visit to the states

Flemingovia

Flemingovia

TNPer
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this is a serious question, and a lot is at stake, so no piss-abouts, please.

Next year, we are going to the States for two weeks. Here's the details:

Seven or Eight of us will be going, ranging in ages from 11 to 55.

Our budget is around $20-22,000, including travel etc.

We sort of fancy a two-centre holiday, and need to pack quite a bit in because we do not come to the states all that often!

one in our party REALLY wants to visit Orlando, for personal reasons, so that will probably be one of our bases.

Other than that ... we are open to suggestions of good places to go. internally in America we do not want to be flying right across the continent, so the West Coast is probably out.

Any ideas?
 
There is just about one reason to go to Florida with children, and that's Disney World.

There are about 10,000 reasons to go to Florida without children or at least kids of adult age.
 
flemingovia:
Other than that ... we are open to suggestions of good places to go. internally in America we do not want to be flying right across the continent, so the West Coast is probably out.
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Why you guys no love me anymore? :tb3:



But, accepting I will not be getting a visit, Atlanta has a decent amount to do for everyone and it is nearby. There's also New Orleans as a lot of you are old enough to enjoy that now. They're both within driving distance of Orlando.

I'd really want to recommend DC/NY and all that, but staying there for that many people can get really expensive using hotels. You might be better off seeing if you can rent a house for a week? Or do one of those house exchanges? Not sure that people do those for only like a week though.
 
If ya come to DC, I'd be happy to be your tour guide, and, if ya really decide you're comin', I can help ya find a good deal for accommodations.
 
Well I highly recommend Frankenmuth, Michigan. I have dreamed to go there my whole life. My brother went once and said it was amazing. Best of all, it's Christmas year round there. Not to mention they have festivals going on all year. You know how New York City has little Italy? Well Frankenmuth is Little Bavaria. I've heard it's the most hospitable place in the state. It's a place of horse-drawn carriages and covered bridges. Riverboat cruises and world famous chicken dinners, big water parks and small-town strolls. Frankenmuth chocolate is famous in Michigan. It's a beautiful place filled with culture. I'm torturing myself just talking about it.

Upstate Michigan is also well known for it's camping grounds. I usually go at least once a year. Fish up some dinner from a nearby lake, hunt (given it's hunting season at the time,) chop some wood, build a fire and roast marshmallows with the family. Some of the happiest times of my life were spent there.
 
I'd recommend a nice national park but most of the best ones, like Mojave, Sierra Nevada, and the Grand Canyon, are out West.

New York City is...well, a huge fucking Mega City. Plenty of stuff to see, but you're still in a city. Outside NYC is pretty much farmland, unless you want to drive 6 1/2 hours to Niagara Falls and by the time you get there you might as well carry on to Toronto because you're practically in Canada by then anyway.

I don't recommend Michigan or, indeed, the entire Midwest. :P
 
I'd go with Philadelphia. From Philly you can see quite a bit, but you're also very close to DC and NYC. You're close to Atlantic city as well, so Philly can be the hub connecting to other nearby cities.
 
If ya stay in Philly, stay in Old Town...And go to Atlantic City. Ya take take a train straight there and back. Worth it.
 
I would recommend Boston. Enough city stuff to be interesting, but pretty relaxed as cities go. Easy access to the New England countryside if you have some more outdoorsy people going.
 
Echoing the call to stay away from the Midwest. I would also personally recommend staying away from Florida, they are the laughing-stock of the rest of the country.

And recommending someone to Detroit is just plain mean. :P
 
If you're looking for housing on a budget, I recommend www.airbnb.com. You can search for properties that are essentially rentable by the day at prices much lower than hotels. Many people list their vacation homes (or their usual homes from which they are away on vacation) there, and you can usually find what you need in the area you're looking in. Hope it helps!

If you like theater (you're coming to 'Murica so I can spell it right!) then NYC, Chicago, and DC are the places to be. Other than that, I don't really know much about tourism. If you have a banking fetish, come to Charlotte. Hope you enjoy the trip!
 
Meow, Flemingovia

Obviously you will be doing Orlando.

