USA Attractions

California

California is a sly seductress tempting you with her bountiful riches, a creative genius who bowls you over with ideas and trends poised to take the world by storm. She's a bon vivant, passionately feasting on the smorgasbord of life, never taking things - or herself - too seriously. California is all that and more, to those who live there and to the millions who visit each year, eager to see what all the fuss is about.

And what is all the fuss about? The surf crashing against blissful beaches and fog-shrouded cliffs, for starters. Then there's the big-shouldered mountains chiseled into rugged splendor by glaciers and the elements, and the giant graceful trees reaching for the heavens. And as you zigzag through canyons along pathways once trod by native inhabitants and pioneers, or pass through ghost towns of the rough-and-tumble frontier days, it's there too. That California magic.

Rhode Island

The smallest of the united states, Rhode Island might only take 45 minutes to drive across but it packs over 400 miles of coastline into its tiny boundaries. Quite a lot of this coastline takes the form of white sandy beaches, arguably the finest places for ocean swimming in the Northeast. Otherwise there are islands to explore, seaside cliffs to walk along, and isolated lighthouses where you can either indulge in brooding melancholia or maybe hold someone's hand.

Highway 395

Out where the Sierras drop straight down into the sagebrush of eastern California's Owens Valley, truckers, hunters and road-trippers cruise Hwy 395. Running thousands of miles from the northern fringes of the LA basin to the Canadian border, the familiar terrain was the location of many a western.

The best leg stretches 250mi (400km) between Lone Pine, in the shadow of 14,500ft (4350m) Mt Whitney, and Carson City, Nevada. You can reenact scenes from Gunga Din and How the West Was Won, both shot in the Alabama Hills just west of Lone Pine, where there's a film festival every October.

Hawaii

Mark Twain declared Hawaii to be 'the loveliest fleet of islands that lies anchored in any ocean', and not even years of mass tourism have managed to prove him wrong. Its very name conjures dreamy images of drinking mai tais to slack-key guitar. But it's not all hibiscus behind the ear and papaya on the chin: it's also hikes along the smoldering crust of a living volcano, hip-hop in Waikiki and snorkelling with vivid fish.

Thousands of gems fashion the archipelago's necklace, but only six islands welcome visitors. Each is as different as the multi-ethnic complexions of the local population, who talk story and share their passion about Hawaii as if you're long-lost pals.

Colorado

Colorado was cool with the college crowd long before MTV's cameras caught on. No, the seven strangers on the hit reality show The Real World Denver weren't the first to dig this funky Rocky Mountain High. Their contemporaries have been flocking to the Centennial State for decades to participate in a uniquely Colorado coming-of-age ritual: the act of ski-bumming (definition: living in a mountain ski resort town such as Breckenridge, working in the service industry and riding as much fresh powder as possible in between). And it's not just the college crowd. Colorado has been catching Californians, New Yorkers and Washingtonians faster than a fly-fisher can snare a cutthroat trout on the Platte River.

Simply said, Colorado is a great place to live and play, and common knowledge among the locals is that once you taste that 'Rocky Mountain High' John Denver used to croon about you'll get so addicted to the atmosphere, altitude and attitude you'll never leave. Where else can you spend the morning in an office, the afternoon on the mountain bike and the evening sipping a hopped up, local beer at a brewpub with friends?