USA Holidays

New York City is a place that needs no introduction, but it always surprises first-time visitors with its intensity. Central Park is larger than expected. Broadway shows are better than their reputations. The view from the Empire State Building at dusk, as the city lights come on, is worth the queue. The food scene spans every cuisine on the planet, from a two-dollar slice of pizza to some of the most acclaimed restaurants in the world.

Beyond New York, the East Coast is packed with worthwhile stops. Boston has the Freedom Trail, some of America's best seafood, and a university-town energy. Niagara Falls is three hours from the city by car and still manages to impress, despite the tourist infrastructure surrounding it. Further south, Washington DC has world-class museums that are free to enter, including the Smithsonian complex. The Hamptons on Long Island and Newport, Rhode Island with its Gilded Age mansions offer elegant coastal escapes within a few hours of Manhattan.

California is a destination in its own right. Los Angeles has Hollywood, Santa Monica Pier, and a food scene that has overtaken its reputation for health-obsessed salads. San Francisco has the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz, steep streets lined with Victorian houses, and some of the best sourdough bread you will ever eat. Between the two, Highway 1 follows the Pacific coast through Big Sur, one of the most scenic drives anywhere.

Inland, Yosemite National Park has granite cliffs, giant sequoia trees, and waterfalls that drop hundreds of metres. Joshua Tree and Death Valley offer desert landscapes that feel like another planet. The wine regions of Napa Valley and Sonoma are within easy reach of San Francisco. San Diego, near the Mexican border, has year-round sunshine, excellent beaches, and the famous Balboa Park with its museums and gardens. A two-week California road trip is one of the great travel experiences.

Florida is the UK's favourite American state, and for good reason. Miami combines Art Deco architecture on South Beach, Cuban food in Little Havana, and a nightlife scene that runs until dawn. Orlando has the theme parks, and whatever your feelings about them, Walt Disney World and Universal Studios are extraordinary feats of engineering and imagination. The Florida Keys are a chain of small islands connected by bridges, ending at Key West, where Hemingway once lived and sunset celebrations happen nightly at Mallory Square.

The Deep South beyond Florida has its own distinct appeal. New Orleans has jazz clubs, Creole food, and an atmosphere unlike any other American city. The French Quarter feels more Caribbean than continental. Nashville is the home of country music, with live performances on every block of Broadway. Charleston in South Carolina has antebellum architecture, Lowcountry cuisine, and a genteel charm. This part of America is about food, music, and stories, and it is best explored at a slow pace.

Head to Crystal River on the Gulf Coast for one of Florida's most magical wildlife encounters, swimming with West Indian manatees in the warm spring-fed waters of Three Sisters Springs. January is peak season, when hundreds of manatees gather in the 22°C springs to escape the cooler Gulf waters. Snorkelling with these gentle giants in crystal-clear visibility is an experience unique to this stretch of Florida.

In the Florida Keys, venture beyond Key West to Dry Tortugas National Park, a cluster of seven islands 70 miles out in the Gulf of Mexico, accessible only by seaplane or high-speed ferry. The centrepiece is Fort Jefferson, the largest brick building in the Northern Hemisphere, a hexagonal Civil War-era fortress that once served as a military prison (its most famous inmate was Dr Samuel Mudd, convicted of conspiring in Lincoln's assassination). The surrounding waters offer some of the most pristine snorkelling in North America, with elkhorn coral, nurse sharks, and sea turtles in gin-clear water.

Florida's Space Coast centres on the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, where NASA launched every crewed Moon mission and now hosts SpaceX Falcon launches. Time your visit to coincide with a rocket launch for an unforgettable spectacle visible from beaches up to 12 miles away. Beyond the space programme, Cocoa Beach has excellent surf schools and a laid-back Atlantic coast vibe that contrasts with the Gulf side.

The Everglades, a vast subtropical wilderness covering 1.5 million acres at Florida's southern tip, is the only place on Earth where alligators and crocodiles coexist. Airboat rides skim across the sawgrass prairies, while kayak trails wind through mangrove tunnels. The ecosystem supports over 360 bird species, the endangered Florida panther, and the elusive American crocodile.