If you can afford it, I would choose Washington (District of Columbia) or New York City as the second destination. A side trip from DC could be Colonial Williamsburg. A side trip from New York City could be Mystic Seaport in Mystic, Connecticut.

If those are too expensive, then I suggest Philadelphia over Boston. Sites to see are Independence Hall, the Liberty Bell, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Franklin Institute, the USS Olympia, the Mutter Museum, the Polish American Cultural Center and the Academy of Natural Sciences at Drexel University. Valley Forge could be a good day trip, as could the Hagley Museum near Wilmington, Delaware. Further afield in central Pennsylvania you will find Amish country -- good for reminding the 11 year old that life could be a lot tougher. The Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia might suit that purpose just as well. And you can all wash it all down with a beer at Monk's off Rittenhouse Square (with a bucket of mussels.)

The best places to see are the natural wonders -- the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, Yosemite, Glacier National Park, Mount Ranier, the coastal California redwoods, Zion and Bryce Canyon in Utah, Mesa Verde National Park, Olympic National Park, Haleakala (in Hawaii), Denali (in Alaska), El Yunque (Puerto Rico), Acadia National Park (Maine), Mount Rushmore (South Dakota) and Niagara Falls. Just about all of them lie beyond the travel bounds you have set.

If you wish to drive from Orlando, then you might try the Everglades, Miami and the Keys to the south. Or heading north you can try St. Augustine and the World Golf Village (Florida), and the Okefenokee Swamp and Jekyll Island (Georgia). Whitey's Fish Camp in Doctor's Inlet, south of Jacksonville, serves up delicacies such as rattlesnake and alligator, fried up southern style. Cape Canaveral is another possible Florida destination. There is good birding there too -- the massive area of the launch complex ensures that the birds are only infrequently disturbed. (Alunya loves to disturb birds.)

It really depends on what your group wants to do, and when you will be in the United States. Pay attention to both hurricane season and the hot summertime months. Nothing ruins a vacation faster than high winds, heavy rains or a heat wave.

I hope this helps.

>^,,^<
Alunya
 
PaulWallLibertarian42:
Discover Ohio might find something interresting. We have some neat history.

If you go near Columbus I recomend Der Dutchman ;)
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Did I mention Ohio has two of the top amusement parks in the country?

Kings Island with soak city water park and Cedar Point?

Also try the zoos Cincinatti and Columbus. Though Id perfer Columbus as they have zoombezi bay water park.

Get a little Americana with a hot dog and cracker jacks by catching a cleveland Indian or Cincinatti redlegs (reds) game.

Come in the fall labor day thru October and go to the Ohio Renisance festival going strong for 25+ years.

Visit ohio Amish Country

Or the Great Lakes

Like music - Rock and Roll hall of fame near Cleveland

Visit ohio State Parks - beautiful hiking. Ive been to Hueston Woods and I hear Hocking Hills is great to hike. Also Put-in and Maumee Bay is supposed to be nice. You could always come to my neck of the woods. While there is nothing here really, people flock from all over to stay at Shawnee State Park there is alot of native history in this area with Raven rock and The Shawnee and Tecumseh. People come in the fall to see the fall foilage and we are known as the little smokies as were technically the foothills of the appalichian mountians and the fog rolls over the hills. You could go an hour from shawnee to peebles and adams county to see serpent mound Here.

Or and or also go to Chillicothe to the Adena Mansion and Hopewell Moundbuilderd site. And also check out the famous out door theathre Tecumseh Adena

Hopewell Culture National Historical Park

Tecumseh Outdoor Drama

Back in Columbus there is also COSI - Here.

Or you can look up historical sites for eight of Ohioans who became President.

Missing a taste of home jet over to Cincinatti to Jungle Jims International Market - Jungle Jims Plan Your Trip + Store Tours

Edit: if you come at the end of July there is also the Ohio State Fair - State Fair

Another Edit: A list of Ohio State Parks that have Lodges

A list of all the State Parks From Ohio DNR (Division of Natural Resources)

The Lodge at Shawnee and the Lodge at Hueston Woods are on seperate sites from the other State Park Lodges Ran by Xantera, as the State of Ohio awarded the Shawnee and Hueston woods lodge contracts to a different company.
 
