USA
For five centuries, travelers have brought their hopes and
dreams to America. For the earliest pioneers, it was a virgin
wilderness ready to be shaped into a "New World," a potential
paradise wasted on its native peoples. Millions of immigrants
followed, to share in the building of the new nation and to better
their lives, far from the hidebound societies of Europe and Asia.
Eventually, slaves, who had been shipped over from Africa and the
Caribbean, joined them as free citizens. As the United States
expanded to fill the continent, something genuinely new was
created: a vast country that took pride in defining itself in the
eyes of the world.
Every traveler in the United States - be they foreigners on a
coast-to-coast road trip or locals exploring their extraordinarily
diverse land - has some idea of what to expect. American culture
has become so thoroughly shared throughout the globe that one of
the principal joys of getting to know the country is the repeated,
delicious shock of the familiar. Yellow taxis on busy city streets;
roadside mailboxes straight out of Peanuts cartoons; wooden
porches overlooking the cottonfields; tumbleweed skittering across
the desert; endless highways dotted with pick-up trucks and
chrome-plated diners; the first sight of the Grand Canyon, or the
Manhattan skyline - now more than ever an indelibly iconic
image.
In this guide, we've picked out the highlights across the entire
USA, from Maine to Hawaii, and Alaska to Florida. We've divided the
country region by region and state by state, and covered every area
of every state. As well as the big cities and national parks, we've
explored the highways and byways, singling out detours worth
making, and places to avoid. For every area covered, we've done
more than simply provide up-to-date practicalities: we've delved
into the history and provided background on the people who have
made America what it is. Our hope is to inform and entertain
travelers, and to point in unexpected directions as well as to the
obvious landmarks, no matter whether you've lived here all your
life or are seeing it all for the first time
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