A day out in America runs $19 to $239. Here is what each one buys.
Whether the Vanderbilt deck beats the Empire State. What a Navajo guide charges to walk you into Antelope Canyon. Which New Orleans ghost walk is worth the twenty-eight dollars. Reviews of the tours you can actually book, coast to coast.
- Under $50Tickets, decks and the walking tours.
- 9/11 Memorial & Museum Timed-Entry Ticketfrom $25
- $50 to $99Half-day cruises, food walks, carriage rides.
- Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island Tour: All Optionsfrom $69
- $100 and upThe canyon runs and the whole-day drives.
- Grand Canyon West, Hoover Dam Stop and Optional Lunch and Skywalkfrom $109
A night on New York Harbor, a ghost walk in New Orleans, a slot canyon, a whale.
Four bookings that carry a first American trip, spread across four corners of the country. What each costs, and what the people who took it say.
01The first eveningCircle Line 2h Harbor Lights Cruise Skip-The-Box-OfficeNinety minutes out of Pier 83 with the bridges and a lit Statue of Liberty going past. The cheapest good view of Manhattan.
02The night walkNew Orleans Premier Ghost, Voodoo and Vampire Walking TourCemeteries, voodoo and the French Quarter after dark, on foot with a guide who lives there. Under thirty dollars.
03The desert morningLower Antelope Canyon Entry and Navajo Guided TourNavajo guides walk you down into Lower Antelope Canyon. You cannot go in alone, and the light hits the floor around midday.
04The whale seasonMaui Eco-Raft Tour: Eye-Level Whale or Dolphin Watching – LahainaAn eye-level raft off Lahaina between December and April, when the humpbacks come down from Alaska to calve.
The American city is a walking city for exactly three hours.
New Orleans, Savannah, Charleston, Boston and Salem all sell the same shape of afternoon: a guide, a loop of a few blocks, and the stories the buildings will not tell you themselves. Three kinds of walk, and what it costs to join each one.
Six American cities that fill a long weekend on their own.
A harbor, a desert strip with a canyon behind it, a French Quarter, an island, a bay and a beach. Pick the one your flight lands in, and take the best day out in it.
The tours more Americans and visitors book than any others.
Every American tour we have reviewed →Ticketed decks, a river cruise, a canyon and a night walk. The ones that carry the most travellers, and what earns each of them the slot.
1
SUMMIT One Vanderbilt Tickets
Review of SUMMIT One Vanderbilt in NYC, with mirror rooms, glass skyboxes, skyline views, timing tips, value advice, and practical details.
From · $47
Read our review →
2
9/11 Memorial & Museum Timed-Entry Ticket
from $25
3
Empire State Building Tickets – Observatory & Museum
from $47
4
Empire State Building Observation Deck Tickets
from $48
5
Edge Observation Deck Admission Ticket
from $39
6
Grand Canyon West, Hoover Dam Stop and Optional Lunch and Skywalk
from $109
7
Statue of Liberty & Ellis Island with Ferry
from $19
8
Oahu Grand Circle Island and Haleiwa Tour: 9-Hr Deluxe Experience
from $140
America has two oceans, five lakes and a swamp, and sells a boat on all of them.
Manatees in a Florida spring you can swim beside. Humpbacks off Maui and Juneau. Green turtles on an Oahu reef. An airboat through sawgrass south of Miami. The country reads differently from the water, and mostly cheaper.
Three things you cannot book anywhere else.
Skylines and boat trips exist everywhere. A city that sells five competing views of itself, a spring where you are allowed in the water beside a manatee, and a flat-bottomed boat with an aircraft engine on the back do not.
Five views of one skyline
Manhattan now sells the Empire State, Top of the Rock, One World, Edge and SUMMIT, and they are genuinely not the same product. Top of the Rock is the one that puts the Empire State in your photograph. Edge hangs off the side of Hudson Yards with a glass floor. SUMMIT is closer to an art installation than a viewing platform. Book the one whose picture you actually want.
- 1Empire State Building Observation Deck Tickets★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 22,072 reviews
- 2Edge Observation Deck Admission Ticket★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 20,918 reviews
- 3Top of the Rock Observation Deck Ticket★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 14,488 reviews
The only legal manatee swim in the country
Manatees winter in the warm springs an hour north of Tampa, and Citrus County is the one place in the United States where people are permitted in the water with them. The rules are strict and worth reading: you float, you do not chase, and you never touch first. Boats leave before dawn because the animals are calmest then and the springs are empty.
- 1Most Popular 3hr Manatee Swim Tour + In-Water Guide!★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 2,782 reviews
- 2Manatee Sightseeing and Wildlife Boat Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 2,590 reviews
- 3The ‘OG’ Manatee Snorkel Tour with In-Water Guide/Photographer★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 2,539 reviews
An aircraft engine on a flat-bottomed boat
An airboat draws a couple of inches of water, which is how it crosses sawgrass and cypress swamp that would ground anything with a propeller. Out of New Orleans the runs go into the bayous south and west of the city, alligators in summer, birdlife all year, and ear defenders handed out at the dock for a reason.
- 1New Orleans Swamp and Bayou Boat Tour with Transportation★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 5,399 reviews
- 2New Orleans Airboat Ride★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 4,891 reviews
- 3Swamp Boat Ride and Oak Alley Plantation Tour from New Orleans★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 3,303 reviews
The best American days are four hours from a runway.
Vegas is three hours from the Grand Canyon rim. San Francisco is four from Yosemite granite. Page sits between a slot canyon and Horseshoe Bend. Fly into the city, then drive out of it: that is how most of this country gets seen.
Four American bookings that will not wait for you to land.
Most of this country can be sorted from a hotel lobby the night before. These four cannot. They run on tribal permits, ferry manifests, timed entry and a boat that leaves whether or not you are on it.
- 01Lower Antelope Canyon Entry and Navajo Guided TourThe canyon sits on Navajo land and you cannot walk in unguided. Permits are capped per operator per slot, and the midday beams go first.
- 02Alcatraz Ticket, Ferry, & Self-Guided AppOne ferry operator runs the island and tickets are released on a rolling window. In summer they are gone long before the week you want.
- 03Salute to Pearl Harbor Including USS ArizonaThe USS Arizona programme runs to a fixed boat schedule with a set number of seats a day. Walk-up tickets are usually gone by breakfast.
- 049/11 Memorial & Museum Timed-Entry TicketEntry to the memorial museum is timed to the half hour and capped. Turn up without a slot and you queue for whatever is left.
August in Phoenix, February in Chicago, a hurricane watch in Florida.
This is a country with real weather, and the good answer is rarely to stand in it. Every American city keeps a wet-day plan: a museum you could spend a day in, a deck above the cloud, a theater, a kitchen. Book these when the forecast turns.
Start with the airport you land at
Boston to Washington, the trip almost every first-timer takes.
Boston
Philadelphia
Washington DCNewest on the site, from Moab to Pike Place.
See what else landed →
DC Monuments & History Guided E-Cart Tour-Blankets
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PRIVATE Sedona Jeep Tour 2-hour Lil’ Rattler Off-Road
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From Manhattan: 5-Hour Bronx, Queens, and Brooklyn Bus Tour
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All-Inclusive Sandbar Safari with Dolphin Playground Encounter
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Private Arrival Transfer: From LAS Airport by SUV or Luxury Limo
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Skyward at Sunrise: A Premiere Temecula Balloon Adventure
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Statue of Liberty Tour with Ellis Island and Immigration Museum
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Honolulu Airport, Cruise Port and Hotels Private Transfer
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