first time in the USA where should I go ?

[Rockbadchild]

Hi everyone

Inspired by the thread ''things to do in north California''

Me and my wife are looking to go in the USA this summer in late July my first time... so many place to choose from so we are having difficulty choosing... and she left it up to me which is the worse ...

We are planning on a week... I don't want to stay in one city the whole time we will be flying then renting a vehicle I don't mind driving a good distance. I want the area to be relatively safe and being the summer maybe we should stay away from the crazy hot although there is lots of cool landmark in these stats.

I would like a place that I could visit a few cool attraction/landmark, visit nice city with cool history and museum perhaps go to a live show and go for a long horseback ride and a cattle drive ... which state would you recommend ?

 

[jfsawatzky]

What do you and your wife like doing? Id suggest flying into either phoenix or Vegas then doing the Grand Canyon

 

[MossRoad]

Hmmm.... the US (and Canada) are huge. So many great places.

Washington DC is great for history. The monuments and the Smithsonian Museums are top notch. Probably not too many horseback rides or cattle drives there, though.

South Dakota was very nice. Lots of scenery. Badlands, Mt. Rushmore, Crazy Horse monument, Devil's tower just over the border in Wyoming. Custer State Park. Wind Cave. I'd imagine there's some horseback riding around there.

Wyoming has Yellowstone. If you've never seen geysers, they are pretty impressive. Lots of attractions inside and outside of that park. The Grand Tetons are just south of there, as is Jackson Hole.

Lot's of stuff in Colorado, too.

Man, it's a hard list to compile.

Good luck choosing and enjoy your vacation.

 

[jyoutz]

Hi everyone

Inspired by the thread ''things to do in north California''

Me and my wife are looking to go in the USA this summer in late July my first time... so many place to choose from so we are having difficulty choosing... and she left it up to me which is the worse ...

We are planning on a week... I don't want to stay in one city the whole time we will be flying then renting a vehicle I don't mind driving a good distance. I want the area to be relatively safe and being the summer maybe we should stay away from the crazy hot although there is lots of cool landmark in these stats.

I would like a place that I could visit a few cool attraction/landmark, visit nice city with cool history and museum perhaps go to a live show and go for a long horseback ride and a cattle drive ... which state would you recommend ?

If you had two weeks, I would recommend flying into one coast, renting a car and driving to the other coast, with planned stops at key attractions along the way.

 

[MossRoad]

We've been north, east, south and a bit west of here. Next big vacation we take, we're going to fly into Vegas and spend a day or two, then drive through northern California up to Oregon seeing anything that comes to mind, then fly home.

 

[Rockbadchild]

What do you and your wife like doing? Id suggest flying into either phoenix or Vegas then doing the Grand Canyon

I am very interested by the grand canyon but I am afraid we will cook alive in July... other then what I said in the intro we love the outdoor and pretty active... we are not interested by the night life and things around that.

 

[MossRoad]

One year we flew into Phoenix, AZ, rented a car and drove all the way down to Nogales, AZ, over to Bisbee, AZ, back to Tucson, up to the Grand Canyon, and back down to Phoenix. We stopped at the mission south of Tucson,

Misión San Francisco Javier de Viggé-Biaundó - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The copper mines in Bisbee, AZ,

All of the state and national parks and cliff dwellings on the right side of the road up to the grand canyon and everything on the right side of the road on the way back down.

The kids still talk fondly of that trip today.

 

[MossRoad]

I am very interested by the grand canyon but I am afraid we will cook alive in July... other then what I said in the intro we love the outdoor and pretty active... we are not interested by the night life and things around that.

Oooo. July in Arizona....

 

[bcp]

Reminds me of the story (probably fake) of the German family that didn't realize the different scale of the US map compared to those they were used to.

They were in New Orleans and had a weekend to see the western US, so planned on Grand Canyon, Yosemite, then Yellowstone.

Bruce

 

[jyoutz]

I am very interested by the grand canyon but I am afraid we will cook alive in July... other then what I said in the intro we love the outdoor and pretty active... we are not interested by the night life and things around that.

It’s not hot at the Grand Canyon in July. More like 70-80s. The south rim is over 6,000 elevation, and the north rim is about 7,500’ elevation. Las Vegas, NV and Phoenix are ovens in July, not northern Arizona.