Planning a Trip

How can we possibly boil down the essence of such a huge, varied, complicated country in just over 1,000 pages? Impossible! No doubt, some of you will look at the table of contents and raise an eyebrow at what's missing. That's sure to be the case with any guide professing to cover the entire United States.

But . . . this guide isn't meant to be a comprehensive guide to everything to see and do in every state. We did, however, concentrate on a select group of destinations that will appeal to a wide cross section of domestic travelers, be they road-trippers, business travelers, outdoor enthusiasts, history buffs, or museum lovers (along with the usual leavening of the opinionated Frommer's author). So we've narrowed the focus, in order to offer you in-depth, practical coverage you can really use.

Take, for example, the lovely islands off the coast of Massachusetts, Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket: We'd love to cover both, but we chose to focus on the Vineyard instead. Few travelers have time to visit both, so we used the space to include more detailed and useful information on the Vineyard, which is larger and easier to reach. We've applied the same sort of logic to our choices throughout. We do change them from edition to edition, based on reader response and our own observations, and those of our peripatetic authors. What you'll find in this book is information about destinations that's representative of the best this country has to offer -- cities, national parks, beaches, resort areas, and more.

We hope you'll discover your own America as you hit the road and start exploring. If you'd like more coverage of the destinations in this guide, or if any of them prompt you to explore further, chances are good that we have a more dedicated, in-depth guide for you.

Our final advice to you here is to go somewhere great, have a marvelous time, and come home with some wonderful memories. Then start planning your next trip . . .