I’m thinking,
* Broadway show and dinner at a fancy restaurant, in NYC.
* Lobster fishing in Maine.
* Baseball game at Fenway park, and a tour of historic Boston.
* Street art tour and Falcon’s game in Atlanta.
* Clubbing in Miami
* Mardi Gras in New Orleans.
* Architectural tour of Chicago, and a day (or three) at the Chicago Art Institute.
* Horseback riding, and a day poking around Santa Fe.
* Cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde National Park
* The Exploratorium, Golden Gate Park, and dinner in Chinatown in San Francisco.
38 comments
I like your list, but make sure to hit Appalachia and something in Texas (maybe a lot, say San Antonio, Fort Worth, and Amarillo), too. Be sure to hit Carlsbad Caverns and the Grand Canyon.
Where’d the Grand Canyon go?
Yellowstone probably deserves a visit too.
Maybe Alaska?
Gotta show them some clubs or at least a couple shows to see the music here in town and passing by. So much of what makes NYC what it is, is all the random stuff going on for cheap or free if you know where to look. Show them more than just Manhattan and I say this as someone who’s grew up in this borough
Take them to the Northeast or Upper Midwest (Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin) during the fall
I’d have them actually live here for a while, you don’t understand NFL by just watching the highlight reel.
Yellowstone National Park. Few places move me as much as the natural beauty of a sprawling wilderness. It’s a must-see part of America and a glimpse into what the American West used to be like.
Lancaster, PA for Amish culture
Go to a county or state fair
You have a lot of cities in your list, I’d add some small towns and medium sized cities too
Start in Louisiana and head over to Florida, from there up to new York stopping in apalacha, then over to Detroit on the way to Chicago. Hit rt 66 and follow it out to Cali. Hop on a plane and visit Hawaii. Hop on another plane over to Alaska, one more plane back to Seattle then drive easy through the black hills. That should just about cover everything.
Not everybody’s cup of tea, but the thing that has made me love and appreciate America the most has been driving all the way across the country on epic road trips. Going to a bunch of individual cities doesn’t do it for me, but spending long days seeing the immensely varied and beautiful landscapes of America just takes my breath away.
Great list, but if you want to be completest, I think you add –
– Day at Barton Springs in Austin with brisket afterwards
– Tour of the Hollywood Hills and dinner at Nobu
– Helicopter tour of a volcano in Hawaii
– Alaskan Cruise with port at Juneau
To truly understand America, you need to take a cross-country road trip. So many foreigners have no idea how massive and diverse America really is. Driving from coast to coast is the only way to really understand what the US is all about.
You need a mountain ski town (but in summer!) and national parks.
Also, hunting in the midwest/frontier states in the fall. And skiing/snowboarding in colorado in the winter.
Please please PLEASE go to San Antonio during Fiesta.
Mexican food and Korean BBQ in Los Angeles, Chinese food in San Francisco, seafood in Seattle, steaks and Tex Mex in Houston, Cajun food in New Orleans, Cuban food in Miami, Virginia ham in Richmond, cheese steaks in Philadelphia, pizza in Chicago and then New York, lobster rolls in Portland, Maine. Then fly to Hawaii for some loco moco and call it a trip, or maybe just do Alaska and Montana to see things.
You can’t do a tour of US culture without including Kansas City and New Orleans on the list. I would add a night at The Phoenix or Blue Room in KC and a night walking around the French Quarter in New Orleans. Both cities are really excellent representations of sub cultures in the US.
I like how the experience in New England is just hard labor. If you’re gonna show this hypothetical person Maine, take them camping in the largest virgin forest east of the Mississippi. Then maybe hit up popham beach. Portland ME had a decent punk scene when I was there, maybe try and find a house show? Grab a holy donut on your way out
If I were doing street art in Atlanta, I’d hop over to Athens and watch UGA play. It’s a way better atmosphere than the Falcons. I’d take a couple of days to go to various Smithsonian museums. You could learn a ton about our culture and history there.
I like your list, so I’d definitely add to it instead of replacing it in any way. I’d incorporate a lot of the suggestions in the comments, but I haven’t seen much love for the PNW. Boat cruise/whale watching on Puget Sound? Walking through Pike Place Market? Culinary tour of the food trucks in Portland, OR?
Navajo Nation
Louisiana bayou
New Orleans
Anchorage and Kodiak Island
Albuquerque and Santa Fe
Miami
Manhattan
The Bronx
LA
San Francisco
Atlanta
The rural South
Midwest farmland
Ohio and Pennsylvania
Eastern Oklahoma reservations
Nashville
Sioux reservations
Appalachians
Yellowstone
You haven’t included any of Virginia, South Carolina, Appalachia or the Mississippi Delta! You can’t understand the mentality of Rural America and the oversized influence it has on our culture without going to those places. Follow these places by Nashville and New Orleans, and the music/entertainment industry will make sense to you, having understood the cultural/historical lens. You’ll also understand black American culture better. Tennessee and Kentucky for horse racing, bar culture.
