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First, some of you posters are too smart for your own good. NYC & DC have more foreign tourist each year than SF, Boston & Chicago. I get frustrated by the hillbillies and yokals on this board that don't have a clue why would someone from another country want to see DC.
Let's see: 25 museums (natural history, spy, newseum, portrait gallery, national gallery of art, corcoran gallery of art, american history, air & space, native american history, holocaust etc....,) all within a two mile (walkable) area.
Some of the most iconic structures in the world: The White House, The Capitol, The Monument, The Lincoln & Jefferson Memorial, ect... The world largest office buidling: The Pentagon.
Trace ancestors or relatives at The National Archives. Sit in on a ruling at the Supreme Court. Look up old publishings at the Library of Congress. Go talk to a congressman or senator on the hill. Visit one of the 300 embassies of any country in the world. Pay honor to fallen heroes at Arlington National Cemetary, Vietnam, Korean, WW2 Memorials. What other city has this many venues that define America?
1. New York City
2. Los Angeles*
3. San Francisco
4. Las Vegas*
5. Miami
Honorable mention (in no particular order):
Austin
Chicago
Philadelphia/Boston (tie)
New Orleans
Washington, DC
Seattle
Albuquerque/Santa Fe (together)
Phoenix
San Diego
*I'd probably point any foreigner to doing a L.A. - Las Vegas COMBINED trip since they're so close, and I'd make sure to tell them to include Palm Springs and the Desert cities in their trip (part of the L.A. area really).
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For cities:
New York
Seattle
San Francisco
Chicago
Washington DC/Los Angeles tied
For nature areas:
1. North Cascades National Park and surrounding areas(Washington state) About 3 hours away from Seattle
2. Olympic National Park and surrounding areas (Washington state) About 2-4 hours away from Seattle depending on the artea
3. Rocky Mountain National Park(Colorado)
4. Yosemite National Park/ Big Sur tied (California) About 2-4 hours away from San Francisco
5. Yellowstone National Park(Wyoming)
6. Certain nature areas of Hawaii and Alaska
For most of these places, its best to go during the summer.
For an easy tour, start with NYC, and go down to Philly, and then to D.C. You can skip Boston and Baltimore in this itinerary. Then from D.C. you can select Orlando for all those crazy only-in-America type of theme park destinations. And then fly out to L.A./Hollywood, and drive up to Bay Area, and you're kinda done. That's still six cities and not five. Oh well.
NYC
Philly
D.C.
Orlando
L.A./Hollywood
SFO
For non-city tours, for foreigners, I'd recommend checking out Niagara Falls and the Great Smokey Mountains N.P. on the east coast side, and then Yellowstone and Grand Tetons in the mountains, and then Yosemite and one place in the Pacific Northwest... ok so that's still not five but six...but those six are definitely must-see items as far as nature goes. And I'm leaving out Alaska and Hawaii in this whole story...oh well. Those probably deserve a second and third trip to the U.S. all by themselves!
Location: Austin, TX/Chicago, IL/Houston, TX/Washington, DC
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1. Chicago
2. Los Angeles
3. Washington DC
4. Seattle
5. Las Vegas
Sorry but I left NYC out, I'm a homer, and Chicago is very similar to NYC in sense of cityscape. And I wouldn't want tourists to waste their money seeing similar things two times in a row.
Plus I like the overall height of Chicago's skyline more than NYC's.
But if I had 5 more options, they would be:
6. NYC
7. Miami
8. Honolulu
9. San Antonio (Tex-Mex food is incredible here)
10. San Deigo
Why make them spend the majority of their time in the NE. Someone coming from places like Paris, Rome, or London won't be that impressed with Boston and Philadelpia .They want to experience and see something different. I'd say NYC is good enough for the NE.
I'd say:
1. New York City
2. Miami
3. San Francisco
4. Chicago
5. New Orleans/Las Vegas
Honorable Mentions: San Antonio, Fort Worth, Savannah, Charleston, Boston, Philadelphia, Atlanta, and Seattle.
They could explore all regions of the US and not be confined just to the west and east.
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