Places

A guide per place rather than a simple journal: history and origins, things to do, anecdotes and practical tips to plan your itinerary — with a rating to know whether it's worth the detour and how much time to allow.

All places

81 placesWe've visited it

New York★★★★★

New York: the city that never sleeps, between skyscrapers and museums

From the Statue of Liberty to Central Park by way of Times Square, New York looks just like it does in the films, and you need several days to get around it.

California★★★★☆

Los Angeles: Hollywood, Griffith Observatory and the Pacific beaches

A huge city with no real centre: the Hollywood Sign, Griffith Observatory, Santa Monica beach and the Venice canals, provided you choose your neighbourhoods well.

Nevada★★☆☆☆

Las Vegas: the Strip, its neon lights and the desert all around

An Eiffel Tower, a pyramid and dancing fountains in the middle of the desert: you either love it or soon have enough. The finest landscapes begin half an hour from the Strip.

Washington D.C.★★★★☆

Washington, D.C.: the federal capital and its free museums

A city designed to be a capital: the Capitol, the Lincoln Memorial, the White House and 17 free Smithsonian museums around the National Mall.

California★★★★☆

San Francisco: the Golden Gate, Alcatraz and hills beside the bay

A city of hills set beside a bay, with an orange bridge, a prison on an island, sea lions on a dock and fog in the middle of summer.

Florida★★★★☆

Miami: Art Deco, Latin culture and Atlantic beaches

The pastel façades and neon lights of South Beach, the Cuban cafés of Little Havana, the quiet beaches of Key Biscayne: there is more to Miami than its beach.

California★★★☆☆

Big Sur: 145 km of cliffs between the mountains and the Pacific

The most beautiful stretch of Highway One: a road clinging to the cliffs, a postcard bridge, a waterfall that drops onto a beach and redwoods beside the ocean.

California★★★★★

Highway One: the Californian coast road, from San Francisco to Los Angeles

More than 1,000 km along the Pacific: cliffs, beaches, elephant seals, smart little towns and, in the middle, the bends of Big Sur.

Utah★★★★★

Zion: on the canyon floor, between the Narrows and Angels Landing

A narrow canyon between 600-metre cliffs, which you travel by shuttle and then on foot: along the ridge of Angels Landing or in the river through the Narrows.

Florida★★★★★

Florida Keys: 180 km of road above the ocean, all the way to Key West

One road, 42 bridges and the sea on both sides: the Overseas Highway hops from island to island, from the Seven Mile Bridge to the wooden houses of Key West.

Arizona★★★★★

Grand Canyon: the South Rim, from viewpoint to viewpoint

A canyon 446 km long and more than 1,600 metres deep, which you discover from the South Rim, one viewpoint after another. Even half a day is enough to remember it for a long time.

Wyoming · Montana · Idaho★★★★★

Yellowstone: geysers, bison and springs of every colour

The world's first national park, sitting on a volcano: geysers, multicoloured hot springs, a yellow canyon and bison in the middle of the road.

Wyoming★★★★★

Grand Teton: sheer peaks above the lakes and the plain

A range of jagged peaks rising abruptly above a flat valley, with glacial lakes at its feet. Yellowstone's neighbour, smaller and more alpine.

California★★★★★

Yosemite: a valley of granite, waterfalls and great hikes

A glacial valley lined with cliffs nearly 1,000 metres high, some of the tallest waterfalls in the world, and trails that climb all the way to the top of them.

Utah★★★★★

Moab: the base for Arches, Canyonlands and the Colorado River

A small town in the Utah desert, ten minutes from Arches and an hour from Canyonlands, surrounded by red cliffs, tracks and trails.

Illinois · Missouri · Kansas · …★★★☆☆

Route 66: from Chicago to Santa Monica, America's legendary road

The most famous road in the United States, from Chicago to Santa Monica: 3,940 km, eight states, neon-lit motels and villages that have stayed in the 1950s.

Arizona★★★★☆

Sedona: red rocks, trails and vortexes

A small Arizona town set among red sandstone buttes, with short, spectacular hikes, art galleries and spiritual tourism.

California★★★★☆

Joshua Tree: giant boulders and Joshua trees between two deserts

Enormous granite boulders, thousands of Joshua trees with twisted branches and cacti as far as the eye can see, two and a half hours from Los Angeles.

Arizona★★★★☆

Page: Antelope Canyon, Horseshoe Bend and Lake Powell

A small Arizona town surrounded by sights we have all seen in photos: the orange walls of Antelope Canyon, the bend of Horseshoe Bend and Lake Powell.