For New York, I’d really focus on understanding each part of Manhattan and then Queens, with their unique ethnically segregated neighborhoods like Ukrainian Village, Little Italy, Chinatown, East (Spanish) Harlem, East Village, with FiDi and Midtown later; not so much culture in Long Island, The Bronx, Staten Island or even Brooklyn.
Northeast has English characteristics; brick buildings and high taxes. Go to Boston and do whatever you like, but also see Newport, RI; Mystic, CT; Burlington, VT to get an idea of how cute and sweet it can be.
Go to cattle ranches and country clubs in the rich white parts of Texas; go to Western Texas like Odessa/Midland/El Paso if you want real cowboyland.
Cincinnati, Ohio is a cultural capital, for sure.
Michigan/Minnesota/Wisconsin Midwest area has a distinct cultural flavor that I only find in Northern Europe. The wilderness, the family culture, the 4 seasons, suburbia, these shape my perception of what an average American life entails. You can get a different brand of this Midwest if you go down to Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri, etc.
Vail, Colorado if money is no object. It’s all you need in Colorado. There is so much nature; you could spend a lifetime discovering Colorado.
Go to different parts of Nevada, New Mexico and Arizona for different shades of the same desert culture. Very Mexican-influenced, like Western Texas, but even more colorful. New Mexico is arguably the capital of that subculture.
Idaho, Montana and Wyoming if you want the true Manifest Destiny culture.
Southern California is the other global hub of America. Northern California, Oregon and Western Washington are in the same ecosystem and resemble each other. Go up and down the coast and see nontropical rainforests, outdoors life, volcanoes, and geographical isolation. It’s like an island of its own.
Since you’re thinking cultural exposure add like a big time college football game. Tailgate, see a hopefully great game, all the school traditions, the whole 9
I think you’re missing *uniquely* American culture. Many nations have a theater district (London’s West End,9th Arrondissement of Paris), Clubbing is amazing worldwide (Ibiza, Berlin, Buenos Aires.
I’d look to things like:
* New England in autumn leaves changing, covered bridges in winter, Martha’s Vineyard. Boston Harbor. New England Clam Chowder
* New York: Niagara Falls, 9/11 Memorial, Statue of Liberty, Apple Picking, a Garbage Plate
* Pennsylvania: Amish Country, Gettysburg, [Centrallia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia_mine_fire) fire. Soft pretzel from a cart in Philly
* West Virginia: Harper’s Ferry ,tubing in the summer and a slaw dog
* Virginia: Norfolk, Williamsburg, Occoquan, Tangier Island, Brunswick Stew
* Maryland: Baltimore Harbor, Smith Island cake and steamed blue crabs, time with watermen on the eastern shore
* NC: BBQ (both styles), Fried green tomato, Kitty Hawk, The Outer Banks
I could go on, But the point is, places and things they don’t have anywhere else. Uniquely American is not easily exported or explained, it must be experienced. If they saw it in a movie or tv, I’m probably not focusing on it. Sure we’ll see the Grand Canyon, but what I want to show you is Frybread and a Sonoran Dog. Of course we’ll look at the golden Gate Bridge, but I’m excited to show you Fisherman’s Wharf and a the *Real* Hidden Valley Ranch! Our culture is in the things that are uniquely ours, built by time, tradition and community. A tall building is a tall building anywhere in the world, but lefse and lutefisk , GO-GO and Delta Blues, College tailgating and Roller Derby are uniquely American
BBQ and the rodeo in Houston, Disney World, waterfall hikes in Portland
Suburbia. Take them to a suburb of Cincinnati and go to a HS football game on Friday night.
Everything you’ve got listed is really exciting, but doesn’t show how people live day to day.
Great question. It allows me to dream and I’m happy to share. I don’t think my answers would end.
-Redwood trees (anywhere).
-Vermont in the winter
-Black water down south for fishing
-Florida keys (any until you find the mindset)
-Cardinals-Cubs game (either park)
-Best bbq ever down south (from a gas station
-Texas sunset in the summer
-Concert at Red Rocks
-Kayak in Seattle
-Taco tour in LA
-Upper peninsula in the summer
-Monument Valley
-Italian dinner in North Beach SF
Edit
-sand dunes in Colorado
-Na Pali coast is the #1 choice
You may feel like a cheesy answer but I think you need to include Disney World.
And while in Florida, I think you need to do some scuba diving and deep sea fishing in the Florida Keys with a stop in Key West for some bar hopping and live music.
Philly should be on the list: historic old city/Independence Hall/Liberty Bell, the Art Museum and running the steps like Rocky, catching an Eagles game against the hated Cowboys (go Birds) and doing a tour of the best cheesesteak and hoagie places in town.
Get an RV, start in Maine and meander through all of the lower 48 states, making sure to hit a some of the major cities but also go stop in some small towns. Hit some of the tourist traps like various national parks and monuments, but also see some of the odd small things you don’t see on tv or movies all the time, like the world’s largest rocking chair in Casey, Illinois, or the barbed wire museum in LaCrosse, Kansas. The House on the Rock in Wisconsin is a neat place to see too.
