Microsoft word - usa

USA
FACTS:
Full country name: The United States of America
Population: 285,000,000
Area: 3,618,000 sq miles (9,370,000 sq km)
Visas: Most visitors to the US require a visa.
However, Canadians need only proof of citizenship.
Capital city: Washington, DC (pop: 570,000)
A reciprocal visa-waiver program allows citizens ofthe UK, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Austria, People: Caucasian (71%), African American (12%),
Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Latino (12%), Asian (4%), Native American (0.9%) the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Swedenand Switzerland to stay up to 90 days without a visa Languages: English, plus many secondary
Health risks: None, apart from the high cost of
Religion: Protestant (56%), Roman Catholic (28%),
Time: Eastern (GMT/UTC -5), Central (-6), Mountain
Electricity: 110V, 60Hz
Weights & Measures: Imperial
Currency: US dollar (USD)
The US is most popular with travelers during the summer, but this is when American families packeverything up and head out to visit Aunt Tilly. To avoid mobs (especially throughout the national-parksystem), it's better to go during autumn or early spring.
Autumn is an especially good time to visit New England and the upper Great Lakes because fall colors areat their best. Most of the country east of the Rockies is hot and humid during summer, especially the south.
The deserts between the Rockies and the Sierra Nevada are very hot and dry during the summer, especiallyin the southwest. California's southern coast is comfortable year-round, but if you want to experience thebeach scene, it's best to visit between June and September.
Attractions
They don't come any bigger than the Big Apple -king of the hill, top of the heap, New York, New York. No other city is arrogant enough to dub abruptly cut short on September 11, 2001, when a itself Capital of the World and no other city could terrorist attack in the form of two hijacked carry it off. New York is a densely packed mass of passenger aircraft razed the gleaming twin towers humanity - seven million people in 309 sq miles of the World Trade Center. Thousands of people (800 sq km) - and that's just Manhattan, only a were killed in the worst terrorist act ever on US part of greater New York City. All this living on top soil. New York is currently in a state of shock.
of one another makes the New Yorker a special kind of person. Although it's hard to put a finger disillusionment or optimism is yet to be seen. In on what makes New York buzz, it's the city's the meantime, this spectacular city has a great hyperactive rush that really draws people here.
deal of work ahead of it as it tries to rebuild itsbusiness district and its confidence.
In a city that is so much a part of the globalsubconscious, it's pretty hard to pick a few San Francisco
highlights - wherever you go you'll feel like you'vebeen there before. For iconic value, you can't Even people who hate the United States love San surpass the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State
Francisco. It has a self-effacing flutter of the Building, Central Park or Times Square. The
eyelids so blatantly missing from brassy New York Metropolitan Museum of Art is one of the
and plastic LA, an atmosphere of genteel chic world's top museums, and the Museum of
mixed with offbeat innovation. This is a place that Modern Art isn't far behind. Bookshops, food,
breeds alternatives: It's the home of the Beat theater, shopping, people: it doesn't really matter Generation, flower power, student protest and gay pride. One of the country's most attractive cities, San Francisco boasts foggy, hilly streets that a bunch of expat Cuban elder statesmen playing provide gorgeous views of San Francisco Bay dominoes in Máximo Gómez Park. In stark and its famous bridges. This is a mosaic of a city, contrast with the hedonistic lightheartedness of a big picture made from the colorful tiles of the the rest of Miami, the Holocaust Memorial is one
Latino Mission, gay Castro, bustling Chinatown,
of the most exquisite and moving monuments clubby SoMa, hippie Haight-Ashbury and Italian
Fisherman's
epicenter of tourist kitsch and the gateway to New Orleans
Alcatraz, while Union Square is where the classy
shoppers congregate.