Other things to do in Ohio:

See the reality of U.S. urban decay
Look at all the corn and soy
Enjoy riding on lots of roads that are at right angles to each other.
Getting to see lots of towns at the junctions of those right angles that shouldn't rightly exist
Smell manure
Meet some of the most white people you could imagine

:P

Edit: Cedar Point is pretty cool, except they apparently treat their workers terribly.
 
No one's mentioned New Orleans yet, but there are certainly lots of attractions there. Might not be as interesting for the kids, but worth a mention, especially as it's closer to Orlando than DC or NY.
 
Crushing Our Enemies:
No one's mentioned New Orleans yet, but there are certainly lots of attractions there. Might not be as interesting for the kids, but worth a mention, especially as it's closer to Orlando than DC or NY.
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I did! And most of them aren't that young, they'd enjoy the atmospheric stuff in New Orleans even if they couldn't drink their way through town.
 
Blue Wolf II:
I don't recommend Michigan
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Oi! Michigan is nice when you're not in Detroit. :P

And I thought Cosi closed down! When I was in elementary school the last time I went there, the school said they were closing so it would be our last time. It broke my wittle heart! :P
 
mcmasterdonia:
I've heard that Detroit is nice.
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We want Flemingovia and his troupe to come back alive. No Detroit. NO! :lol:

But if Flemingovia insists on Detroit, I can loan him a really nice Browning Automatic Rifle and a Sten Gun just for shits and giggles.

Two places are a must in the States to see:

The Grand Canyon and The Great Smokey Mountains National Park in North Carolina (the Blue Ridge Parkway and Mount Mitchell to be exact).

And, depending upon when the trip is, There's a really good Cavalry Competition being held at Ft. Riley, Kansas this summer. ;)


Oh, and visit Philadelphia, especially Independence Hall and the old section of Philly where Ben Franklin lived (it's like London in the 1700's except without the cholera). If you go to Philly, give Thel a shout.
 
Instead of Calvary. I think you should switch and go all midevil on someones heiny literally. I could see roman as a Full Armor Jousting knight. Talk to Shane Adams they have competitions for that too. Even on the History Channel and A&E. I havent seen any calvary competion reality shows :p
 
PaulWallLibertarian42:
Instead of Calvary. I think you should switch and go all midevil on someones heiny literally. I could see roman as a Full Armor Jousting knight. Talk to Shane Adams they have competitions for that too. Even on the History Channel and A&E. I havent seen any calvary competion reality shows :p
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Funny you should mention that...

I have done armored jousting in the 15th Century style and it makes the A&E 'Full Metal Jousting' series look like a pony ride at the county fair. ;)
 
Ive seen them at the ren fair. The troup that was on tv. Shane Adams et. All. Its like a mesh of competive full armor and theatrical jousting. Though the last time I went they just were doing the full armor shows they stopped doing the mino jousting games competition. Slicing the watermelons off people and such. Dissapointes cause i like the look on peoples face as the sword comes down. Heh.
 
I know it's been mentioned before, but Michigan is really nice. I'd recommend coming all the way up here to the Upper Peninsula. Go up to the Keweenaw area. I'd personally recommend Copper Harbor: 'tis easlly one of the most prettiest places in the USA.

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NYC and DC.

When visiting these places, you can stay in the suburbs to save money. In NYC, you can find hotels in New Jersey near the PATH train lines to get you into Manhattan quickly. Brooklyn and Queens are also options, but make sure the hotel you pick is close to a subway line. They'll cost much less what it'd cost to stay in Manhattan itself. That said, with a $20k budget you can probably just afford Manhattan, and it's worth it, if you can swing it...

Unlike Europe, a lot of places in America are really slummy. We aren't really a developed country, as much as an extremely wealthy banana republic IMO... wide swaths of Atlanta, Detroit, New Orleans, etc, are all hideous. Don't stay in west Baltimore when visiting DC. Don't stay in the south Bronx when visiting New York. That stuff is really important here, moreso than in England.
 
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