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Whats the best thing about your state / city?

• Im planning on traveling round the USA next year & am just trying to work out where to go. Whats the best thing about your state or are there any great things to do that arent in the guidebooks? Whats the best way to get around - car, bus etc? What should I avoid or what is over hyped / priced? Is there any particular time of year to aim for / avoid? Thanks

• Answer:

  Best thing in my area are the palm trees and warm weather in the winter. No snow and no shoveling! As you drive into the region, you notice the tall palm trees lining the highways and you just begin to feel like you are getting tropical and it brings a smile to your heart. Prices here are low -- especially housing -- so many from the frozen Midwest buy vacation condos here or bring their trailers and spend from Thanksgiving through Easter in this area to avoid the cold and harshness of winter back up North. We are also just a few miles from the Mexican border where you can find lots of good buys -- cheap booze and cigarettes, lower-priced silver, peuter, onyx, leather goods, curios, etc. We are also an international destination for bird enthusiasts. Migratory birds heading south pass through this region on their way into Mexico for the winter. So we have many birding festivals, outdoor preserves, and special events for ornithologists. Hunting is abundant here if you like white wing, deer, quail, and javalina. Many game preserves and hunting leases to choose from. And then of course there is the beach -- South Padre Island / Spring Break Capital of the Southwest. Our beaches are much broader than most other destinations and stretch on for miles. We also have sand dunes that are protected as an eco-system of their own. So there is great fishing, wind-surfing, and marine animal watching if you are into any of that. This would be the Rio Grande Valley of Deep South Texas -- a lesser known secret which has yet to suffer from much of the overdevelopment and higher prices that have hit competitor regions in sunny U.S. destinations like Southern California, Arizona and Florida. It's a great place to retire or vacation in. Come on by and if you make it this far, I'll treat you to your first margarita! Oh and if you have wanderlust in your soul, be sure to read the book "Blue Highways" by writer / half-Indian William Least Heat Moon. He quit his corporate job, outfitted a trailer, and went on a trek across America traveling to the out of the way places off the beaten path of the major highways marked in red on the roadmaps. He took the roads less traveled and stuck to the highways marked in blue, and explored all the hidden places in smaller towns, writing about his adventures there in a book that became a national best seller. Here's a link: http://www.amazon.com/Blue-Highways-Journey-into-America/dp/0316353299 I hope it inspires you the way it did me.