The Pacific Coast sand stretches 5.6km between Venice Beach and Malibu and the well-heeled town of Santa Monica sits in the middle facing the best sunsets in California, writes Megan Singleton.

A tour of San Francisco becomes a day of history lessons and surf stories when Duncan Gillies discovers his guide, musician Chuck Prophet, is a fellow surfer.

It's famous in hip-hop and notorious for gang violence. So naturally Sarah Gooding had some intimidating preconceptions when approaching South Central Los Angeles for the first stop of her USA adventure.

Terri Judd finds a city with small-town heart.

Ahead of the US election Carroll du Chateau visits her daughter in democratic Minnesota and marvels at its progressive ways.

Criminal record aside, Chicago offers a metropolitan wonderland, says Roger Hall.

"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."

Roger Hall visited lovingly-restored homes by architectural messiah Frank Lloyd Wright in Chicago and Pennsylvania.

Minnesota offers the best of all worlds with its hip cities, culture and wilderness, says Peter Beaumont.