What U.S. Travel Destinations Do You Love?

We love Philadelphia. It’s a great place to visit for the 4th of July and at Christmas. So many wonderful museums and tons of history.

We also love Atlanta. Great place to visit in February/March to escape the last little bit of winter.

Carmel and Monterey, both in California

Glacier National Park is one of my favorite places! There is so much natural beauty and it’s so huge you can always discover something new! I also made it to Olympic National Park last summer and was absolutely blown away by the diversity and majesty of the landscape. I’m from Washington anyway but the Pacific Coast is always so lovely.

I absolutely love Boston! I think it’s such a cute city, despite being very crowded all the time. They have so many different activities to do there, and so many different shops. My favorite thing in Boston though has to be the food! I’m vegetarian and they have so many vegetarian and vegan options there.

Glacier National Park blew me away! I thought I wasn’t that into nature but it really is stunning. Another vote here for Maine as well. We stayed in Wiscasset (and Portland!) and had a lovely time. I also really enjoyed our Pacific Northwest road trip – by far my favorite spot was Lopez Island in the San Juans… so peaceful and hauntingly beautiful.

But growing up in the diverse, energetic, but also, let’s face it, kind of ugly suburban sprawl of New Jersey, we never did nature-focused trips growing up. Lots of Jersey shore (the old school Americana of the signage there still gets me) and long weekends in East Coast cities – which hold up! Boston, Washington, DC, and Baltimore are all great to explore. Also, I love Lancaster County, PA – returned recently and Lancaster is surprisingly hip despite being known mostly for the Amish? I’ve also more recently explored New Orleans and Charleston and had amazing visits to both.

I am an expat now, and growing up I always was eager to seek adventure abroad, always thinking anything at home was boring. But as an adult I appreciate the destinations in the U.S. a lot more – plus it is amazing to hear Europeans raving about driving the California coast, hitting the beach in Florida, or visiting our national parks.

The Upper Peninsula of Michigan is easily one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been in the world – yes, my family is from there so I am biased, but the lakes, the trees, the rocks, the waterfalls! Start in the Porcupine Mts and head east through Marquette, Pictured Rocks, Tahquamenon Falls, Sault Ste. Marie, Mackinac Island, even crossing the Mackinac Bridge is beautiful. Eat a pasty, drink a beer, drive slow :)

My husband is from Minnesota, so we do a road trip from the Pacific Northwest, where we live. Various places we’ve stopped over the years…Missoula, Montana …great gateway to Glacier National Park…which is stunning. Drive Going to the Sun Road late in the day…that is when the animals come out…we saw a mountain goat family! In South Dakota, Mt. Rushmore is amazing, and Rapid City, has a lot of charm! Little Big Horn is sobering. We’ve done these trips with our kids when they were young and as teens…both times were great. Lancaster County Pennsylvania is charming…plenty to see for everyone. And we’ve done the California Road Trip too, from Washington State…Ashland , Oregon is charming, even if you don’t see any plays! And driving through the Avenue of the Giants in Northern California is amazing for all ages. Mendocino and Eureka are work checking out…have breakfast inside an old lumber camp dinging hall in Samoa, near Eureka.

Some of my favorite trips have been to:
– Cannon Beach, Oregon
– Maine (Little Cranberry Island, Vinalhaven, Deer Isle, Portland)
– Glacier National Park, Montana
– Asbury Park, New Jersey
– Palm Springs, California
– Yosemite, Kings Canyon, and Sequoia National Parks

My favorite place I’ve visited in the US so far is Sedona. We stayed in Sedona and then day-tripped to the Grand Canyon. It was early December. The weather was gorgeous, the scenery was stunning. It was just a glorious trip and I’d do it again in a heartbeat.

I live in Utah and absolutely LOVE all of the nearby national parks. Moab, Canyonlands, Zion, Bryce, and Capitol Reef are all amazing! Plus, if you fly in/out of Vegas you can easily add the Grand Canyon in and make a big loop of it. I also love Glacier National Park in Montana. One of my favorite road trips has been SLC > Jackson Hole (Teton National Park) > Yellowstone > Glacier. It helps break up the drive so you’re never in the car for too terribly long, plus every single place is so gorgeous!

Wow there are so many fantastic sounding places in this comments section! Can anyone recommend anywhere for a long weekend from NYC which would be a train journey away..? In February (so the weather won’t be great…!)

It would be AMAZING if you would do a round up/summary of these comments and share the results with your readers! While I would love to read all 500+ comments, I will not be able to spend the time! Thank you!!

P.S. My family is hitting up Yellowstone & the Grand Tetons this summer, and I also second very northern Minnesota – the Boundary Waters Canoe Area and surrounding national forests. We tend to travel west for some reason and I would love to explore more of the east coast!

