to fascinating Mount Vernon, George Washington's Virginia home for many years, is second in popularity only to the White House as a visited historic house. The country estate of this quintessential country gentleman has been meticulously restored, giving an insight into late-18th century plantation life. Although the grounds are immaculate and the house more than stately, all is not ostentation: there are many glimpses of the farm's working nature and regular living history presentations. George died here in a four-poster bed on 14 December 1799, and both he and his wife Martha are buried in an enclosure on the south side of the 19-room mansion.

Monticello
Everybody knows Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's Virginia home, probably because it is on the back of the nickel coin (the perfect souvenir?). The house is very much the embodiment of its creator, Jefferson, who oversaw all stages of its development over a period of 40 years and incorporated many of his fascinating if somewhat eccentric ideas in the design. The president's private chambers were set up so that he got out of the right side of his bed to write and on the left side to get dressed. Other unusual features include a concave mirror in the entrance hall that greets visitors with their own upside down image, hidden and narrow staircases (Jefferson considered ordinary staircases unsightly space wasters), the two-pen 'polygraph' used to duplicate correspondence and an indoor compass connected to a weather vane on the roof. Jefferson died here in 1826 and is buried on the estate where his favorite oak tree once stood.

Jamestown
Jamestown, Virginia, was founded in May 1607 when Discovery, Godspeed and Susan Constant moored in deep waters off the peninsula between the James and York rivers and 104 men and boys disembarked. It was the first permanent English settlement on the continent but was doomed to failure because of starvation, disease and attacks by Native Americans. In 1619 the first representative assembly met and Jamestown served as Virginia's capital from then until 1699. When the statehouse had been burned for a fourth time, the settlers accepted that they had chosen a poor site and they moved inland to what is now Williamsburg. The original Jamestown is now a collection of ruins, historical markers, visitor centers and ongoing archaeological digs.

Plymouth Rock
Thousands of visitors come to Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts each year to look at this weathered ball of granite and to consider what it was like for the Pilgrims who stepped ashore in this strange land in the autumn of 1620, seeking a place in which they could practice their religion without government interference. You can see all there is to see of Plymouth Rock in a minute, but the rock is just a symbol of the Pilgrims' struggle, sacrifice and triumph, all of which are elucidated in museums and exhibits nearby.

Hearst Castle
Perched high on a hill overlooking pastures and the Pacific, Hearst Castle is a very Californian monument to wealth and ambition. William Randolph Hearst - America's legendary newspaper magnate - based his 'enchanted hill' on a Mediterranean village. It comprises 127 acres (50ha), with 165 rooms and four guesthouses surrounding a central plaza and a 'cathedral' that Hearst used as his private quarters. Hearst's art collection was so vast that an accurate calculation of its size or value was never possible. Spanish cathedral ceilings are covered with flags from the Palio in Siena, Italy, which hover above a French refectory table set with paper napkins and Heinz ketchup. The display of wealth borders on grotesque and the amalgam of styles and periods is enough to make any architect or historian blanch. The visit is worthwhile, however, if only to see something uniquely American.

Hollywood Sign
Perhaps the only spelling aid to become an internationally recognizable icon, the Hollywood Sign is a 50ft (15m) tall landmark on Mt Lee, near the crest of the Hollywood Hills. The mean streets and mansions of the city sprawl below. The sheet metal letters were erected in 1923 as an early vulture-like real estate promotion which originally spelt out 'Hollywoodland,' the highly poetic name of a realty subdivision. A caretaker lived in a hut behind the first 'L' until the late 1930s, by which time the letters were deemed old enough to do without on-site babysitting. When the land (and the sign) was handed over to the city in 1945, the -LAND was lopped. You can reach the sign by hiking up a trail from Beachwood Drive; if you prefer to stay in your convertible, one of the better views is from the Bronson Caves.