If New York makes you nervous, you'll hate NewOrleans. Others will find that the sleazy touch of Los Angeles
danger in the air is what makes this Southern cityso compelling. A steamy brew of zydeco, voodoo, It's possible that Los Angeles is a figment of its gumbo and antebellum ambience, New Orleans own imagination. No other city studies itself so grows on you like a strangler vine - you might as well lie back and enjoy it. Most people know New magazines. LA is a monster of a city, a tangle of Orleans for its parties, particularly the orgiastic freeways and sprawling suburbs where anyone indulgence of Mardi Gras or the year-round
without a car is considered intellectually impaired.
bacchanal on Bourbon Street. But if crowds and
alcohol poisoning aren't your thing, don't despair.
manufactured, and if you're not prepared to Aficionados of historic architecture will exult in the embrace the dream you'll doubtless find LA filthy, crowded French Quarter and grandiose Garden
irritating, frightening or just plain dumb. But if you District, while those with a hankering to take
long to stand in the footsteps of stars and breathe history home will adore the antique shops of their hallowed air, you've come to the right place.
Royal Street. New Orleans has a tendency to
In this town, chefs are household names and bring folks out in a rash of Lestatesque gothic nobodies erect billboard shrines to themselves.
brooding - have a wander among the city's ornate LA is a feast of fame-associated sights - cruise aboveground cemeteries or shed a tear for Jeff
Sunset Strip, walk Rodeo Drive or Hollywood
Buckley on a ferry cruise of the Mississippi
Boulevard, be seen on Melrose or Venice
River, then forget your troubles with some
Beach, gawk at babes in Malibu or poke your
crawfish, cool jazz and a mint julep.
nose through the gates of Beverly Hills. No one
does
Washington, DC
Disneyland is the mother of them all, and
Universal Studios turned its back lot into a thrill
ride years ago. When the glitz starts coming out
The City of Washington in the District of Columbia your ears, head for the almost-reality of Little
is a far more dynamic, attractive town than most Tokyo and El Pueblo de Los Angeles or
government cities. It has overcome countless Pasadena's Huntington Gardens.
challenges, from near-abandonment by Congressafter the War of 1812 to the world's highestmurder rate in the 1980s, to emerge as one of the USA's top tourist attractions. Monuments to
federal puissance, such as the Capitol, Supreme
Washington
stabbings, Cuban plots, drug dealers, sneakers Monument are designed to impress visitors, while
without socks and an excess of pink - Miami is none of these things. Desperately redefining itself, Memorial, Jefferson Memorial, FDR Memorial
Miami (and in particular, South Beach) has
Vietnam Wall
declared itself the Most Fabulous Spot in the US.
sometimes sobering reminders of the past. The As evidence, it cites the recently restored pastel- nation's capital also boasts one of the world's riot of the Deco District, a friendly neighborhood feel and a fledgling art and culture scene looking Smithsonian Institution, all of whose museums
for a sunny alternative to New York. And of are free to the public. And when you're ready for course there's Miami Beach itself, a glorious
the real Washington, the city behind the federal stretch of white sand lapped by clear blue water.
city, be sure to visit the cultural and culinary The heart of all this newfound fashionableness is Ocean Drive, flanked on the east by the city's
Georgetown, Adams-Morgan, Dupont Circle
hippest beach and the west by a string of and Shaw & the New U District.
sidewalk cafes. This is where the late GianniVersace lived, and his acolytes still throng here to A short drive away from the city are Mount
pose waifishly over rocket salad. Miami also has the world's most beautiful swimming hole, the Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's quirky home.
Venetian Pool, one of the world's best zoos and
Area day trips include numerous Civil War sites and colonial towns, such as Williamsburg and
The Manzanar National Historic Site, about half
Jamestown.
an hour's drive north of Lone Pine, consists of theremains of one of the infamous 'relocation' camps Philadelphia
in which American citizens of Japanese descent
were imprisoned during WWII. A little farther on is
the funky Eastern California Museum, a mixed
Independence was declared and the Constitution bag of displays on natural history, Paiute Indian signed in Philadelphia, one of the USA's most basketry and ancient Milk of Magnesia bottles. If historic towns. The place to start exploring is you've still got a nest egg left when you reach Independence Hall, where the USA was born
Carson City, east of Lake Tahoe just over the amid the debates of the Continental Congresses.
