It seemed like the right moment to make the case for it. This series is going to spend most of its time pointing outward: that’s the whole idea. But before we get there, one post about what’s already here. Because the US is genuinely one of the great travel destinations on earth, and it doesn’t always get credit for that from the people who actually live in it.
The East: History, Cities, and the Shore
The eastern seaboard is where most of the country’s oldest stories live, and the World Cup is putting four American cities in this region on the global map this summer.
New York and New Jersey anchor the tournament’s biggest moment: MetLife Stadium is hosting the World Cup final on July 19, which means the greater New York area will be the center of the soccer world at the end of this thing. But New York doesn’t need a World Cup to justify a visit. It’s one of the few American cities that genuinely rivals the great world cities in terms of density of experience: food, culture, neighborhoods, energy. The argument isn’t that you should go to New York. The argument is that you should stay longer than you planned and actually see it.
Boston earns its place on the list for the same reason it keeps showing up on best-of lists: it’s walkable, historically rich, and compact enough to actually cover. The Freedom Trail, the waterfront, the neighborhoods that bleed into Cambridge. It’s a city that rewards slowing down.
The Union have been packing Subaru Park in Chester for years. Philadelphia has been a soccer city long before the World Cup arrived at Lincoln Financial Field.
Philadelphia gets a specific mention here because it’s home. Lincoln Financial Field is hosting World Cup matches this summer, and for anyone in the region who hasn’t taken a proper look at what the city offers beyond the obvious landmarks: the Reading Terminal Market alone is worth the trip. Old City, Fishtown, the Wissahickon. Philadelphia has been coming into its own as a travel destination for years and still gets underestimated.
Miami is its own category. It doesn’t look or feel like anything else in the country: part Caribbean, part Latin American, part American, all of it loud and colorful and alive at hours when other cities are asleep. Hard Rock Stadium hosts matches this summer, and the city around it will be buzzing.
The Middle: The Part America Forgets to Brag About
Travelers from both coasts tend to underestimate the middle of the country, which is a mistake.
Dallas and Houston anchor the south-central region, and Texas as a travel destination is genuinely underrated by people who haven’t spent time there. The Texas Hill Country, the stretch of limestone bluffs, spring-fed rivers, and small towns between Austin and San Antonio, is one of the most pleasant landscapes in the country for a road trip. The barbecue argument doesn’t need to be made at length. It’s some of the best food in America, and the places worth going to are almost never the ones that made a list.
Atlanta has emerged steadily as one of the more interesting American cities to visit. Mercedes-Benz Stadium is hosting nine World Cup matches this summer, more than any other venue, which means the city is going to see a lot of first-time visitors. The food scene, the music history, the BeltLine connecting neighborhoods that used to be disconnected: Atlanta keeps surprising people who show up with low expectations.
Kansas City sits at a crossroads, literally and culturally, and it does a few things better than almost anywhere. The jazz and blues history runs deep. The barbecue debate with Texas is genuine and worth investigating firsthand. And it’s the kind of city where the cost of a weekend still feels like 2015, which is increasingly rare.
The American road trip is underrated even among Americans.
The West: Gateway Cities to Bigger Things
The three western host cities share something in common: flying into any one of them and then driving out is often where the real trip begins.
Los Angeles is the entry point to Southern California: the coast, the desert, the Channel Islands, the mountains an hour from the beach. SoFi Stadium is hosting eight World Cup matches including the US opener. But the argument for Los Angeles isn’t really about Los Angeles. It’s about what you can reach from it. Big Sur to the north. Joshua Tree to the east. The Pacific Coast Highway in either direction.
San Francisco and the Bay Area anchor one of the most geographically dramatic regions in the country. Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara is the venue, but the draw is what surrounds it: Napa and Sonoma to the north, the Sierras to the east, Monterey and the coast to the south. San Francisco itself remains one of the most distinctive American cities in terms of character and feel.
Seattle is the sleeper pick on this list. The city itself: Pike Place, the waterfront, the neighborhoods, is genuinely worth time. But it’s also the gateway to the Pacific Northwest, which makes an argument for itself that doesn’t require any help. The Cascades, the Olympic Peninsula, the San Juan Islands, the drive up toward the Canadian border. If you haven’t spent time in that part of the country, this summer is as good an excuse as any to fix that.
Beyond the Host Cities
The host cities are the frame, not the whole picture. The US has something no other country has in the same form or scale: the national park system.
Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon, Zion, Glacier, the Great Smoky Mountains, Acadia, Olympic, Joshua Tree. These are world-class natural destinations that happen to be domestic. Americans tend to take them for granted the way New Yorkers don’t go to the Statue of Liberty. The rest of the world doesn’t take them for granted: international visitors make long trips specifically to see places that are a few hours’ drive for most Americans.
Places that are a few hours’ drive for most Americans are destination trips for the rest of the world.
The mountain west deserves its own mention. Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, Montana: the stretch of the country that runs along the Rockies is some of the most spectacular landscape on earth. Road trippable, genuinely varied, and the kind of terrain that makes you recalibrate your sense of scale. A dude ranch stay is one of the best ways to actually get into it.
Shenandoah is a few hours from most of the East Coast. See more of our own family trips on our Firsthand Knowledge page.
The American road trip as a format is underrated even among Americans. The country is built for it: the distances are long enough to feel like real travel, the regional differences are sharp enough to feel genuinely foreign from one state to the next, and the infrastructure for moving through it is second to none.
What the World Cup Reminds Us
Fans are going to arrive in our cities from places that don’t look or feel anything like here. They’re going to walk our streets and eat our food and try to make sense of what this country actually is.
Not the version they’ve seen on a screen. The real one: complicated, enormous, varied, genuinely surprising. It’s worth seeing it through that lens for a minute.
The next posts in this series are going to point outward. But the host country deserved a moment first. The US is a remarkable place to travel, and the World Cup being played from coast to coast this summer is a reasonable reminder of exactly that.
Ready to Explore Your Own Backyard?
Whether it’s a national park circuit, a coastal road trip, or building a trip around the World Cup itself, Jennifer can help put together something worth doing. Our itinerary advisor is a good place to start.
