USA

Stretching from below the Tropic of Cancer to above the Arctic Circle and spanning the North American continent, the United States is big. It is a country defined by open spaces and an amazing breadth of terrain. From sparse deserts to lush forests to snow-capped peaks to rolling fields of grain, the American landscape sprouts new views from state to state—even from neighborhood to neighborhood.

America does indeed live up to its reputation as the land of plenty, but plentiness leads often to too-muchness, as the proliferation of Blockbuster video stores and expanding acres of cookie-cutter suburbs attests to. As this child of many continents has risen from a colonial experiment to a position of supreme economic and political power, its largesse continues to both impress and overwhelm

The United States of America is vast country in size, resources, wealth, and promise. It literally spans the entire width of the continent. Despite its large cities, the United States still is sparsely populated. The United States offers a wide variety of travel opportunities throughout its fifty states...

Capital: Washington, District of Columbia

Population:

Area: 3,536,855 square miles

Language: English

Time: Washington is 0 hours from New York

Electricity: 110 volts 60 cycles AC.

Geography: The United States ranges in its geography from towing mountains to the bueatiful farming plains to the picture perfect coastlines, from big city to small country.

International travel may be done from many airports throughout the country. See individual states for more in depth information.

Tipping: The tip is almost never includedunless otherwise indicated. In some of the nicer restaurants it is customary to leave a 15%-20% tip.

Shopping: 9:00am to 5:00pm are regular business hours. Most shops are open until 10:00pm, however all depends on the individual shop owners. Best to check first.

Food and Drink: While others make an art of cooking those from the United States seem to make an art of eating. Just about anything is atainable, but the hamberger will usually do. Dinner is usually the bigget meal of the day

Social: Smoking is not permited in most public places. Casual clothing is suitable in most circumstances.

Business: Business is a very formal situation. English is by far the primary language for all business.

CANADA

Canucks will beat you silly if they hear you say that Canada is “just like America.” Canada is also a huge, prosperous, educated country; but up north the terrain is wilder, the distribution of wealth is more thorough, and a third of the population speaks French. The second largest country in the world, Canada covers almost 10 million square kilometers (3.85 million square miles), and only 29 million people inhabit its 10 provinces and two territories; well over half of the population crowds into Ontario and Québec. Though its cities are cosmopolitan, Canada’s vast tracts of underpopulated forest and frozen tundra lend it a wild edge that no amount of cultural savvy can subdue.

Early French colonists were largely independent hunters, trappers, and traders who depended on Native Canadians, especially the powerful Huron-Iriquois tribe, as allies and hunting instructors. The country originated as a system of trading posts stretching through Quebec and Ontario, areas which to this day are largely French-speaking. The British colonists were relatively distant and culturally distinct, eventually settling along the two coasts. Since then, each population has fought to retain political dominance. Native Canadian concerns and a rapidly increasing allophone population—people whose first language is neither English nor French—have convoluted the cultural struggle. Divergent economic foundations have exacerbated inter-regional tensions; bankrupt fisheries have drained the Maritime provinces while the West Coast booms with trans-Pacific trade.

USA FACTS AND CANADA FIGURES

Canada population: 30,675,398, of which 90% live within 160km of the U.S. border.
Canadian Capital: Ottawa
US population: 270,311,756, of which 90% live next to their televisions.
US Capital: Washington, D.C.

THE AMERICAN DREAM VACATION

The United States specializes in tackiness. Beyond the pink flamingos and year-round Christmas tree lights found in (too) many American front yards, commercial America enshrines the largest, smallest, and wackiest of everything and puts it on public display (most often for a fee). A few of the best...Drunken revelry or lots of road-side can-collecting helped John Mikovisch build the beer can house, in Houston The Mall of America, the country’s largest commercial playground, waits in Bloomington. Graceland, Elvis’ old home in Memphis is the ultimate in tac-o-rama. Dig around a little, and you'll find that underneath all the tacky trinkets America does have some genuine historical sights, though. It's true that most are dusty meccas overrun with elementary school field trips and determined fathers armed with narrated car tapes, but a trip down history lane can still give you quite a kick. Patriotic Americans have a die-hard love of Revolutionary and Civil War sites. Boston is over-run with Revolution-mania, , while the Civil War battlefields spattering Pennsylvania and Virginia are best summed up by the cannon-ball littered fields of Gettysburg National Cemetery. The bygone days of the Wild West coagulate in recreated cowboy towns such as Cody, Wyoming, but 150 year-old wagon ruts seem dinky in comparison with the ancient pueblo cities left by Native American tribes in the the Southwest, such as the Gila Cliff Dwellings.

Perhaps the true splendor of America is natural. Together, the U.S. and Canada cover most of the North American continent, containing a diverse series of ecosystems and geographic formations. Some of the most spectacular land is protected as national parkland, where development and logging are prohibited and use is strictly controlled. America’s most popular parks, including Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon, are over-run with tourists, but are still worth visiting. Other parks are more quiet; at the desert Joshua Tree, imagination (and some other substances which Let’s Go cannot recommend) turn the park’s boulders into fantastic animals. From Maine’s Acadia, numerous remote islands are accessible. Canada’s national parks tend to be much less crowded, offering purists a more pristine experience. Jasper is the largest of Canada’s 4 mountain parks, while Prince Edward Island, a northern marine beauty, cradles 32 km of Canada’s best beaches.