Stupid question but where do Americans go on holiday/vacation?

[Greenbeanmcgee]

Within the U.S I mean.

It's such an enormous and varied country. I'm trying to plan a trip to one State and the choice of places is overwhelming so I can't imagine having so many different States to choose from.

Where are the most popular places for vacation?

TIA

Most popular amongst my family are:

California
New York
Florida
Arizona or Texas
Washington (Pacific NorthWest)
Washington DC/Boston area

It really depends on what your interests are though.

I used to live in US when I was a kid. The places we went on holiday was,
when I was living in west coast, Yosemite/Arizona, when we lived in east coast, Florida/Hawaii/DC. But a lot of my friends went to holiday in Europe/Bahamas.

I think you need to decide what sort of holiday you want, where you can realistically fly into / out of, and how much time you have. I guess Americans holidaying at home is different to people who’ve travelled half way round the world to get there…..if they come to the U.K. they’re travel around and try to see as much as possible, whereas we’d go to one of those places and spend the week with r fortnight there. Same vice versa when they holiday at home. Do you want cities, countryside, historical attractions, theme parks, beaches??

I work with a lot of American colleagues and we shut our US offices for the week surrounding the 4th July to encourage them to take holiday - 85% of the people I’ve asked about their holiday plans are going to North Carolina to a beach house with family for a week or so

I’d start by thinking about what you’re interested in. Nature, mountains, beaches, hiking, wildlife, desert, cities, culture, theatre, food, shopping, theme parks, etc etc.

Honestly the US is quite fascinating, I’ve done a few long drives across it and some of my favourite bits have been the small (or large) towns we stopped in on the way.

Top for me so far have been San Francisco, and Santa Fe.

My American relatives go to the Texas coast, Florida and California.

I’d absolutely recommend doing some long distance driving, and fit in a national park (there are 63 of them so it’s not hard!).

Well if they're from southern cal they go to Napa.

One of my camp mates took her 3 kids to Paris.

Another camp (as in summer camp not effeminate) couple take their kids on incredible road trips. Last year was pacific NW, i think they've done California and NYC.

Branson, MO
Gatlinburg, TN

Lots of people do short trips rather than a long two week break - not all US companies allow you to take two weeks at once.

So the people I know go to local-ish National Parks (camping or hiking), to lake houses or cabins, or to Mexico or Puerto Rico, to various places in California, to Yosemite, to the PNW, or to Florida. Our friends are mostly on the West Coast already though, so a lot of these places are within driving distance (they are also willing to drive what seem like insane distances by UK standards).

Thanks all. I appreciate that distance, time and money are obviously factors but it's interesting to see what the most popular places/States are.

Virginia, North/ South Carolinas in my experience. Beautiful lush sunny and hot with sandy beaches and stunning natural forests.

Many people go on holiday to their nearest coast - so, living near DC where we are, people might go to one of the coastal areas near here (Rehoboth Beach, Bethany Beach) or a little further up or down (down - Outer Banks, NC - or up to Rhode Island or Maine). Some families have beach houses, where they go each year - our friends in Boston have a house on Martha's Vineyard, we have a place in Nantucket). We could spend the whole summer in Nantucket, but we also have membership at a lovely swimming and tennis club in our neighborhood, so if we are at our city home, we still swim or play tennis or pickle ball most evenings.
We've also go to Hawaii or to Florida (in the colder months).
For a country holiday, rather than the beach, we've been to places like Vermont, rural Virginia and West Virginia, and the Poconos in Pennsylvania (stay in a cabin in the woods, paddle or tube in the streams and hike). Again, families often own cabins there.
Families also often do road trips - we did a massive western one driving between national parks and staying a few days in each place (Yellowstone, Great Teton, Grand Canyon, Zions, Arches, Mesa Verde). Or families do an east coast "history" trip, seeing museums and the capital, plus other cities.
Our you might go to a charming city for a short city break. We've enjoyed Charleston, Savanah, and New Orleans.

When we lived the the Midwest the single most popular 'domestic' destination was definitely Florida.

The Caribbean was also popular. As was 'Europe' - quite literally all of Europe! I always marvelled at how much ground American friends were able to cover in just 10 or 14 days.

They go everywhere! The coasts are, of course, really popular, from Maine to Florida on the Atlantic coast and then Washington to California and Hawaii on the other side. National Parks are really popular. In winter people head to the bits that are warm and sunny - i.e. Florida, Arizona, California - or the ski areas in the northeast or the Rockies. The big cities are popular year-round for shopping, sightseeing, culture, food and fun. People will go to a specific place for a state fair or a music festival or a rodeo or whatever they're into. The US has every kind of landscape and attraction you could want. I have a friend who's been to all 50 states - I've been to 25 and I only lived there for six years.

I live in Florida and usually go to see my son in Pennsylvania. My co-workers, so far this past year, have gone to the Bahamas, Tennessee, Alaska, Bulgaria, London, and to various states where they have family. I used to live in North Carolina and it’s a very popular spot! Mountains, beaches, tourist attractions like gem mining.

Maine is a tourist hot spot too if you like lake side cabins, sailing, lobster, and gorgeous coastal towns.

My friends are all gamblers so Vegas and Atlantic city.

The religious friends of religious relatives (live in the Bible Belt) go to Pigeon forge or Florida or on cruises from Florida.
Or to China but that's usually when they are stealthily on missions.

Our family (west coast) goes to Eastern Washington (beautiful lake), northeastern WA (Nordic skiing), Hawaii, Europe. As kids we went to Colorado (skiing), Whistler (skiing), California, east coast, WA dc, Hawaii most years. Europe every few years plus all the places we go now. We love the outdoors and live in a beautiful state (we can get huge ocean sandy beaches, big mountains, hot on beautiful clear lakes etc) where we can get most types of weather/outdoor activities within a few hours. We went to the east coast for historical things and then Europe. Lots of people like Mexico too but we always went to Hawaii.

Depends where you live already and what you want to do.

Beach, mountains, lakes, city break, sporty holiday, main tourist attractions in places like New York or Washington DC. ??? Big tourism attractions like the Grand Canyon?

What type of culture - Nashville music scene, Las Vegas shows, Cuban or Mexican food/culture.

Or what type

I forgot to add that, in the winter (long Christmas break, or a little later in the year) we either go to Hawaii or some other "winter sun" destination (Aruba last time), or for skiing (either to Colorado or Utah or Whistler in Canada).

I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. We would holiday mostly in Lake Tahoe. In winter for skiing and summer for the lake.
Sometimes a bigger holiday would be Hawaii or Mexico. Smaller weekend away would be camping various lakes within 2-3 hours drive or maybe Yosemite.

Block Island is our all around favorite.

In the west coast, it depends where you live/where you are ok traveling to. A lot of people do Hawaii, Tahoe (mainly in winter), napa valley, Santa Barbara or San Diego. A lot of people love national parks for holidays, which hugely range like with Yellowstone or Zion. There is the "mecca" for families being disneyland in California or Florida. In the east coast, trips to Mexico are easy, or up to Rhode Island, Newport, upstate, the hamptons, even down to North/South carolina etc. Nashville can be a really fun time too. I know America gets a bad reputation for having people who don't travel, and the culture isn't as good as what is in Europe, but for the cost/time to travel I understand why a lot of US people with children spend their holidays locally vs flying across the pond.

Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge
Blue Ridge Parkway
Virginia Beach
Myrtle Beach

Pigeon Forge

Interesting to see that Pigeon Forge has been mentioned a few times. I associate it with Dollywood. Are there other attractions there?