Nevada border, let it ride at one of the town's On the grounds is the Liberty Bell, an enduring
emblem that was coopted by abolitionists as an
antislavery symbol. Benjamin Franklin's presence
pervades the town, from his home in Old
Flagstaff
Benjamin
Franklin
Parkway,
If the strip-mall chintz of small-town Arizona galleries and gardens, to the University of
leaves you dry, drop in on Flagstaff, a cultural Pennsylvania, which he founded. When you're
oasis in this otherwise arid landscape. The tired and hungry from all that walking around, hop historic downtown area, harking back to the a cab to South Philadelphia and grab a splendid
town's early days as a railroad whistle stop, specimen of Philadelphia's gift to the culinary comes as a welcome relief from the region's dusty motels and truckstop diners. In this neighborhood,antique inns sidle up against vegetarian cafes, and you're more likely to hear strains of a localjazz combo than any rumble of RV traffic. And asthe novelty of nontouristy downtown wears thin, Eminently walkable, achingly historic and all in all there's always a visit to the Lowell Observatory,
a splendid town, Boston sizzles with the energy of where in 1930 the planet Pluto was discovered, or a huge student population and a thriving local a stroll through the 200 blissfully green acres at economy. Its cobblestone streets are home to the the local arboretum.
Freedom Trail, which links dozens of colonial
and Revolutionary sites. The heart of the city is
Flagstaff makes a great base for day trips, since the expansive Boston Common, a year-round
the Southwest's greatest attraction, the Grand
delight, abutted by the Public Garden. A short
Canyon, is less than a two-hour drive away.
Within an hour of town you can explore ancient Downtown Crossing - where to get your grub on
Anasazi and Sinagua Indian pueblos; marvel at
and where to empty your wallet and fill your the site of a mile-wide meteor crater; hike, bike shopping bags, respectively. To the west are Landsdowne St, the heart of Boston's nightlife
mountains and forests; and even have your scene, and storied Fenway Park, while across
chakras realigned in the New Age mecca of the river in Cambridge lie two of the USA's most Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Black Hills National Forest
Off the Beaten Track
One of South Dakota's treasures, the Black HillsNational Forest offers splendid opportunities for Highway 395
hiking, biking and camping. The areas most
notable attraction, though, is the Crazy Horse
Out where the Sierras drop straight down into the Memorial. Rising out of the foothills in the
sagebrush of eastern California's Owens Valley, southwestern corner of the state, the memorial truckers, hunters and road-trippers cruise Hwy consists of a massive statue of Crazy Horse, the 395. Though the road runs several thousand Sioux leader famous for orchestrating the demise miles from the northern fringes of the Los Angeles of General George Custer at the Battle of Little basin to the Canadian border, the best leg stretches 250mi (400km) between Lone Pine, in mountainside, already dwarfs Mount Rushmore, the shadow of 14,500ft (4350m) Mt Whitney, and while providing a revisionist twist to the latter's Carson City, Nevada. You can reenact scenes celebration of dead white males. Begun in 1948, from Gunga Din and How the West Was Won, the memorial is still in progress. There's a both shot in the Alabama Hills just west of Lone museum at the site, which is just north of the town Pine, where's there's a film festival every October.
Cleveland
were left with a nasty war debt, which they tried torecoup by imposing new taxes. The rallying cry'no taxation without representation' united the Once infamous for its 'burning river' of the 1950s colonies, who ceremoniously dumped caffeinated and '60s, Cleveland has overcome its image as cargo overboard during the Boston Tea Party.
an environmental disaster area and now boasts Besieged British general Cornwallis surrendered one of the country's most all-American attractions: to American commander George Washington five the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Among its
years later at Yorktown, Virginia, in 1781.
kaleidoscopic, candy-colored acid trip on wheels,as well as Elvis' black leather 'Comeback Special' In the 19th century, America's mantra was Cleveland? 'Cause it's the hometown of Alan Freed, the disk jockey who popularized the term conquest had by 1850 given the US roughly its 'rock and roll' in the early 1950s.plus some heavy present shape. In 1803, Napoleon dumped the lobbying by the mayor. If you're a fan of IM Pei, entire Great Plains for a pittance, and Spain you'll love the record-player-shaped building.
