United States Travel Guides: Wildlife Tourism

The United States is what happens when an entire country looks at the concept of “reasonable” and says: Nah. Make it fucking bigger.

Bigger cities. Bigger highways. Bigger mountains. Bigger pickup trucks. Bigger drinks. Bigger national parks. Bigger parking lots. Bigger restaurant portions delivered with complete sincerity to one human being.

America has apparently spent 250 years asking “but what if we added another lane?”

And honestly, that’s part of the fun.

You can stand beneath skyscrapers in New York, drive through the desert toward Las Vegas, watch the sun disappear into the Pacific in California, explore volcanoes in Hawaii, chase northern lights in Alaska or wander through landscapes in Utah that look like someone accidentally loaded another planet.

Then there are the wonderfully unnecessary things.

Abandoned military installations. Aircraft graveyards. Nuclear history. World’s-largest-whatever roadside attractions. Forgotten dams covered in graffiti. Random historical markers beside highways that suddenly turn a gas stop into an hour-long detour.

This is where America gets interesting.

The downside is distance.

Everything looks manageable until Google Maps announces your next destination is 1,147 miles away. Public transportation outside major cities can become theoretical, and eventually you’ll realize the classic American road trip is partly romantic nostalgia and partly sitting in a fucking car for nine hours.

But few countries offer this much variety.

The United States is huge, beautiful, weird, excessive and endlessly explorable.

Come for the famous shit.

Then take the wrong exit.

Because America gets considerably more interesting when the itinerary starts falling apart.