For a first visit to the U.S. - New York or Vegas?

[foolsguinea]

Yeah, Route 66 is a long trek. If you’re a Brit, you have little idea of how freaking huge the USA is in area.

[Voyager]

@foolsguinea

Yeah, Route 66 is a long trek. If you’re a Brit, you have little idea of how freaking huge the USA is in area.

My daughter took her English boyfriend on a car trip from California to Maryland. He was amazed.

[treis]

@even_sven

Well, most vacationers are not writing detailed ethnographies. Seriously, the reason I said this is that I was thinking back to a pleasant memory of my last trip to NYC. I remember walking to go catch a play, full of delicious Burmese food (who knew they had Burmese food!) and stopping in a little little boutique where my mom bought me a beautiful scarf.

Wait a minute! I’ve never been to NY with my mom! I had seriously gotten the two mixed up. This is something that would never happen with, say, Lisbon and Rio. It’s not like they are exactly the same- and if you happen to be an Anglophiles or really into New York or a megacity connoisseur, for sure you can find a lot of richness. And both are very fun cities. It’s just that if I handed you a map of the world, put a gun to your head, and said “I want you to circle the two cities, on two different continents, that most closely resemble each other,” New York and London would be a pretty safe bet. New York is the one place in the US that most closely resembles something available in the UK.

Aren’t there a hell of a lot more Skyscrapers in NY than London? I admit I’ve never been to London, but I’ve been to a lot of cities, and I’ve never been anywhere that replicates the wall to wall skyscrapers like Manhattan has.

[Candyman74]

@Mr.Kobayashi

it’s New York. The capital of the world!

New York disagrees. It’s London.

(No I haven’t read the thread. I’m sure someone’s already brought it up!)

[Candyman74]

@treis

Aren’t there a hell of a lot more Skyscrapers in NY than London? I admit I’ve never been to London, but I’ve been to a lot of cities, and I’ve never been anywhere that replicates the wall to wall skyscrapers like Manhattan has.

Yup. The main difference between the two is that NY’s features are tall buildings and London’s features are old buildings.

Other than that - same shops, same prices (higher in London, but still high in NY), same atmosphere, different accent. Even some of the same districts with different names.

Obviously there are cultural differences, too. And NY feels safer (to me at least).

[OpalCat]

I voted NYC, not so much because NYC is a “must see” but because Las Vegas is so LAME.

[Magiver]

@Voyager

Nothing unique but the Empire State Building, the UN, the Chrysler Building, the Guggenheim Museum, Times Square, Washington Square Park, South Street Seaport, more plays and musicals in one area than you can shake a stick at, Macy’s, the East Village, the West Village - and that’s off the top of my head. The Intrepid came after I left New York, so I don’t even count it as an attraction.

You count more than one thing interesting to see in Paris, I hope.

You can see an exponentially better version of everything you listed on a short tour of Europe. to me, the buildings you listed are the golden age of American sky scrapers but I’m not sure if they still hold any appeal given what has been built around the world since. The Intrepid is a museum joke but may be quite interesting to foreigners because of the mix of stuff.

[Mdcastle]

For a while I had a roads related website, and I got an email from someone from Hungary whose dream was to rent a Cadillac and drive Route 66. So there’s a certain mystique that goes even beyond the US. But yeah, there’s occasional pieces of Americana but a lot more of nothing. If I had a chance to make an extended road trip I’d probably drive down one of the coasts.

Vegas: I believe it’s a different type of place now than ehen I was there 15 years ago. For a while they tried to be Orlando with gambling and built elaborathe theme resorts to attract families with kids that couldn’t gamble; this is the era of Excalibur and Luxor. Recently a lot of the theming and attractions are being removed to shift back towards more serious gamblers that don’t want to tramp through the land of Oz to get to the baccarat tables.