Natural Attractions

Grand Canyon
The Grand Canyon (Arizona) is probably the United States' best-known natural sight - at 277 miles (443km) long, 10 miles (16km) wide and 1 mile (1.6km) deep, it sure is a big crack in the ground. Boasting as much quality as quantity, the Canyon's buttes and peaks, multi-colored rock strata and awe-inspiring views have scored the place a World Heritage listing. The rocks in the Canyon are between 250 million and 2 billion years old - one-third of the world's geological history. Most people who come here content themselves with staring vertiginously over the rim, but you'll get a better idea of the Canyon's landscape and wildlife if you take a short hike or mule ride down into the cleft. Rafting the Colorado River is one of the most exhilarating ways to see the Canyon. The South Rim - where most visitors congregate - takes in a scenic drive, some short trails and a tourist village. The South Rim is mostly desert, with agave and yucca plants, a few ground squirrels and deer and a lot of people. Head over to the North Rim for some peace and quiet and the Canyon's best views, from Point Imperial. This area is much wetter, with meadows and groves, and lynxes, mountain lions and bears as well as the ubiquitous squirrels.

Death Valley
Death Valley (California) conjures up images of hellfire, torment and wheeling vultures. Although lovers of blazing sunlight and stark scenery won't be disappointed, the Valley is far more beautiful and agreeable than its name implies. Small communities of desert plants and animals have adapted to the hot, dry conditions and thrive here, as do quite a few humans. The Valley's scenery - sweeping dunes, undulating mountain strata, broad alluvial fans, craters and salt pans - is at turns harsh and hospitable, spectacular and scary, and there are also some interesting historic sites. Borax (a mineral used to make detergent) was once mined in the valley, and you can visit the ruined turn-of-the-century Harmony Borax Works. Scotty's Castle is a Spanish-Moorish extravagance built in the 1920s for an insurance magnate (and his freeloading house-guest, Walter E Scott). Scenic must-sees include the lunar landscape of Ubehebe Crater, the sunset-soaked colors of Artists Palette, the immense sandscape of Eureka Dunes and the vistas from Dante's View and Zabriske Point.

Pine Barrens
The Pine Barrens, in an unpopulated part of New Jersey, are made up of some one million protected acres of pine forest. It's the largest wilderness area on the Mid-Atlantic seaboard and a haven for birders and wildlife enthusiasts. The Pine Barrens aren't really a self-contained park but rather a pristine preserve that includes sites such as Wharton State Forest and Batsto Village, a restored 19th century settlement, complete with ice and milk houses, threshing barn, piggery, blacksmith and general store. The town was a bustling iron and glass-making center, serving as a major ammunition source for the Continental Army during the War for Independence. When you've had enough heritage, activities in the Pine Barrens area include camping, horseback riding, hiking, canoeing and rafting.

Yellowstone
Yellowstone National Park (Wyoming) the world's first national park, is in many ways the gem of the US park system. Larger than Puerto Rico, sprinkled with over 10,000 thermal features (including perhaps 250 active geysers, the most famous of which is Old Faithful) in one of the world's largest volcanic calderas and blessed with dazzling scenery in the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, it also embraces the largest concentration of mammals in the lower 48 states. Grizzly bear, black bear, bison, Rocky Mountain elk, timber wolves and bighorn sheep are conspicuous park residents.

Yellowstone's most publicized features are its hot springs, geysers, mudpots and fumaroles, which owe their existence to the fact that the earth's molten core is closer to the surface here than virtually anywhere else on earth. That the geysers erupt and boil on schedule, just like a regular performance, is part of their appeal. Unfortunately, the park's popularity threatens to destroy the very features that bring people there. Up to 30,000 visitors per day troop through and there are more than 2000 buildings, 930 hotel rooms and 270 miles (430km) of sometimes autobahn-like roads diluting the park's natural splendor. Hiking, boating, fishing, cycling, trail riding and cross-country skiing are all possible in Yellowstone, and are often the best way to get away from the crowds.

