Best road trips around America.

Just got through booking my next holiday to America and could not be more excited. Having travelled around America for the last 20 years my mum and I are very excited about our holiday this summer. We decided on flying in to New York but driving straight out from Newark to Cape Cod to stay for almost a week and then driving up to Boston and staying mainly to be able to get the ferry up to Salem (very excited about this; just purchased The Crucible on DVD from Amazon as I love to watch film and read books about the places I'm visiting). Then we will be driving to the Berkshires for a restful week of music and museums, and finally back to New York to fly home. Writing out like this the two weeks just don't seem like enough to do all the things I want to see and do. We spent ages deciding where we would go because in the last couple of year we really have had the best holidays road tripping across different states that we were a little stuck on what would be the best thing: we decided against New Orleans as I'm not 21 till next year and I don't want to miss out on be able to party with my mum.

I was the one who then suggested Massachusetts because I was reading The Prince of Thieves at the time after seeing The Town directed and starring Ben Affleck and falling in love with the Boston accent (I strongly recommending both the film and the book if you want to explore the characters in greater depth). And I'm really looking forward to the whale watching in Cape Cod and the art galleries all over Massachusetts.

All this got me thinking about some of the really great holidays and road trips like last year we drove across Tennessee starting in Memphis and ending up on the coast of South Carolina or the year before when we drove from San Francisco down Big Sur to LA and then further on down to San Diego; just to think of the best and most recent but I also remember trips across Virginia and Washington D.C and LA to Palm Springs to Las Vegas and then to Phoenix- the trip that made me fall in love unconditionally with Las Vegas.

Big Sur is definitely one of my favorite holidays in the US; in only two weeks we saw so much of the beautiful Californian coast line. In San Francisco we hit all of the traditional tourist spots- Alcatraz and the SFMOMA- which were really amazing and interesting. But the shops were also one of the best parts.

- 1st Matrix moment of the holiday; we stayed in the Palace Hotel in San Francisco and then less than two weeks later we were watching a film in our timeshare in San Diego called The Game starring Michael Douglas where he jumps off the roof and falls through a glass rooftop. The same hotel rooftop as the Palace Hotel. This isn't the first time we've been stuck in the Matrix.

Although we had planned to drive down the highway to Monterey but accidentally took the coastal road- although longer it was truly amazing- and we were in Monterey in time to have lunch and go the the aquarium (I also nabbed a great pair of red ray-ban wayfarers).

I think the real reason I remember this holiday so well is because it was were I fell in love with Ender. I began reading Enders Game (my dad and my brothers favorite book) during my A Level Art exam because I really hated what I had chosen to do for my final piece and I just wanted something to distract me from that. But soon enough I couldn't put the book down- after two days I was on to Speaker For The Dead and Xenocide but the speed I read these took my by surprise and I was left without the last in the saga between Monterey and Carmel but luckily we pulled off at this tiny town just inland and found a Borders and a nice restaurant. The holiday was saved because I was able to get Children of the Mind and the 4 books in the Shadow saga. I read these 8 books in just about a month and I don't think they will ever stop being my favorite books of all time.

The inn in Carmel was one in a long line along the coast all very much the same, we laughed as we walked past couple after couple sitting on their porches sipping their glasses of red wine that they had probably picked up on a visit to a local vineyard like the pretentious characters in the film Sideways.

One of the places I really recommend is Hearst Castle; not just for fans of architecture and history but fans of 20's and 30's films and celebrities as it holds a rich history of glamour parties and debauchery. The tour was amazing and informative; the tour was well worth the money and we didn't even get to see everything in the massive, gorgeous castle and grounds. As a huge film fan is was interested to learn that the pool scene from Spartacus was filmed around the outside pool of the castle and it's has been the only film that has been film on the grounds.

We stayed in Santa Barbara for only a night having arrived quite late but we did have time to check out the Victoria's Secret sale and walk along the harbor.

In LA we did the usual tourist thing of taking a tour of the celebrity homes in The Holmbe Hills and Beverly Hills. "Why his he got red flower reefs on his gates?" a woman in the van asked.

The tour guide replied, "because everyday is Christmas day for Michael Jackson, ma'am". My mum noted to me that because of all the problems he had throughout his life and his money problems; he should have done a James Dean or Marilyn Monroe. Four days later, while shopping in Banana Republic in San Diego we heard from the shop assistant that Michael Jackson had died.

This wasn't the first time a celebrity has died under questionable circumstances while we were on holiday in the US; in '97 while in Texas the news of Diana's death reach us during the day both most people in England were still asleep- but the tremor and shock of her and Dodi's passing was felt even in Texas. Then when staying in Dallas in 1999 John Jr's plane went down over the ocean; this was particularly upsetting shocking to us as only a couple of days later we were going to the museum in the Book Depository where we signed the book of condolence. But Michael Jackson's passing felt more shocking because of mums comment as we sat outside his gates- on the news I noticed that the red reefs had been taken down and white reefs put in there place.

Despite Michael Jackson's passing this holiday will always remain one of my fondest memories. And I am really excited for the summer just thinking of all the great places I'm going to get to see in Boston.

- Posted using BlogPress from Demosthenes's iPhone

Location:Train back to Brentwood