>Baseball game at Fenway park, and a tour of historic Boston.
Not just a game at Fenway, but it has to be a Sox / Yankees game… Seeing a game at Fenway is one thing (And something I try to do any time I’m in Boston during the season), but being a part of one of the oldest rivalries in American sports is another… Sadly I’ve yet to be in town when the Yankees are visiting Fenway.
You also left out music in Nashville, BBQ stops in Lexington, NC, Lockhart, TX, and Kansas City, MO.
Also in New Orleans, the Jazz Festival.
And a NASCAR race at a small track… a super speedway would be fun, but a more classic and intimate American racing experience is at the small tracks like Martinsville where you get all the noise and crowds and also much greater chance of seeing wrecks. Also, watching NASCAR on TV is for people who truly enjoy NASCAR, but it’s an entirely different, visceral, thing when sitting there on one of the turns as the cars roar by you a few yards away.
I would add a visit to Amish country, especially one of the more liberal communities that try to educate outsiders on their way of life. Bird-In-Hand, Pennsylvania or Shipshewana, Indiana, for example.
One month in NYC.
End of list
– Hawaii! Such a unique culture, reflecting a history of settlement by native Hawaiians, Western colonizers, Japanese / Chinese workers, and annexation by the US. It’s also one of the most beautiful places in the country.
– National Parks. Unlike a lot of other countries, the US does not have a ton of grand buildings (cathedrals, castles, temples, palaces, mosques) worth visiting. But our National Parks are our crown jewels, our cathedrals of nature. Americans interact with and appreciate nature differently, attempting to keep it primitive and wild while also making it accessible. A summer car camping trip to a National Park is an American tradition.
– Irvine / Cupertino. If I wanted to show someone the Chinese-American community, I wouldn’t take them to Chinatown, I’d take them to a Chinese-American enclave like Irvine, San Gabriel, Cupertino or Milpitas, places where tourists never go. We’d go for dim sum at Koi Palace or Hot Pot at Hai Di Lao or the Peking Duck at Meizhou DongPo, and groceries at 99 Ranch.
The *Mental Floss* road trip that hits all 48 lower states…in a luxury RV since money isn’t an object. Most foreigners have no concept of just how culturally diverse the US is; I’m from California, and visiting the Deep South was like going to a different country for me.
Fly fishing and white water rafting in Colorado, RMNP, and all the wildlife. Grand Canyon. Las Vegas Strip for a few days. The Dakotas for Rushmore and Devil’s Tower. Stay at Deadwood Dick’s in SD. Maybe find a good Harley-Davidson biker week somewhere. Rent a Corvette convertible and speed through WY highways to SD. Go pick Huckleberries off of Flathead Lake in Northern Montana and see the black bears doing the same.
I would do a road trip:
1. Hiking and visit to the International Rose Garden in Oregon
2. Disneyland in California
3. Casino Trip in Las Vegas
4. Learn about the pioneers in Utah
5. Visit some farms in the Midwest
6. Architectural tour of Chicago
7. visit to the Deep South (visit a church, have a southern dinner at someone’s house, go to a college football game)
8. Mardi Gras in New Orleans
9. Clubbing in Miami
10. Broadway and Dinner in NYC
11. Lobstering in Maine
12. Game at Fenway Park
13. Tour of old Philadelphia
14. I’d also Visit a bunch of National Parks on the way
Bruh none of these lists have shooting on them!
Definitely gotta take them to the range at least once!
All the things you listed are cool (although idk why you’d pick the Falcons of all the nfl teams lol), and if time was also no object then sure, I’d love to do all that stuff.
But if you wanted to show someone all of “American culture”, you’d have to take them to way more random ass, regular ass places.
Watching a football game in person at the stadium is cool, usually a great experience, I do it a couple times a year. But watching the game on a shitty plaid couch from the 90s in your buddies basement with a case of cheap beer, or sitting on top of the cooler watching the outside tv on some random country dude’s back deck, that’s how most Americans are really experiencing it.
Or take them on a road trip to some random town with a water park and something stupid like the worlds largest tire just happens to be on the way. Those are the types of vacations a ton of regular Americans grew up on. And I think it’s a uniquely American thing. I’ve seen posts on this sub where Europeans are amazed by the fact that we’ll drive 3 hours to get to some random ass place.
I’d definitely take them to some local bars and places that people hang out. Smoke a couple joints on the patio while you crack jokes with your friends or something. I feel like talking to the people and getting to know them in a new place is a lot more interesting and reflective of the culture than just looking at big stuff.
I was sort of loosely part of a similar situation in real life recently, a friend of mine hosted a guy from Korea for like 2 months. Obviously money was an object so they couldn’t just fly all over the place, and they did drive around to some of the bigger cities that are road-trippable from here, but i got the impression he really enjoyed staying in our small-ish city and hanging out with us at our regular dive bars and stuff. He was able to actually get to know some people and make friends that he’ll keep in touch with. I think going to a place and connecting with the locals gives you a better idea of their culture.
I think you’ve gotta work the Florida Keys into that trip somehow.