Off the Beaten Track

Highway 395

The Manzanar National Historic Site, about half an hour's drive north of Lone Pine, consists of the remains of one of the infamous 'relocation' camps in which American citizens of Japanese descent were imprisoned during WWII. A little further on is the funky Eastern California Museum, a mixed bag of displays on natural history, Paiute Indian basketry and ancient Milk of Magnesia bottles. If you've still got a nest egg left when you reach Carson City, east of Lake Tahoe just over the Nevada border, you can risk it all at one of the town's many casinos.

Flagstaff

Flagstaff makes a great base for daytrips since the Southwest's greatest attraction, the Grand Canyon, is less than a two-hour drive away. Within an hour of town you can explore ancient Anasazi and Sinagua Indian pueblos; marvel at the site of a mile-wide meteor crater; hike, bike and ski some of the state's most pristine mountains and forests; and even have your chakras realigned in the New Age mecca of Sedona.

Crazy Horse Memorial

Wrigley Field

Wrigley Field is probably the only baseball diamond left in America where the score-by-innings and pitchers' numbers are changed by hand, and where putting in modish things such as floodlights caused a backlash. One of Wrigley's traditions is to fly a flag bearing a 'W' or 'L' atop the scoreboard after a game. The white flag with a blue W indicates a victory; a blue flag with a white L (all too common) means a loss.

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

Appomattox

Preservation Jazz Hall

Activities

Take surfing, f'rinstance. While the Hawaiians may not have invented the sport, Oahu is surfing's spiritual home, and the legendary winter swells at Waimea, Sunset Beach and the Banzai Pipeline are the most beautiful, awesome and potent swells on earth (with the possible exception of the surfers who ride them). Not to be outdone in the outdoing stakes, California also has a few surfable breaks itself - Malibu, Rincon, Trestles and Mavericks among them. There's a hundred other perfect breaks along the US coastline - but if we told you where they were, we'd have to kill you! Other popular watersports include sailing, windsurfing, sea kayaking and ripping around dangerously on noisy jetskis, disturbing the peace and frightening fish to death.

Still on the aqua theme but back on land, the Rocky Mountain states (and Colorado in particular) are home to the country's most popular downhill skiing destinations. Along with flash places like Aspen, Vail, Jackson Hole and Big Sky are smaller operations with a handful of lifts, cheaper ticket prices and terrain that is often as challenging as their glitzier neighbors. Lake Tahoe is the major ski destination in the Sierra Nevada, doubling as a watersports playground in the summer. Elsewhere in the US, you'll also find great cross-county skiing. In the past few years snowboarding has swept the nation's ski culture, and there are plenty of ski mountains developing half pipes and renting boards.

The US may be the most industrialized nation on earth, but it's also the land of opportunity when it comes to hiking, with some of the most varied and spectacular landscapes you'll find anywhere - from the alpine meadows of the High Sierra to the forested byways of the Appalachian Trail. Walking trails are generally well kept, well marked and well patronized. But it's also possible to (quite literally) lose yourself in the 'backwoods,' where there's just you, the rattlers and the huge night sky.

Rock climbing & mountaineering are also popular pursuits, especially in the Sierra Nevada and Rockies. El Capitan and Half Dome are both legendary climbs up the face of sheer granite walls in Yosemite National Park. Mt Whitney, in California's Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park, is the highest in the contiguous 48 states at 14,500ft (4350m), and has a mountaineers' route that is both fun and challenging.

Despite the overpowering car culture, cycling enthusiasts need not despair. Many cities are relatively cycle-friendly and many hardy souls cycle across and around the country on the picturesque backroads, while those stuck in tin cans fume on the freeways. It's easy to hire good quality machines and gear throughout the country - and usually pick up some detailed local knowledge at the same time. Mountain biking is a huge pastime in the US, particularly in California (where it was invented), and there are plenty of places to hit the gravel and graze the knees.

If you still have energy left, you can go horseriding in New York's Central Park, river rafting on Idaho's Snake River or caving in New Mexico's beautiful Carlsbad Caverns.