Art Basel Miami Beach (early December) has transformed Miami into one of the world's leading contemporary art destinations. For a week each year, the city explodes with gallery openings, public installations, and parties, the Wynwood Walls district is worth visiting year-round for its ever-changing street murals. On the Gulf side, Clearwater Beach and St Pete Beach consistently rank among America's best beaches for their powdery white quartz sand, while January's Gasparilla Pirate Festival in Tampa draws 300,000 revellers to watch a full-scale pirate ship "invade" the harbour.

America invented the road trip, and 2026 marks a landmark year: the Route 66 centennial kicks off in April from Springfield, Illinois, celebrating 100 years of the 2,400-mile "Mother Road" stretching from Chicago to Santa Monica. Expect centennial events, newly restored diners, and a wave of nostalgia along one of the world's most iconic driving routes.

The national parks are reason enough to visit. The Grand Canyon (277 miles long, up to 18 miles wide, over a mile deep) is a geological masterpiece best appreciated from the quieter North Rim or on a multi-day rafting trip through the Colorado River gorge. Yellowstone, the world's first national park, established in 1872, sits atop a supervolcano and contains more geysers than the rest of the world combined, along with free-roaming bison herds, grizzly bears, and wolves reintroduced in 1995.

Glacier National Park in Montana is one of America's wildest landscapes, 700 miles of hiking trails, 762 lakes, and the spectacular Going-to-the-Sun Road, a 50-mile engineering marvel carved into cliff faces at over 6,600 feet, which opens each summer depending on snowmelt (typically early July). Ecologists estimate the park's remaining glaciers could disappear entirely by 2030, making this a genuinely time-sensitive destination.

In autumn, New England erupts into colour as maple, birch, and oak forests turn crimson, amber, and gold. The Kancamagus Highway in New Hampshire (34.5 miles through the White Mountains) is considered the finest foliage drive in America, peak colour typically hits the first two weeks of October. Further south, the Great Smoky Mountains straddle Tennessee and North Carolina, attracting more visitors than any other national park (over 12 million annually) with misty peaks, black bears, and synchronous fireflies in June.

California's Napa Valley harvest season (August to October) is the ultimate wine country experience, over 400 wineries set against golden hills, with Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay tastings, hot air balloon rides at dawn, and Michelin-starred restaurants. Follow the Pacific Coast Highway south for one of the world's great coastal drives, connecting Big Sur, Hearst Castle, and Santa Barbara.

Travelfab encourages all visitors to follow Leave No Trace principles in America's national parks, pack out what you pack in, stay on marked trails, and respect wildlife viewing distances (at least 100 yards from bears and wolves in Yellowstone).

The FIFA World Cup 2026 comes to North America from June to July, with the USA hosting matches across 12 cities: Atlanta (Mercedes-Benz Stadium), Boston (Gillette Stadium), Dallas (AT&T Stadium), Houston (NRG Stadium), Kansas City (Arrowhead Stadium), Los Angeles (SoFi Stadium), Miami (Hard Rock Stadium), New York/New Jersey (MetLife Stadium), Philadelphia (Lincoln Financial Field), San Francisco (Levi's Stadium), and Seattle (Lumen Field). The final is expected at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey. This is the first World Cup with 48 teams and the first held across three countries (USA, Mexico, Canada), expect demand for flights and hotels to surge from early 2026.

Super Bowl LX takes place on 8 February 2026 at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, California, the San Francisco Bay Area's third time hosting the event. Beyond the game itself, the week-long festivities transform the Bay Area with fan experiences, concerts, and tailgate events.

The Route 66 centennial runs throughout 2026, with the biggest celebrations in April marking 100 years since the highway was first commissioned. Events span the eight states along the route: Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California.

In October, the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta fills the New Mexico sky with over 500 hot air balloons during nine days, the world's largest balloon festival, drawing nearly a million spectators. The mass ascension at dawn, when hundreds of balloons lift off simultaneously against the Sandia Mountains, is one of America's most photographed events.

January brings the Sundance Film Festival to Park City, Utah, the leading independent film festival in the world, founded by Robert Redford in 1978. For ten days, the mountain town of 8,000 swells to 70,000 as filmmakers, actors, and cinephiles descend for premieres, panels, and parties in the snow.