Many of Maine's historic lighthouses have been preserved in working condition - some you can even stay in.

James Robinson finds Oklahoma people are good-natured and big on basketball and memorials.

Gatsby fans will love the sheer opulence of these five high society houses in Newport.

The world's top music festivals draw big names to their super-charged events. Chris Schulz looks at America's leading live music festivals.

Schedule in a visit to see the animals at one of these institutions next time you're in the USA.

America's favourite summer pastime can be a hypnotic experience, writes Dylan Cleaver.

Palm Springs is party-town again, writes Leena Tailor.

Get into the swing of local music culture by attending one of these great music festivals.

Sam Wetherell finds himself an object of curiosity - and possible conversion - in Utah.

Twice a year, inmates of a maximum-security prison stage a public rodeo. Nigel Tisdall went along.

As Halloween approaches, Heather Tyler finds some scary treats for travellers in the US.

Hollywood is the city of dreams and nightmares for many a wannabe actor seeking fame and fortune.

Mississippi is breaking ground on side-by-side museums that are expected to set precedents of their own in how they depict the Southern state once rocked by racial turmoil.

These two picturesque waterfront cities attract millions of visitors annually with their history, restaurants and streetscapes.

If the annual cheese roll in England or wife carrying competition in Finland is too boring for you, here are five very strange ones that might be worth visiting, even if it's just to tweet a pic from.

Sharon Stephenson explores part of San Francisco that couldn't be further from the glamour of the America's Cup village.

The drive from Los Angeles to San Francisco is only about six hours, but with so much to see on the way, you could make a week of it.

Year round, Clarksdale draws tourists from all over the world eager to gaze across wide-open cotton fields and tread the same ground as Robert Johnson, Bessie Smith, Muddy Waters, Ike Turner, John Lee Hooker and others.

The sixth-biggest US state is an Italy-sized expanse of often unforgiving terrain that acts as a bridge between conflicting elements of the North American continent.

The party long billed as the world's only dry Oktoberfest is finally going wet.

"You're meant to do three things while at Harvard," expat and ivy-league graduate Lara Markstein tells me. "One is to pee on John Harvard's foot."

On the first Friday evening of every month, visitors to Phoenix can join thousands of locals on the city's self-guided art walk.

Guy Adams takes a tour of Colorado City, where polygamy is simply a way of life.

Every December the North Pole Post Office in Alaska, receives a two-metre-high stack of mail daily.

The resilient city of New Orleans defies the weather and turns the music back on at its annual jazz festival, writes Paul Gurney.

Indian elders and a former astronaut took the ceremonial first steps today on a glass-bottomed walkway perched 1219 metres over the Grand Canyon that promises dizzying views for those who dare.

Teaching youngsters to endure pain was once a necessary part of an upbringing designed to help them survive the harsh Arctic elements, writes Roger Hall.

Mark Twain wrote in Huckleberry Finn: "There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth." And that applies to Twain himself, says Jim Salter.

Greatly impressed with itself for producing a world celebrity who has also written a book, Arkansas has created its own "Bill Clinton Heritage Trail" featuring Bill-related places of interest.

Graham Reid enjoys some tall tales over a few drinks at the Monte Vista Hotel in Flagstaff.