How many of the USA’s unique landmarks have you ticked off your list? Here are some of the USA’s most amazing places for you to discover, some classics, others more unusual.
The Statue of Liberty, right, viewed from the Staten Island Ferry has stood guard over New York Harbour from Liberty Island since 1886.
Seattle's striking Space Needle was built for the 1962 World’s Fair in this city, the largest city in Washington State.
Tuck in in Tuscon, Arizona – it’s the USA’s first UNESCO World City of Gastronomy. Dating back 4,000, the city’s rich culinary heritage takes in Mexican and Native American cuisine. The city’s imaginative chefs source sustainably and use indigenous ingredients including chiltepins, cholla buds, prickly pear syrup, mesquite flour, tepary beans, and White Sonoran wheat in creative concoctions.
The new Frank Lloyd Wright trail self-drive route visits some of the esteemed architect’s best-known creations across Wisconsin, or find iconic buildings including Falling Water, in Pennsylvania.
Get awesome views from the newly realigned Skyline Trail at Chimney Rock Park in North Carolina, which leads visitors all the way up to the top of the 404-foot-high Hickory Nut Falls. On the way up, hike to the top of 535-million-year-old granite outcropping Chimney Rock, pictured left, for spectacular views over the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Washington DC's National Mall encompasses more than 1,000 acres of green spaces, as well as several notable monuments.
It took 400 workers 14 years to sculpt the 60ft-high faces of four U.S. presidents at
South Dakota’s Mount Rushmore.
The famously-cracked Liberty Bell in
Philadelphia is arguably the most powerful symbol of America’s independence and history.
Get a glimpse into the USA’s origins in Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado, a preserved prehistoric settlement of the Ancestral Puebloan culture, which dates from about 450 to 1300AD. It’s considered by 24 American Indian nations as their ancestral home and was the first USA National Park dedicated to preserve the works of man. It’s home to more than 5,000 archaeological sites including 600 cliff dwellings. One of them, Cliff Palace, pictured right, is the largest cliff dwelling in North America and has 150 rooms and 23 ceremonial buildings.
Walk or cycle over San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge then catch the ferry back from Sausalito.
Garden of the Gods covers more than 3,300 acres of forest throughout southeastern Illinois, the natural rock sculptures chiseled by the rain into rock dating back 320 million years.
It’s hard to imagine a more dramatic backdrop for a concert than the Red Rocks amphitheatre, left. Set in the extraordinary Red Rocks park just outside Denver, Colorado, Red Rocks amphitheatre has set the stage for live music, festivals and even Yoga on the Rocks, where 2,000 yoga fans work out in this awe-inspiring venue.
Made famous after featuring in Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Devil’s Tower in Wyoming is one of the USA’s most distinctive geographical landmarks. This extraordinary monolith in the Black Hills is considered sacred by Northern Plains Indians and indigenous people. Its distinctive parallel cracks which divide it into large hexagonal columns, make it one of the best climbing spots in the USA.
[Photo credits:
NYCGo, Visit North Carolina, Visit Colorado, Denver Arts & Venues, photo by Stevie Crecelius]