After a horrible experience with American Airlines (including the customer service lady yelling at me when I called them to complain) I wrote them an email to tell them how dissapointed I was with the trip. They responded to say how sorry they are for my problems with the flight and I am now holding a free round trip ticket to anywhere in the continental US!
I can’t make up my mind where I should go though. Where would you go if you had a free ticket to anywhere in the continental US?
Orlando, FL for Disney World (also where I will reside soon)
The Grand Canyon. No clue which airport that would be.
Las Vegas.
Somewhere in CA.
Too bad it’s only continental, or I would definitely vote Hawaii. Love that place.
San Francisco, CA
New York (if you’re not on the east coast)
Los Angeles, CA
Washington, DC
I actually live in NYC, so that would be a waste of a ticket. 
I like the idea of somewhere on the west coast though.
Seattle is lovely in the summer.
Go someplace fairly out of the way, where there are never bargain fares to. Something like Idaho. But it is hard to give advice if we don’t know where you are and what you like to do.
I’d fly to one of the western ski resorts in the winter, in Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, etc., but that only works if you ski.
Make them take you to some piss-ant regional airport on the west coast with a bunch of connections if you really want to teach them a lesson!
Fair enough! I live in NYC and I grew up in TX, so neither of those are places I would want to go on a suprise free vacation. I love educational stuff like museums and historical sites. I am very, very pale and I burn if I think about the sun too hard so the beach is right out.
LOL, I was writing a reply to you and then I read your quote.
Look at San Francisco. Open a San Francisco thread and search earlier threads on this great city. I think this is your place.
I want to hear the story.
New Orleans would be good but don’t go mid-June - mid-September. It is too hot for most people and it seems like you wouldn’t like that. October is glorious though. It is a fun place and good for solo travelers. Las Vegas or the Grand Canyon would be among my personal picks because I have never been anywhere near there. I agree that San Francisco and Washington D.C. would be good too. I have created my own walking tours that took many hours in each and they were spectacular.
You want to use that on some place that’s expensive to fly to. How about Bar Harbor, Maine, or Bozeman, Montana, to visit Yellowstone, or Lake Tahoe, California.
How about Santa Barbara? It offers a classic California beach town with a little less intensity than LA or San Diego. There are lots of nice places to stay within blocks of the beach. You can easily walk to the main drag, State St, that has tons of places to eat, and a nice mix of shops, galleries, and theaters. The Santa Barbara Bowl is right there, too…they book some pretty decent acts. There is a small zoo and botanical gardens and a popular museum of natural history with an aquarium on the pier.
If it were me, I’d go to Vegas, because it’s a two-fer. Vegas is also the gateway to the Grand Canyon. But if you’re into education and culture and all that, I’d go either to Washington or San Francisco.
I’ll buy you a beer if you come to Santa Barbara. The one thing that I notice is that you should start looking at flights well before the expiration date. Many airlines will fuck you over and somehow disallow many reasonable combinations of destinations and dates. I’m talking to you, cocksucker American West.
Much as I do love LA, I’d still recommend San Francisco or San Diego for your first trip to the west coast. I just think they’re slightly more accessible for the first-time tourist.
(Santa Barbara is pretty wonderful, too, but I’ve never tried to get there by plane.)
Seconded.
Start the national tour in LA.
We will hold a dopefest in your honor.
I’ve gone fairly often from SFO, on a United regional. Not bad, but I decided that with parking, security, and frequent delays due to fog it was just as fast to drive.
Santa Barbara is nice, but not a lot educational except for the mission.
I think both LA and San Francisco would be good. If you go to LA, make sure you can get to the Getty Museum, which is outstanding, and maybe up to Hearst Castle. The museum at the La Brea Tarpits is awesome if you like fossils. I haven’t been to the art museum.
If you go to San Francisco, try to find time for Monterey. They’ve got an excellent aquarium, and there is a plaza with the original capital of California. Carmel is also very nice.
There are the usual museums in SF that you can read about in any tourist book also.