The FastDay Forum

If you're in California, the train ride between San Diego and LA is really cool. It goes right along the coast. It's clean and seemed to keep to schedule fairly well. You can buy tickets from a person in big stations and from machines everywhere else. I love trains! But… the US is really a car country. Amtrak has some nice long distance tours, but you can probably do much more for cheaper in a car.

It's really hard for me to come up with recommendations, and the US is my country. The nature out west is amazing, but Peebles is right about New England--off the beaten trail is really wonderful. A little further south, I used to drive from Baltimore to Oxford, PA, to visit my aunt. This goes through Amish country on back roads. I always loved that drive--rolling hills through farmland mostly. Annapolis is nice, too, and the museums in DC are good. If you're in Florida, Ft. Pickens near Pensacola is really beautiful.

Wow I'm blown away with all these amazing suggestions. Thank you, I think the Minsmum family have plenty of planning to do. Off out to get some guide books and we will sit down tonight and start to plan
@Wendyjane thank you for your amazing offer of hosting us, wow.... Haha you may just get Minned out!!!!

@Minsmum, are you coming to see us? PM me if so. It would be fun...!
and I just noticed we've made almost exactly the same number of posts here on the forum.

@Minsmum, as a native Seattleite I must speak for my part of the county: we have mountains (the aforementioned Mt Rainer is the tallest in the lower 48), forests--especially the ONLY temperate rainforests in the U.S., on the Olympic Peninsula, the famed Hoh Rainforest (over 100 inches of rain a year, good to visit in hot weather, since "hot" there is maybe 80F), beaches that are unlike other places (I love Mora Beach near Forks--yes, of Twilight fame!--it's craggy and cloudy and rocky--no clean white sand in Washington!). There are so many cool things to see on "the Peninsula" that you could spend weeks there alone...Oh, and the San Juans; you can rent a cottage or cabin, tour an island on bike, many of the islands have gourmet food/restaurants...very low key and picturesque. (Are you sorry now you asked? )

@Lori, hey, I'm in Seattle; let me know if you'd like to meet up...

Thanks @ferretgal ! We've rented a condo for a week in Seattle, so I'll definitely have time to meet. Our condo is only a few blocks from the market. I have to soon start planning our adventure! We have all our reservations etc, but need to figure out places we want to see, tours we want to take and all that.