Holiday help!

By Doing Hawaii first, you have guaranteed yourself to be disappointed in N. American beaches forevermore! If you want to stay in the US, try New Orleans for an interesting cultural experience and good food, then Florida keys for laid-back beach relaxing. If you want Hawaii-level beaches, head to the Caribbean (British Virgin Islands, Turks and Caicos are wonderful), or Bermuda.

In a completely different direction - http://www.acadia.ws

I'm trying to think of somewhere other than California for impressive nature and beach. It might just be California. Fly into LA and drive up or down the coast. It's immense, the beaches will be lovely, and there's good food everywhere.

I lived in California for a long time and yes it is wonderful, but it's cold in the summertime, and the water there is not very swimmable (if at all). This isn't entirely accurate. Parts of the California coast can often be foggy and cool in the summer for part of the day, then sunny and warm(er) the rest of the day. This is definitely true from Big Sur north. (I don't have enough experience with Southern California beaches to speak with any authority on them.) Go inland, though, and it is warm to hot. There is great, great beauty along the California coastline, but the weather is going to be a crapshoot. There is great, great beauty inland as well: Yosemite, Lassen National Park, Kings Canyon/Sequoia National Parks. But, "we aren’t really into into crowds of people" pretty much rules Yosemite right out, especially in the summer. Lassen is positively gorgeous, but it's really far away from anything, and if you're going to stay there you will either need to be camping or stay in one of their camping cabins. (Which are awesome, but they don't have electricity or running water, and you'd have to have gear to be able to cook your own food.) Kings Canyon/Sequoia are stunningly beautiful, aren't too crowded, and you won't find https://www.google.com/search?q=giant+sequoia&es_sm=119&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=vss7VYLwIsi2ogTrnoGYAw&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAQ&biw=1152&bih=579 anywhere else (except for a few other pockets in CA.) I'd suggest that you fly to San Francisco (or San Jose). Since your first two days require downtime, head to either Santa Cruz (a surfing town) or Monterey (a little less hippy) and spend a couple days on the beach there. I'd especially recommend that you consider staying in Pacific Grove, just south of Monterey, in one of the little places along Asilomar Avenue. From there, you can walk to Asilomar State Beach, which is both a nice big sandy beach and, on the northern end, a neat rocky beach with cool tidepools. The Monterey area can be foggy in the summer, but it seems to me that you can almost always drive the five miles down to Asilomar to find sun. There are a lot of surfers there, but I wouldn't consider it a beginner's surfing beach. From the Monterey area, you could drive inland (east) to Visalia, and then up into http://www.nps.gov/seki/index.htm. There are lodges in the parks where you can stay. They're not fancy lodges, but they'll do, and the scenery around there is gorgeous. The parks aren't crowded; despite their scenery, they're kind of under-visited. After doing your time there, you could drive back to San Francisco -- drive up into the wine country if you want -- or down to Southern California. The Central Valley of California -- through which you would drive on your way to the National Parks, and also on your way to SoCal or SF -- isn't what you'd call scenic. It is pretty fascinating, though, because you will pass through the farmland that grows a good percentage of the food that you'll be eating. It's fun to watch the different crops whiz by. As you go further south, the crops change, and you start to see more citrus/avocados and stuff. That's a kind of tourism on its own. I grew up in the South, and I've spent a good deal of time on the Gulf Coast. I live in California now, and there's no way I could recommend the South over CA. It's just so, so much prettier here. (And you're not going to find much lefty liberal there at ALL. It would be cultural tourism, for sure, but it might not be a *political* culture that you like. I sure don't.)

Sounds like a slow trip across NC from the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_Banks to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asheville,_North_Carolina and the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Smoky_Mountains_National_Park would fit.