chipped in with Florida in 1819. The Battle of theAlamo during the 1835 Texan Revolution pavedthe way for Texan independence from Mexico, and the war with Mexico (1846-48) secured mostof The continent's first inhabitants walked into North systematic annihilation of the buffalo hunted by America across what is now the Bering Strait from the Plains Indians, encroachment on their lands, Asia. For the next 20,000 years these pioneering and treaties not worth the paper they were written settlers were essentially left alone to develop on led to Native Americans being herded into distinct and dynamic cultures. In the modern US, reservations, deprived of both their livelihoods their descendants include the Pueblo people in and their spiritual connection to their land.
what is now New Mexico; Apache in Texas;Navajo in Arizona, Colorado and Utah; Hopi in Nineteenth-century immigration drastically altered Arizona; Crow in Montana; Cherokee in North Carolina; and Mohawk and Iroquois in New York predominantly British stock were joined by Central Europeans and Chinese, many attracted by the1849 gold rush in California. The South remained The Norwegian explorer Leif Eriksson was the firmly committed to an agrarian life heavily reliant first European to reach North America, some 500 on African American slave labor. Tensions were years before a disoriented Columbus accidentally on the rise when abolitionist Abraham Lincoln was elected president in 1860. The South seceded Dominican Republic and Haiti) in 1492. By the from the Union, and the Civil War, by far the bloodiest war in America's history, began the poked and prodded by a parade of explorers from following year. The North prevailed in 1865, freed Spain, Portugal, England and France. The first the slaves and introduced universal adult male colonies attracted immigrants looking to get rich quickly and return home, but they were soon however, died with his assassination.
followed by migrants whose primary goal was tocolonize.
America's trouncing of the Spaniards in 1898marked the USA's ascendancy as a superpower and woke the country out of its isolationist European settlement in St Augustine, Florida, in slumber. The US still did its best not to get its feet 1565; the French moved in on Maine in 1602, and dirty in WWI's trenches, but finally capitulated in Jamestown, Virginia, became the first British 1917, sending over a million troops to help sort settlement in 1607. The first Africans arrived as out the pesky Germans. Postwar celebrations 'indentured laborers' with the Brits a year prior to were cut short by Prohibition in 1920, which English Puritan pilgrims' escape of religious banned alcohol in the country. The 1929 stock- persecution. The pilgrims founded a colony at market crash signaled the start of the Great Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts, in 1620 and Depression and eventually brought about Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, which sought to lift the declaration of self-government that would later be echoed in the Declaration of Independence andthe US Constitution.
After the Japanese dropped in uninvited on PearlHarbor in 1941, the US played a major role in British attempts to assert authority in its 13 North American colonies led to the French and Indian dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 not War (1757-63). The British were victorious but only ended the war with Japan, but ushered in the nuclear age. The end of WWII segued into the balancing the budget, the tenacious Whitewater Cold War - a period of great domestic prosperity scandal and the Monica Lewinsky 'Fornigate' and a surface uniformity belied by paranoia and betrayal. Politicians like Senator Joe McCarthy concerns during the Clinton administration. In a bid to kickstart its then-ailing economy, the USA anticommunist flames, while the USSR and USA signed NAFTA, a free-trade agreement with stockpiled nuclear weapons and fought wars by Canada and Mexico in 1993, invaded Haiti in its proxy in Korea, Africa and Southeast Asia.
role as upholder of democracy in 1994, committed Tensions between the two countries reached their thousands of troops to peacekeeping operations peak in 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
in Bosnia in 1995, hosted the Olympics in 1996and enjoyed, over the next few years, the fruits of The 1960s was a decade of profound social The 2000 presidential election made history by discovery of sex, drugs and rock & roll. The Civil being the most tightly contested race in the Rights movement gained momentum in 1955 with nation's history. The Democratic candidate, Al a bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama. As a Gore, secured the majority of the popular vote but nonviolent mass protest movement, it aimed at lost the election when all of Florida's electoral breaking down segregation and regaining the vote college votes went to George W Bush, who was for disfranchised Southern blacks. The movement ahead of Gore in that state by only 500 votes.