Utah★★★★★

Bryce Canyon: an orange stone army at the edge of the plateau

Thousands of orange rock spires packed tightly together, which you look at from above before walking down among them.

Utah★★★★★

Arches: more than 2,000 sandstone arches under the open sky

The highest concentration of stone arches in the world, including Delicate Arch, the symbol of Utah. A compact park, ten minutes from Moab.

Utah★★★★☆

Capitol Reef: Utah's quietest national park

Red, grey and white cliffs along a 160 km fold of rock, pioneer orchards in the middle of the desert, and far fewer people than at Zion or Arches.

California★★★★☆

Death Valley: salt, dunes and the lowest point in North America

A vast desert of salt flats, dunes and hills in every colour. Superb from October to April, dangerous at the height of summer.

California★★★★☆

Sequoia: at the foot of the biggest trees in the world

A forest of giant sequoias at an altitude of 2,000 metres, including General Sherman, the biggest tree in the world, and a granite dome you climb by a staircase.

Utah★★★★☆

Canyonlands: canyons as far as the eye can see, viewed from above

Utah's largest national park: a maze of canyons carved by the Colorado and the Green River, which you look down on from the Island in the Sky plateau.

California★★★☆☆

Kings Canyon: General Grant and a canyon deeper than the Grand Canyon

Sequoia's neighbour, in two parts: the sequoias of Grant Grove, open all year, and a granite canyon at the end of a road that only opens in the warmer months.

Florida★★★★☆

Everglades: the "river of grass" where alligators and crocodiles live side by side

A vast plain of grass and water in southern Florida, where you come across alligators a few metres from the path. It is also the only place in the world where they share their home with crocodiles.

Utah · Arizona★★★★★

Monument Valley: the red buttes of Navajo country

Red sandstone buttes on a vast plain, on Navajo land: the Western backdrop everyone has in mind, best seen at sunrise.

Arizona★★☆☆☆

Canyon de Chelly: a Navajo canyon that is still lived in

A red sandstone canyon on Navajo land, inhabited for 5,000 years and still farmed today. You look at it from above for free, and go down into it with a guide.

Idaho★★★★☆

Craters of the Moon: an ocean of black lava in Idaho

Frozen lava flows as far as the eye can see, black cinder cones and tunnels to explore by torchlight. The landscape where the Apollo astronauts came to train.

Utah★★★★★

Valley of the Gods: a Monument Valley without the crowds

The same red buttes as Monument Valley, half an hour's drive away, but with no ticket booth, no guide and almost nobody around.

California · Nevada★★★★☆

Lake Tahoe: the blue jewel between California and Nevada

A large mountain lake of deep blue, at an altitude of 1,900 metres, between California and Nevada. Beaches, coves and trails in summer, and skiing in winter.

Tennessee · North Carolina★★★★☆

Great Smoky Mountains: the most visited national park in the United States

Wooded, misty mountains between Tennessee and North Carolina, with waterfalls, black bears and old farmsteads. The most visited national park in the country.

Colorado★★★★★

Rocky Mountain: the highest road in America and elk in the valley

The high mountains of Colorado, 1 hr 30 from Denver: a road that climbs to more than 3,700 metres, alpine lakes, elk and 4,000-metre summits.

Maine★★★★★

Acadia: the rocky coast of Maine, between ocean and granite

A granite island on the coast of Maine: cliffs pounded by the Atlantic, rounded summits, lakes and 72 km of car-free roads.

Washington★★★★★

Olympic: three radically different ecosystems in a single park

Three parks in one, in the north-west of Washington State: glacier-clad mountains, a rainforest draped in moss and a wild coast studded with rocks.

Virginia★★★★☆

Shenandoah: Skyline Drive along the crest of the Blue Ridge Mountains

A long ridge road through the wooded mountains of Virginia, with overlooks at every bend, waterfalls and black bears, 1 hr 30 from Washington.

Montana★★★★★

Glacier: the Crown of the Continent, before its glaciers disappear

Ice-carved peaks, turquoise lakes and a legendary mountain road, in northern Montana. One of the finest hiking parks in the country.

Ohio★★★☆☆

Cuyahoga Valley: the national park born of a river that caught fire

A green valley between Cleveland and Akron, in Ohio: a river, an old canal, waterfalls and trails, in a free and unpretentious national park.

Indiana★★★☆☆

Indiana Dunes: the science of ecology was born on these dunes

24 km of beaches and dunes on the shore of Lake Michigan, an hour from Chicago, wedged between steelworks. A park that is surprisingly rich in plants and birds.