I think you have good advice on some ideas for southern US or California-based vacations. However I wanted to share some other US travel advice: I grew up in Michigan and now live in California, and travel between the two often. It is a 6-hour plane ride if you get a direct flight from Detroit to Los Angeles, can be up to 15 hours total if you have a transfers. Direct flights are much pricier ($200-500) than flights with transfers. Plus, there is a 3-hour time difference, so when you land in LA at 6 pm, it feels like 9 pm for your body. When I travel back and forth, I give up a whole day in transit at either end. If you really only have 7 days, I would not recommend California. (I am sorry if you knew this, sometimes people from outside just don't get how big the US is.) Flying to Georgia, Florida, South Carolina is also ~5-hour flight from Detroit, but it has the advantage of being in the same time zone, and having more frequent flights and more direct flights from Detroit. I feel much less wrecked after a day of flying Detroit-->Atlanta than I do Detroit-->LAX. Kalamazoo/Battle Creek is a tiny airport. Most of the flights from it are short, early weekday morning, tiny 40-person planes that serve as commuter lines to nearby bigger airports, and you will have to change planes there. Unless there is some major advantage, like the airport is right in your backyard (Battle Creek is 100 miles/2.5 hour drive from Detroit where your meeting is. Did you perhaps mean the Flint airport, Lansing airport, or Detroit City airport? These are all tiny regional airports slightly closer to Detroit, but all have similar "short commuter plane ride to nearby bigger airport" passenger plans) you will be better off leaving for any destination from the Detroit Metro airport.

Tennessee is absolutely gorgeous, and it's a day's drive from Detroit. You could head down there through the gracious green farmlands of Ohio into the Smoky Mountains, drop by Graceland, the Lorraine Motel (where Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated - now a memorial) and go to William Faulkner's house all in one afternoon, and then head over either to the South Carolina/Georgia beaches or down to the Florida Panhandle, which has amazing aquifer-fed swimming holes, sugar-sand beaches, excellent Southern food and a very specific laid-back lifestyle. I lived in California for a long time and yes it is wonderful, but it's cold in the summertime, and the water there is not very swimmable (if at all). So I'd suggest going a little more off the beaten path. The South has great antique shops, Civil War history, food, and a culture all it's own, and it is stunningly beautiful in places. I would however stay away from New Orleans unless you want to spend your hard-earned money in a state whose governor just published a New York Times op-ed piece saying he thinks businesses should be allowed to not serve LGBT customers.

It wouldn't check off any boxes on your bucket list the way a trip to some of North America's most famous scenery would, but if your trip were occurring a little later in the summer I'd advise you to consider staying in the region you'll already be visiting and exploring some of the summer vacation towns along the west Michigan coast for a few relaxing days, then heading down to Chicago for art, architecture, and excellent restaurant options. May is a little early in the season for best enjoyment of west Michigan's beach towns, however. The beaches are lovely and the wooded dunes very inviting but the water in the Great Lakes doesn't really start to become swimmable until significantly later in the season. I'm mentioning it as an option anyway, because it would be an easy option from where you're starting and even many Americans don't realize that west Michigan has lovely (freshwater) beach vacation towns. If you want more details feel free to MeMail.

Quality beach in the United States is limited to the coastline from Florida to Alabama. Since you said you would like to go to the south. There will be many direct flights to Atlanta. I suggest flying to Atlanta and then flying into Charleston, SC and renting a car. Spend a few days there and drive to Hilton Head Island and then onto Savannah. You will be able to see the Port Royal Sound which is a very specific kind of nature unique to the southern United States. Savannah is probably the most classical and well preserved southern city in the US, because it was not burned during the Civil War. At that point you can easily drive to Florida and then take your pick of whatever beach you would like to stay at. You have an option to then fly or drive. It is a 7 hour drive from Jacksonville, FL to New Orleans. You can finish your trip with a few days in New Orleans. There are many plantations in the area. The nearest direct flights on a daily basis to London would be from Houston or Atlanta. That would probably be a fairly decent vacation based on what you asked for. The only warning I have for you is that it will be really hot, and if you cannot tolerate humidity then I would not do try outside of the end of March. I hope that helped! Have fun!