Looking for a destination to travel to this winter or have a couple that want some unique suggestions? Check out the top ten travel destinations below. You will find that one is very close to home!
- Louisville, Kentucky: Louisville has asserted itself as a lively, offbeat cultural mecca on the Ohio River. New Louisville, also known as the East Market District or NuLu, features converted warehouses used as local breweries, antique shops and the city’s coolest restaurants.
- Fairbanks, Alaska: The sensation of seeing Arctic skies crackle with smoky blues, greens and reds has long drawn off-season travelers way north. 2013 has been big, marking the end of a fiery 11-year-cycle, when sunspots are particularly feisty, making for a big show in the Fairbanks sky 240 nights a year.
- San Juan Islands, Washington: Proudly home to a decidedly un-Pacific Northwest-like 250 days of sunshine a year, the San Juan Islands have always gone for self-sufficiency. You’ll find fresh, fresh food, with local artichokes and marionberries from farmer’s markets, seafood plates of oysters, razor clams and freshly caught salmon.
- Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Philadelphia is becoming known as an art capital. In addition to the world-renowned Philadelphia Museum of Art, the formerly remote the Barnes Foundation, a once private collection of Matisse, Renoir and Cézanne, has a new central location. And it’s not just the big museums – Philly’s gallery scene is exploding with new venues like the Icebox garnering international attention and turning the Northern Liberties and Fishtown neighborhoods into the new hot arts hub.
- American Samoa: From the US mainland, American Samoa is a longer trek than Hawaii, but the distance rewards the visitor with some of the most stunning, untouched beauty of the Pacific and a national park that even the most ardent park system fans won’t have checked off their list yet.
- Eastern Sierra, California: This year, hop past Yosemite – just beyond lies the secret California dream: the Eastern Sierra, the overlooked flank of the Sierra Nevada range, with other-worldly natural attractions and surprises (Basque culture?), not to mention far fewer visitors. Just follow the scenic US Route 395 as it connects wonders like the Travertine hot spring in Bridgeport, the Gold Rush ghost town of Bodie, Mono Lake‘s bizarre calcified tufa towers, or the surreal Devils Postpile National Monument‘s 60-foot curtain of basalt columns made from rivers of molten lava
- Northern Maine: Maine isn’t only lobster rolls, lighthouses and rocky shoreline. The woodsy interior, on the top half of Maine ‘thumb’ reaching north to the Canada border, makes for a wilderness adventure. The Appalachian Trail begins/ends atop Mt Katahdin (which literally means ‘Mt Great Mountain’) in primitive Baxter State Park, with 200,000 acres of lakes and mountains to reach by hiking boot.
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Twin Cities, Minnesota: Lake Wobegon might be ‘the little town that time forgot, and the decades cannot improve,’ but time has been much kinder to the Twin Cities, Minneapolis and St Paul. Minneapolis is often called the country’s best bike city and the Nice Ride bike-share system with its web of new bike lanes proves the point. The St Anthony Falls Heritage Trail is a 2-mile path along the banks of the Mississippi River.
- Verde Valley, Arizona: Between Phoenix and the Grand Canyon, the Verde Valley is taking off as Arizona’s go-to destination, and not just among the spa and crystal Sedona fans of years past. The Verde Valley region is beautiful, with green canyons rimmed by red rocks, and towns like Cottonwood, Jerome and Sedona that have long drawn visitors for good food, art and mining lore.
- Glacier National Park, Montana: One of the country’s wildest, most remote and pristine national parks, Glacier is everyone’s favorite national park who’s been. Its jagged, snow-blanketed ridges and glacier-sculpted horns tower dramatically over aquamarine lakes and meadows blanketed in wildflowers.
Check out Lonely Planets Top 10 US Travel Destinations