peaked in 1963 with Martin Luther King Jr's 'I Demands for recounts, a ruling by the Florida have a dream speech' in Washington, DC, and Supreme Court in favor of partial recounts, and a the passage of the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act handful of lawsuits generated by both parties were brought to a halt when the US SupremeCourt split along party lines and ruled that all Meanwhile, America's youth were rejecting the recounts should cease. After five tumultuous conformity of the previous decade, growing their weeks, Bush was declared the winner.
hair long and smoking lots of dope. 'Tune in, turnon, drop out' was the mantra of a generation who The early part of Bush's presidency saw the US protested heavily (and not disinterestedly) against face international tension, with renewed violence the war in Vietnam. Assassinations of prominent in the Middle East, a spy-plane standoff with political leaders - John and Robert Kennedy, China and widespread global disapproval of US Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr - took a little foreign policy with regard to the environment. On gloss off the party, and the American troops mired the domestic front, a considerably weakened in Vietnam took off the rest. NASA's moon landing in 1969 did little to restore national pride.
policymakers. Whether the US can continue tohold onto its dominant position on the world stage In 1974 Richard Nixon became the first US and rejuvenate its economy remains to be seen.
president to resign from office, due to hisinvolvement in the cover-up of the Watergate Getting Around
burglaries, bringing American patriotism to a newlow. The 1970s and '80s were a period oftechnological The number of domestic airlines, competition on industrialism. Self image took a battering at the popular routes and frequent discounting makes proposition (though fares can be high on less A conservative backlash, symbolized by the popular routes). For a country that owes so much election and popular two-term presidency of actor to the penetration of railroads and has such a Ronald Reagan, sought to put some backbone in potent railroad mythology, traveling by train in the US can be surprisingly impractical and not always bullying its poor neighbors in Central America and comfortable. Ticket prices vary in value, but the the Caribbean, meddling in the affairs of El earlier you make a reservation, the cheaper the Salvador, Nicaragua, Panama and Grenada. The ticket. Greyhound has an extensive, cheap and collapse of the Soviet Bloc's 'Evil Empire' in 1991 efficient bus network, and traveling by bus left the US as the world's sole superpower, and enables you to meet the 35 other people stuck in the Gulf War in 1992 gave George Bush the representing a 'new world order' into battle America created the ultimate car culture, so don't be surprised by the fact that nearly everyone oflegal driving age has a car and uses it at every Domestic matters, such as health reform, gun possible opportunity. Anyone who has seen an ownership, drugs, racial tension, gay rights, American road movie will know that the country's highways are not only nifty ways to cover large phenomenon. It's basically a car delivery system that unites cars that need to be delivered over resonances. A road trip along Route 66, for long distances with willing drivers. If a car needs example, is no A to B from Chicago to Los delivering to a place you're prepared to go, you're Angeles - it's a pilgrimage along America's given insurance, a delivery date and a set of keys, 'mother road,' closely bound up with the history of America's expansionist West, the Dust Bowlrefugees and, of course, the sweet voice of Nat In rural areas, local bus services are often less than adequate. Urban public transportation isgenerally much better; catching the subway in The ubiquity of the automobile often means that New York, the El in Chicago and a cable car in local public transportation options are few and far San Francisco is as integral a part of the between, but the good news is that Americans American traveling experience as hopping on a tend to be casual with their car keys and far from double-decker bus in London. Cycling is an stingy with their vehicles, so if you're sticking increasingly popular way to travel around small around for a while you may well find wheels areas, since roads are good, shoulders are wide easier to borrow than you think. Rental cars are and cars generally travel at safe speeds. Walking is considered an un-American activity unless it agencies require you to be at least 25 years old.
takes place on hiking trails in national parks.

Source: http://www.apx.co.nz/portals/destinations/americas/USA.pdf