WELCOME TO AMERICA

Natural America !

America is part of our "global dream" and the United States has embodied it with an infinitely varied continent that challenges the senses of the first time visitor, never ceases to amaze the returning traveller and remains a constant source of excitement for those who have lived within its borders all their lives.

This is, after all, the country that gave the world the right to the pursuit of happiness, free speech, electric light, aircraft, refrigerators, the space shuttle, computers, blues, jazz, rock and roll and movies that climax at the high school prom. Encounter novelties like 24-hour shopping, bottomless cups of coffee, have-a-nice-day, drive-thru banks, TV evangelists, cheap gasoline and newspapers tossed onto lawns.

Almost certainly one of the most dynamic countries on earth, with its wide range of terrain, cultural opportunities, vast cities with every facility imaginable and small friendly towns where the hospitality is legendary, the United States of America has something for everyone.

Nobody knows better than the Americans that all work and no play makes absolutely no sense whatsoever and the United States is reknowned for blue jeans, tee shirts, fast food, surfboards and inline skates. Other countries in the world proudly display their glorious past in museums, cathedrals, temples and palaces. America joyfully displays its exuberant present in the street and on the beach.

When other countries talk of their culture, America talks of its way of life, yet there are half a dozen or so world-famous symphony orchestras in such cities as Philadelphia, Los Angeles and Boston and great museums and galleries in New York and Washington.

With a huge diversity of landscape, America was clearly rather lucky at the time of creation, when it came to the distribution of the bounty of the earth. Every State has its own wonders and delights to thrill even the most seasoned traveller, giving many an opportunity to return time and time again to a particular area or region and further discover what it has to offer.

For sailors and those who fish, there are the wild Atlantic coastlines of Maine and its Pacific counterparts in northern California, Oregon and Washington States or the calmer waters of Long Island Sound and Chesapeake Bay, or lazy beaches of Florida and southern California. In between the Great Lakes and the Midwest might qualify as seas anywhere else in the world.

Stretching right across the country are the great national parks and nature reserves, luring people to paddle around the swamps of Florida's Everglades or Louisiana's Bayou, hike and climb in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, the Great Smokies of Tennessee and the Rockies of Colorado.

The vast parks of the West, with their geysers, waterfalls and forests, such parks as Wyoming's Yellowstone; the rainbow canyons of Zion, Monument Valley or pinnacles of Bryce Canyon in Utah; the massive redwoods of California's Yosemite or Sequoia and of course, the most famous of all, Arizona's Grand Canyon.

Each of the major cities offers its own adventure. The street life of New York is fascinating with endless movement, colour and smell, sometimes frantic, but always stimulating. Boston, Washington and Philadelphia are the metropolitan pillars of United States history, proud and dignified, though never taking themselves too seriously.

New Orleans offers and unashamedly theatrical view of a bygone elegance and decadence, part Gaelic and part Deep South, all tongue in cheek. Santa Fe is somehow its Grand Spanish counterpart, but quieter and more romantic. There is boisterous Chicago, in America's heartland and the town never fails to surprise visitors with the beauty of its lakefront architecture.

Dallas and Houston are the bumptious concrete realisations of the Texan dream, ranchers gone urban. Crazy Los Angeles and lovely, non-conformist San Francisco are the last extravagant statements of America's push to the West.

And, when you are tired of coping with the real world, sneak off to the fantasy realms of Disney World and Disneyland and all the other "theme parks" that have mushroomed around the country. Here the thrills and excitement and joys and fears are carefully calculated not to create too much stress.

So, come prepared to explore this America, with some of the world's most exciting cities, some truly mind-blowing landscapes, a strong sense of regionalism, a trenchant mythology, more history than it gives itself credit for and, arguably, the most approachable natives in the world.

Come and explore America with us!

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