Travel Tips

Traveling the width and length of this great country can certainly excite a person to want to try to take in every sight and every unique experience that is possible in this vast and diverse land. It is a fine ambition if you set it as your goal early in your family life to achieve one of the fun objectives that many try to accomplish before they end their traveling days. Some of the missions people set out on are truly amazing. But you have to know that even if they dont succeed in these quests, they are going to have fun trying.

Many families make it a goal to have a picture of the family with their feet standing on every one of the fifty states of the union. Now, this is an ambitious objective to be sure and one that may take years to accomplish. But as your children get a big kick out of each new photo you take that adds to the count, you will be developing a wonderful travelogue of a lifetime of seeing the best America has to offer. And you can get some help in some places where you can hit more than one state at a time. In the southwest, there is a location called The Four Corners where the four states of Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah all come to a point in one exact spot. By putting your feet in two states and your hands in two others, you can get four of your states checked off with one stop.

Another terrific way to document a lifetime of sightseeing is stickers or patches. Most of gift shops in the fine sights all around the country will sell you a bumper sticker for your car, a patch for your coat or some other memento to have as a remembrance of your visit to see that great sight. So as you travel, if you pick up a similar item at each fun stop along the way, that can make quite an impressive display on a suitcase or a tapestry of patches from the great sights all around the country.

America is gifted to be home to some of the finest bodies of the water in the world. For many, a visit to one ocean is the dream of a lifetime. But another variation on the theme of great sightseeing missions is to touch all of the oceans of the country in one year. It’s quite a quest to get over to California, Oregon or Washington to touch the Pacific, across the expansive homeland to touch the Atlantic in Florida, Maine or Massachusetts and then back on another long trek to put your hand in the warm waters of the gulf coast. If you can accomplish this ambitious quest, you indeed have some serious bragging rights to show off. So make sure you take dated pictures in case someone doubts that it can be done.

It is never too late in life to make it your goal to see all you can see of this wonderful country we call home. Many who work hard all their lives enjoy the fruit of their labors by purchasing a mobile home and setting out to spend the night in as many of the great national parks of the country as they can. This is a country who has taken great care to preserve vast sections of our wilderness in national parks. So it is quite an undertaking to sleep in every one of them. As you travel on your vacations, you may meet some of these intrepid travelers who may quite literally have no other home than their mobile home.

However, you plan to document your travels in the great country, you will be doing so to pay honor to the fact that you got to celebrate all of the greatness of our wonderful country. And the greatest thing about these quests is that even if you succeed in your chosen goal, you will never tire of seeing this great land and celebrating what is great about being able to say, I am an American.

A trip to Boston is like a trip back into the very early founding stages of this great nation. This city, so rich in culture, is one sightseeing stop that you will want to schedule plenty of time to take in. The city is respectful of its own historical significance and they proudly offer every opportunity for you to jump into history and the fascinating culture of this diverse east coast community.

The very layout of Boston is a study in history. It is a city that is seemingly impossible to find your way around in. The roads twist and turn, change names and take on new routes as though they have minds of their own. The reason that Bostons streets are such a maze is that they reflect the days when the city was built around trails to accommodate farmers and merchants. So the roads were not laid out to be logical, they were made to be efficient for a people who lived there two hundred years ago. Today, travel around Boston can be as much fun as it is confusing as you see it as a challenge to try to learn the layout of this complex town.

Unlike many cities that exploit their natural attractions, you can absorb Bostons rich historical past for free or for the low cost of a shuttle bus ride that will take you around to the sights at your own pace. For starters, you can step out onto the street at many corners in downtown Boston and look down and find what they call The Freedom Trail. This is a two and a half mile walk marked clearly in red on the streets below that takes you by some of the great historical locations in the city.

To make your experience with The Freedom Trail more meaningful, pick up one of the many guides and commentaries that you can use to follow along the trail and re-learn your history of what happened at each location. It is almost impossible not to get goose bumps as you stand near or inside such historic locations as The Paul Revere House, the location of the Boston Massacre, The Old North Church and many more.