Getting There & Away

Getting Around

Cross-country on an iron rooster (16K)

America is the ultimate car culture, so don't be surprised by the fact that nearly everyone of legal driving age has a car and uses it at every possible opportunity. Anyone who has seen an American road movie will know that the country's highways are not only nifty ways to cover large distances, they are also rich in mythic resonances. A road trip along Route 66, for example, is no A to B from Chicago to Los Angeles, it's a pilgrimage along America's 'mother road,' closely bound up with the history of America's expansionist west, the Dust Bowl refugees and, of course, the sweet voice of Nat King Cole.

Cabs add a splash of colour to the concrete jungle (17K)

The ubiquity of the automobile often means that local public transport options are few and far between, but the good news is that Americans tend to be casual with their car keys and unprecious about their vehicles, so if you're sticking around for a while you may well find wheels easier to borrow than you think. Rental cars are plentiful and relatively cheap, though major agencies require you to be at least 25 years old. Drive-aways are a peculiarly American phenomenon (not to be mixed up with taking and driving away). It's basically a car delivery system which unites cars that need to be delivered long-distances with drivers willing to drive them. If a car needs delivering to a place you're prepared to go, you're given insurance, a delivery date, a set of keys and Bob's yer uncle.

Baby-blue Cadillac contemplates Route 44 in South Dakota (13K)

In rural areas, local bus services are often less than adequate due to the high degree of car ownership. Urban public transport is generally much better, and catching the subway in New York, the El in Chicago and a cable car in San Francisco is as integral a part of the American traveling experience as catching a double-decker bus in London. Cycling is an increasingly popular way to travel around small areas, since the roads are good, shoulders are wide and cars generally travel at safe speeds. Walking is considered an un-American activity unless it takes place on hiking trails in national parks.

Recommended Reading

• Americans seem to be as mystified by the US as anyone else is, so there's a cottage industry of folks hitting the road 'to find America' and write about it. Mark Twain's Roughing It was one of the first and Jack Kerouac's On the Road continues to be a perennial favorite with fledgling beatniks. However, Steinbeck's Travels with Charley and recent forays by Bill Bryson (The Lost Continent), Mark Weingardner (Elvis Presley Boulevard) and William Least Heat Moon (Blue Highways) map out a more recognizable terrain. The Freighthopper's Manual for North America: Hoboing in the 1980s by Daniel Leen is a little-known book that puts the joy back into trainspotting in its bid to revive a North American folk tradition.
• The outsider's perspective can be found in VS Naipaul's A Turn in the South, Jonathan Raban's Old Glory, Stephen Brooks New York Days, New York Nights, Richard Rayner's Los Angeles Without a Map and Jean Baudrillard's onanistic America.
• For a visitor's account of the early days of the republic, look at Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America. The Penguin History of the United States of America by Hugh Brogan provides a comprehensive framework; an alternative view is presented in Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States.
• Peter Matthiessen's Indian Country, Dee Brown's seminal Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee and Black Elk Speaks by John Neihardt are the best introductions to Native American culture, concerns and issues.
• The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass is the classic slave narrative. The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X and Alex Haley traces the remarkable life of one of black America's most challenging leaders. Richard Wright (Native Son), Ralph Ellison (Invisible Man) and James Baldwin (The Fire Next Time) were long considered the literary voice of black America, but a flowering of female writers in the past 20 years has provided multifarious alternatives, including Alice Walker (The Color Purple), Toni Morisson (Tar Baby) and Maya Angelou (I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings).
• Authors with a fine sense of place include William Faulkner (Mississippi), John Steinbeck (California), Flannery O'Connor (the South), Paul Auster (New York), Armistead Maupin (San Francisco) and Joan Didion (Los Angeles). For a trawl through the mean streets of America, try anything by Jim Thompson, James M Cain, Chester Himes or Raymond Chandler. Elmore Leonard and James Ellroy are arguably the hardest hitting crime novelists.

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