Arkansas★★★☆☆

Hot Springs: a national park in the heart of a spa town

A small spa town in Arkansas, with its row of early 20th-century bathhouses and springs at 62°C. A national park right on the street, where you come to bathe.

Missouri★★★☆☆

Gateway Arch: the smallest (and most controversial) of the national parks

A 192-metre steel arch beside the Mississippi, in St. Louis, recalling the conquest of the West. The smallest national park in the country, and the most urban.

West Virginia★★★★☆

New River Gorge: one of the oldest rivers in the world, beneath a dizzying bridge

A wooded gorge 300 metres deep, in West Virginia, spanned by a spectacular steel bridge. The meeting place for rafting and climbing enthusiasts.

Hawaii★★★★★

Hawaii Volcanoes: walking on an island that is still being formed

Two of the most active volcanoes in the world on the Big Island of Hawaii: steaming craters, frozen lava flows down to the ocean and, on some days, molten lava.

Washington★★★★★

Mount Rainier: the giant volcano that towers over Seattle

A 4,392-metre volcano covered in glaciers, visible from Seattle, surrounded by flower meadows, waterfalls and old-growth forests.

California★★★★★

Redwood: walking among the tallest trees in the world

The tallest trees in the world, on the north coast of California: redwoods more than 100 metres high in the fog, giant ferns and wild beaches.

South Dakota★★★★☆

Badlands: a lunar landscape sculpted by erosion, rich in fossils

Striped hills, spires and clay ravines in the middle of the South Dakota prairie, with bison, prairie dogs and fossils everywhere.

North Dakota★★★☆☆

Theodore Roosevelt: the North Dakota badlands that forged a president

Striped hills, bison and wild horses in North Dakota, where the future President Roosevelt came to live as a cowboy. A very quiet park.

Arizona★★★☆☆

Saguaro: the forest of giant cacti that frames Tucson

Thousands of giant cacti with raised arms, on either side of the city of Tucson. The backdrop to every western, a few minutes from downtown.

Hawaii★★★★☆

Haleakalā: watching the sun rise from a sleeping volcano

A 3,000-metre volcano on the island of Maui, with a crater of red cinders at the summit and a coast of waterfalls and bamboo at the very bottom.

Alaska★★★★☆

Glacier Bay: the best-documented glacial retreat in the world

An Alaskan fjord where giant glaciers drop into the sea, among whales and sea lions. Most visitors discover it from a ship.

U.S. Virgin Islands★★★★☆

Virgin Islands: dream beaches given by a Rockefeller

A Caribbean island that is two-thirds protected: white-sand beaches, turquoise water, turtles, corals and the ruins of sugar cane plantations.

New Mexico★★★★☆

White Sands: sledding down the largest gypsum dunes in the world

A desert of dunes as white as snow, in southern New Mexico. The largest gypsum dunefield in the world, where you walk barefoot and go sledding.

Kentucky★★★★☆

Mammoth Cave: the longest known cave system in the world

The longest known cave system in the world, beneath the hills of Kentucky: nearly 700 km of passages, which you discover with a ranger on tours of one to six hours.

South Dakota★★★☆☆

Wind Cave: the cave that breathes, sacred to the Lakota

A labyrinthine cave beneath the South Dakota prairie, famous for its stone lacework, and above ground bison, elk and prairie dogs.

Oregon★★★★★

Crater Lake: the deepest lake in the United States, born of a collapsed volcano

A deep blue lake at the bottom of a collapsed volcano, in the mountains of Oregon. The deepest in the United States, ringed by a rim road.

Texas★★★★☆

Big Bend: the Texan desert where the Rio Grande draws the border

A desert, a mountain range and the canyons of the Rio Grande, at the far end of Texas, on the Mexican border. Immense, remote and almost empty.

Alaska★★★★★

Denali: the highest peak in North America

The highest peak in North America, in the middle of an immense tundra where grizzlies, wolves and caribou live. You enter by bus, on a single road.

California★★★☆☆

Lassen Volcanic: the planet's four types of volcano in a single park

A volcano that is still hot in northern California, surrounded by bubbling mud pots, steam vents and mountain lakes. A small Yellowstone without the crowds.

Florida★★★☆☆

Biscayne: a national park that is 95% underwater, on Miami's doorstep

A national park almost entirely underwater, 45 minutes from Miami: a turquoise bay, mangroves, islands and the start of Florida's coral reef.