No trip to Boston would be complete without taking some time out of the car to enjoy the out of doors in the huge park in the middle of everything known as the Boston Common. Just as with almost everything in Boston, there is a rich history to this park. It is the oldest public park in the USA. Its designation as a public park dates back to 1640. Boston Common was originally used by the British as a place where their troops could camp during the Revolutionary War. Today it is the jewel of this great city with the city hall on one side and the Freedom Trail running along the other taking you gracefully to your next location for sightseeing.

There are numerous tour operations that give you from a lot to a little, with the price difference to match, to enhance your ability to appreciate the history of this great town. One of the best is the local shuttle of historic locations. For one low price you can get on and get off of the shuttle all day long, taking your time at the sights you really want to savor and moving along at your own pace. This is the perfect solution to renting a car and it gives you a wider range of things you can see than if you go by foot alone.

Of recent historic note, you may wish to give in to have a brew at that bar where everybody knows your name. The very popular TV show Cheers was based on a historic pub right off of the Boston Common itself. Now you will have to look for it. The name of the pub is not Cheers but The Bull and Finch. But when you see it from the street, you will immediately recognize the outer faade of the pub. It was used for the opening of the show.

Your trip to Boston will leave you with rich memories of this historic city. But more than that, it will fill you with pride and a renewed reverence for the amazing beginnings of this the greatest nation on earth, much of which here occurred right here in Boston, Massachusetts.

It the 1950s, when car travel was pretty much the norm, a real mystic developed about taking car trips for vacation. It was during that time, when the interstate highway systems were being developed in America, that the famous Route 66 came into being. Before too long route 66 became a metaphor for getting out and seeing America. That is really when the idea of sight seeing and trying to take in the really great things this country has to offer became possible.

That popular mythology of getting out there and discovering the world of America surfaced in a lot of popular ways. The book On the Road by Jack Kerouac, while about more than just travel and sightseeing, spoke to an exploding need and desire in all Americans to know their country better face to face. A little later that urge to travel that was bubbling to the surface in all kinds of ways became more popularized by a TV show Route 66.

That part of being American which comes out as the urge to travel and see everything there is to see is part of our patriotism. But it is also a big part of the American spirit of adventure that is what brought our ancestors over here from the home country. The courage and desire to explore is just part of what makes Americans tick and it is one of the many reasons we love to get out there and see everything we can see.

That desire to get out there on the road is just as much part of how you and I as Americans tick today as it was when travel was new. Even though we have ample travel options especially by air, there is something irreplaceable about driving across the country, discovering its amazing sights from the front seat of an automobile.

So if you think we are suggesting you actually plan a cross country car safari for nothing more than the sheer joy of being on the road again, you are exactly right! When we talk about the great sightseeing high spots in America, its easy to talk about the big ones such as the Washington Monument or Niagara Falls. But there are hundreds of tucked away sights that are a sheer delight to discover when you just come across them in your cross country car trip.

Small towns and out of the way highways and byways have some unique and unforgettable sights of their own. Think of how you will wow your friends when you come back from your road trip adventure with pictures of…

*The strange but oddly beautiful Cadillac Ranch of song fame. As you drive along the badlands of Texas, dont drive off the road when you look out and see a field full of Cadillacs buried upside down in the Texas soil back ends sticking up like some bizarre experiment in farming.

*An off the road spot where you can actually mine for gold in the black hills of South Dakota.

*A desert in the middle of Oklahoma with sand dunes suitable for dune buggy rides.

*A massive replica of the pyramids of Egypt. And you dont need a turban to see it. Just take a few minutes off from the Grand Ol’ Opry and visit this sight in the heart of Nashville Tennessee.

The fun sights you can see on the road in a car trip across the majestic expanse of America will be sights that will stand out in your mind as much as the great and very well known sights that everybody enjoys. And dont be surprised if you see a look of envy in your friends eyes when they realize you were the one who had the guts to get out there and put your tires to the road and discover America all over again.