The Boundary Water Canoe Area Wilderness, especially up the Gunflint Trail from Grand Marais, MN. It’s one of the most pristine wilderness areas on the country (bounded by the Quetico wilderness in Canada and MN’s North Shore). I love it in late July, when you kind find wild blueberries everywhere and listen to the loons, and in the middle of winter, for skiing and snowshoeing and curling up by a fire in a lodge. Everyone should experience it at least once. Plus the drive to get there is gorgeous from either north or south!

New Mexico, it is The Land of Enchantment!!!

Last summer my daughter Georgia and I went on a road trip to Portland, Maine and stayed with my cousin Catherine. We went to Old Orchard Beach, took a walking tour of the city, went shopping in Eastport and had a great time. I’ve learned that my girl is a great co-pilot and can read an old fashioned map like a pro. I think we’ll do the same thing this coming summer:)

Wow, so many comments! My family has the option of taking six months to drive around the U.S. and I was surprised to find that after the political realities of the last two years, I wasn’t excited about doing it. I needed 500 enthusiastic comments to help tempt me away from my California comfort zone! Thanks all!

Eastern Oregon is my happy place! Camp Sherman has miles of gorgeous hiking on the Metolius River with mountains and ponderosa pines all around… there’s no internet or cell service and the cabins are divine. It’s pure peace. Head to Sisters and Bend for breweries, shopping, and the High Desert Museum.

Alaska and Hawaii. Both of them. All of them. These two states are home to some of the most geologically, ecologically, zoologically, and culturally fascinating and beautiful destinations in the United States. I unexpectedly found a trip across New Zealand a tiny bit underwhelming, because after touring these two states not even the country that brought Middle Earth to life could compare.

Going to Lake Chelan, WA every summer, staying at a great lakeside condo for a week. Weve been staying at the same place since our kids were little and now they have their little kids and we all go. It’s something everyone looks forward to every summer.

That photo looks like the Lamar valley in ynp. I live about an hour away. I don’t actually recommend Yellowstone though. It receives millions of visitors every summer (meanwhile there are barely 1 million people in all of Montana, and even less in Wyoming). While more planning and work than simply driving through the park and gawking at bison, I recommend getting out of your car, picking up a backpack and heading into the wilderness (there are national forests and wilderness areas all over Montana, Idaho and Wyoming). You will find magic out there if you dare. And you’ll discover what it means to be truly unplugged from civilization, to breathe, to be so filled with wonder that you cry, just gazing at the endless sky. Please give this gift to your children. They will love you for it, and may just hike away with a better understanding of who they are and how much our planet needs them. We live here and do this all summer long, and it never gets old.

I live near Detroit, so we do a lot of car trips: St Louis, northern and western Michigan, Cincinnati; and short plane trips: DC, New Orleans, and Minneapolis. There’s something charming about Midwest and Southern friendliness, non-pretentious culture, and middle America.

My favorite US trip was with my sister. She was between jobs and moving from Seattle to San Francisco. I had just taking the bar exam and had a few weeks before work started. We car camped from Seattle > Glacier National Park > Oregon > Oregon coast > Crater Lake NP > Redwoods NP > Lassen Volcanic NP > San Fran. It was a once in a lifetime trip and sister bonding experience!

Oh boy. I have been to every state but two, so I have a million answers for this. I’m going to keep it to two, though.

1. HEAD WEST. (well, I live in Minnesota. So, I guess, come here and THEN head west.) All of my favorite road trips as a kid involve driving through the Black Hills of South Dakota, stopping at little roadside stands in Wyoming, staying in little cabins in Montana, and finally reaching the Pacific Northwest. Seattle and Portland are two of my most favorite cities ever. Just beautiful, and so much to do.

2. I have a summer home on Madeline Island, which is an island in the Wisconsin part of Lake Superior. You take a ferry to get there, and it is my most favorite place in the whole wide world. Hiking, swimming, kayaking, canoeing, great restaurants, sand beaches, boat excursions, and just the most beautiful sunsets you’ve ever seen. I’d be happy to put together an itinerary/helpful guide for anyone who wants to visit!

I think for kids, and especially for a Road Trip type of vacation, Yellowstone and Grand Tetons (which are right next to each other and would be easy to combine into a single trip if you wanted to) is hard to beat. Especially if you stopped in Cody first. There’s a nightly rodeo Anton would love and a set of Smithsonian-partner museums (I again feel Anton would love both the Buffalo Bill one and the Natural History one).

The national parks are breath-taking and unique with the most geysers in the world. My dad used to say the two places every kid needed to have at least one vacation to was Yellowstone and Disney. Ha!

Big Bend National Park in Texas is the most surreal, magical place. We would drive for almost 23 hours in our red suburban. My parents would fold down all the seats in the back and let the kids lay in our sleeping bags while we watched Disney VHS tapes on a 8 inch square TV plugged into the cigarette lighter. I still remember the joy of trying to “fly” in the wind at Boquillas Canyon at Big Bend.

There’s probably so much more, but the places I really feel close to and keep revisiting (I live north of there) are Montana (around Missoula and Glacier National Park) – as well as Yellowstone & Grand Teton! I also really loved the Smokey Mountains …