Colorado★★★★★

Mesa Verde: the cliff dwellings of the Ancestral Puebloans

Entire villages built beneath the cliffs 800 years ago, in south-west Colorado. The largest group of cliff dwellings in the United States.

Colorado★★★★☆

Great Sand Dunes: the tallest dunes in North America, at the foot of the Rockies

The tallest dunes in North America, at the foot of snow-capped mountains in Colorado, with a creek flowing at their feet in spring.

Alaska★★★★☆

Kenai Fjords: the icefield that feeds 38 glaciers

A giant icefield spilling its glaciers into the sea, in southern Alaska. You approach it on foot via a glacier, or by boat among whales and puffins.

New Mexico★★★★★

Carlsbad Caverns: an underground world and the flight of hundreds of thousands of bats

A gigantic cave beneath the New Mexico desert, which you walk down into to a depth of 230 metres, and hundreds of thousands of bats that fly out of it every summer evening.

California★★★☆☆

Pinnacles: towers of volcanic rock where California condors soar

The remains of an old volcano in central California: rock spires, talus caves to walk through by torchlight and condors soaring overhead.

Arizona★★★☆☆

Petrified Forest: a 200-million-year-old forest turned to stone

Tree trunks turned to multicoloured stone more than 200 million years ago, scattered across a desert of striped hills, in Arizona.

South Carolina★★★☆☆

Congaree: the last great old-growth hardwood forest of the Southeast

The largest old-growth hardwood forest in the Southeast, standing in water: bald cypresses, giant trees and a boardwalk for walking with dry feet.

Colorado★★★★☆

Black Canyon of the Gunnison: a chasm so narrow the sun barely gets in

A narrow, dark and dizzying canyon in western Colorado: sheer walls 600 to 800 metres high, which you look at from a series of overlooks.

Minnesota★★★★☆

Voyageurs: the national park where 40% of the land is water

A maze of lakes, islands and forests on the Canadian border, in northern Minnesota. A park you discover by boat, on the route of the old fur traders.

California★★★★☆

Channel Islands: the Californian Galápagos, a world apart

Five wild islands off the coast of Southern California, with no roads or hotels, but with cliffs, sea caves and a fox found nowhere else.

Texas★★★☆☆

Guadalupe Mountains: the highest point in Texas, an ancient fossil reef

The roof of Texas: a range of dry mountains that is in fact an ancient marine reef, with canyons, white dunes and a great deal of wind.

Nevada★★★☆☆

Great Basin: absolute solitude among caves, ancient pines and starry skies

A mountain nearly 4,000 metres high in the middle of the Nevada desert, with caves, pines several thousand years old and one of the darkest skies in the country.

Florida★★★★☆

Dry Tortugas: a 19th-century fort alone in the open sea, 110 km from anything

A huge brick fort set on an islet, 110 km off Key West, in the middle of turquoise water. You can only get there by boat or seaplane.

Alaska★★★★★

Wrangell-St. Elias: the largest national park in the United States

The largest national park in the United States, in Alaska: four mountain ranges, giant glaciers and a mining ghost town at the end of a 100 km gravel road.

Washington★★★★☆

North Cascades: more glaciers than all the other US parks put together

Jagged peaks, hundreds of glaciers and lakes of a milky turquoise, three hours from Seattle. A wild, high-mountain park with almost no visitors.

American Samoa★★★☆☆

American Samoa: the only national park in the southern hemisphere

Three volcanic islands in the South Pacific, covered in tropical forest and fringed with reefs. The most distant national park in the United States, and one of the least visited.

Alaska★★★★★

Katmai: the highest concentration of brown bears in the world

The park of Alaska's brown bears: at Brooks Falls, they catch salmon in mid-leap, a few metres from the boardwalks. You can only get there by floatplane.

Michigan★★★★☆

Isle Royale: the most peaceful island in the national parks

A wild island in the middle of Lake Superior, with no cars, but with moose, wolves and trails. You arrive by boat or seaplane, and stay for several days.

Alaska★★★★☆

Lake Clark: Dick Proenneke's cabin, among volcanoes, glaciers and brown bears

Volcanoes, glaciers, turquoise lakes and brown bears on the beaches, an hour's flight from Anchorage. Alaska in a nutshell, with almost no visitors.

Alaska★★★★☆

Gates of the Arctic: no roads, no trails, no visitors

The wildest and least visited national park in the United States: mountains and rivers north of the Arctic Circle, without a single road or trail.

Alaska★★★☆☆

Kobuk Valley: sand dunes above the Arctic Circle

Sand dunes north of the Arctic Circle, a river crossed by tens of thousands of caribou, and no road to get there.