Beyond the obvious: unique US experiences
The US is a wonderland of established quantities. The sand of the Florida coast. The top of the Empire State Building. The marble dignity of the Lincoln Memorial. The red steel of the Golden Gate Bridge. The hot geysers of Yellowstone National Park. It is weighed and measured, snapped and celebrated – and, when it comes to tourism, known and loved.
And yet, it can also be an enigma – a country which offers travel experiences that are deeply idiosyncratic. For all that it has been closed to British and European visitors for much of the past two years, a journey into its midst just as it has reopened does not need to be an exercise in the obvious – the Statue of Liberty will keep for another holiday; Sunset Strip will glow on another afternoon. The 15 adventures detailed here are almost uniquely American, whether they involve ghosts in Arizona and ghouls in Maine, cowboys in Kansas, conmen in Kentucky, or pre-Columbian cities in the quiet of Illinois.
SPEAK EASILY IN THE HIDDEN BIG APPLE
Has a legal imposition ever been more effective in promoting the thing it was designed to quash than America’s banning of alcohol from 1920 to 1933? A century on, Prohibition is a byword for evening glamour: whisky cocktails in speakeasies, passwords whispered at unmarked doors. New York was one of the thirstiest cities; it is estimated that, by 1925, it had up to 100,000 drinking dens. Big Onion charts the era with its Satan’s Seat walking tour of the Central and West Villages (bigonion.com/tour/ satans-seat-prohibition; £22.50). The
Please Don’t Tell speakeasy revives the spirit and spirits of the time in the East Village (pdtnyc.com).
A seven-night dash to the four-star Kixby hotel, flying from Heathrow on December 11, costs from £2,495pp, with Virgin Holidays (0344 472 9646; virginholidays.co.uk)
LISTEN TO ECHOES OF THE MOB IN UPPER KENTUCKY
New York and Chicago both had their spells of dancing to gangland’s tune. Both are well documented, in sepia tones, in brighter times. But one town has been so decriminalised that its mob past is barely visible. Between 1920 and the mid-1980s, Newport – which holds so northerly a location in Kentucky that it rubs shoulders with Ohio (both the river, and the state on the opposite bank) – was a gangsters’ paradise, full of illegal bookies, casinos and speakeasies. American Legacy Tours (americanlegacytours.com) wanders cleaned-up streets with its Newport Gangster Tour (£22). While, over the water, Cincinnati enjoys its own resurrection tale in one of America’s best craftbrewing scenes.
Cincinnati is at the beginning and end of the Kentucky Bourbon Trail with North America Travel Service (0333 323 9099; northamericatravelservice.co. uk); from £1,579ppp, with flights
CUT A RECORD IN ELVIS’S ALMA MATER
Many studios offer tours of their facilities. The joy of Sun Studio is that, as well as being a place of incomparable cultural heritage – a Tennessee icon at the heart of Memphis – it will let you commit your own music to tape. What is generally deemed to be the first rock ’n’ roll track – Rocket 88 by Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats – was recorded here in 1951; Elvis Presley’s game-changing debut single That’s All Right followed in 1954. Go once the building has closed for the day (7pm), and you can add your own voice to the roster (from £745 for a five-hour session; sunstudio.com/record). Black Tomato’s (020 3026 7463; black tomato.com) 13-night Luxury Holiday of Music in the South spends a weekend in Memphis. From £6,750pp, not including flights
WALK WITH THE DEAD IN NEW ORLEANS
Louisiana’s most feted dot on the map is a place apart: not so much an all-American metropolis as a Deep South outsider, wrapped in a culture part French, part Spanish, part Caribbean. This extends to its music, food and architecture, but is most marked in its 42 cemeteries. These, including the likes of Lafayette and St Louis No1, are near-incomparable cities of souls; enclaves soaked in sorrow and beauty where gothic statues
weep, and voodoo offerings are found on the steps of tombs built above ground lest the high water table literally raise the dead. Various companies offer tours, but Save Our Cemeteries (saveour cemeteries.org; £19) does so ethically, with proceeds invested in preservation. The nine-night Iconic Deep South tour from Abercrombie & Kent (01242 386474; abercrombiekent.co.uk) spends two days in New Orleans; from £4,775pp, including flights