Lonely Planet

So, we are all familiar with the typical traveling and vacationing experience: you pick a location, book a hotel, and do all the tourist-y things possible while you're there, right? Well, have you ever had a sense of adventure in which you want something more? A way to experience locations in an off-beat, original way?


LonelyPlanet is a website/idea started by a husband and wife who traveled across Europe and Asia and all the way to Australia over land, spending as little money as possible, staying where they could, and scrounging for what they had. It was the best experience of their life. Although they were broke at the end, they had so many experiences to share with everyone, and so much advice about traveling. So they started this website where they feature many continents and cool, original places to visit that people wouldn't necessarily think of, along with awesome things to do there.


Here is the link to their web page about the United States. The way the authors describe certain towns across American using words such as "eclectic", "ecoconscious", and "captivating" are not necessarily normal words that would be used when an author is describing places to travel. By using this type and style of language they are reaching those who crave adventure and the "not normal" travel and vacation experience. They cater this page to those who want to have unique travel experiences in places that are perhaps not so often visited, but have much to offer to a travel adventurer.


Why should you care about this? Well, while I and other travel bloggers are yabbering on about the typical US cities to visit and trying to implement our own original ideas of where to visit, these people have done it all. They offer great advice and ideas on nontraditional places to visit, as well as how to do it in a cheap and fun way.


Here is their top list of things to do in the United States:

Our Top Picks For USA

• 1) Dip into the Great Lakes

  Be awed by the planet’s largest supply of freshwater, harbored by a chain of lakes strung with beaches, sand dunes, offshore islands and forests.
  
  

• 2) Make a pitstop at Carhenge, Nebraska

  Automobile art at its best, this roadside attraction will forever change your view of Stonehenge

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  3) Go zip-lining in Ketchikan

  Zip down a 4600ft mountain to a stream full of bears feasting on salmon

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  4) Meet Lucy the Margate Elephant in Atlantic City

  There's no shortage of eccentric in Atlantic City, but this 65-ft high wooden replica of a pachyderm will stop you in your tracks.

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  5) Play Ultimate Frisbee in Washington, DC

  Join locals in a game of Frisbee in America's front yard, DC's National Mall

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  6) Get into gumbo in New Orleans

  Scooping out a steaming pot of gumbo is as central to life in New Orleans as listening to jazz, zydeco or swamp blues. Get into it.

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  7) Pick up a bargain at Pike Place Market, Seattle

  You're bound to find something you've always wanted at the 4-hectare Pike Place Market, the USA's oldest surviving market

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  8) Stare into the depths of the Grand Canyon

  Hike to the canyon floor and back to appreciate its grandeur: this 446km-long channel is pretty impressive

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  9) Rock climb at Yosemite National Park

  Climb with the bravest at El Capitan, Yosemite's 915m granite wall

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  10) Drive into Mesa Verde National Park

  Drive up onto the cool, thickly forested mesas of southwestern Colorado to clamber inside Ancestral Puebloan cliff dwellings at this archaeological national park

Happy traveling!