first time in the USA where should I go ?

[ericm979]

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.

Even the south rim of the grand canyon is at pretty good altitude. It's not that hot in the summer and gets snow in the winter. It does get hotter down in the canyon. North rim is higher and therefore cooler but it's a long trip to get there from the south. The area around the south rim (Flagstaff, Williams, Sedona) is mostly pretty. Sedona itself has a touristy vibe which can be a bit annoying in the downtown but outside that its fine. There's also Metor Crater which I have yet to visit but looks interesting.

In high fire season (July before the monsoons arrive in August) they often close the national forests in the area, which is not a problem unless you planned on doing some hiking. There are some fire lookouts you can hike to, or could a few decades ago when I was there.

I'd stay well away from Vegas unless you like gambling and crowds. I used to have to go to conferences there and hated it. It's probably better when it's not holding a giant conference, but its still full of people. I've heard that there's nice natural areas around it but never had time to see them. They do get hot in the summer.

My preference for vacations is to pick an area and explore it rather than trying to hit a lot of wide spread spots. There's less driving that way and I get more of the local flavor.