I have given it a lot of thought but it seems to me that in Europe and the USA few cities require more than 4 nights to see the major sites. Obviously your can send weeks or months in soaking up the local flavor but to comfortably see the major sites, the following are the only ones that make my list. <BR> <BR>Rome <BR>London <BR>Paris <BR>New York <BR>San Francisco <BR> <BR>Any Others?

Orlando

Istanbul

The problem with this list is the artificial separation of a city from its neighboring region(s). <BR> <BR>You don't need four nights to "see San Francisco", but you do when you include Marin county and the redwoods, Napa Valley, and so on. <BR> <BR>In that context, Munich, Barcelona, Strasbourg, Brussels, Amsterdam, Milan, Florence, Nice, Sydney, Tokyo - - they all make the list for me. <BR> <BR>and in the US - - Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Miami, Washington, Louisville, New Orleans, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and Jackson (WY) all make the list too. <BR>

A rather clinical approach to travel and it make some sense for those who are interested in "major sites", as many are. For me, there are really not many "must-sees"; I am interested in not-so-major sites. Give me a plain breakfast in a dumpy English diner with a strong-willed, fadingly-semi-good-looking waitress who is queen of her domain and works in a constant banter with her admiring, working-class customers, rather than a champagne brunch in tastefully elegant, but relatively sterile surroundings. Give me a smokey brasserie filled with old men sharing a card game with their old dogs at their feet, rather than a night of pricey drinks and beautiful people. Give me a curious child or a mouthy street vendor or a slinky Vegas cocktail waitress who lets her guard down and reveals something about her life away from the casino floor. Give me the odd interaction or the serendipitous connection where time just happened to fall into the right places. Give me a sly, knowing smile on a real person instead of the Mona Lisa. Oh, I like seeing the major sites, too -- they're awesome. But the Louvre, Big Ben, Grand Place, the World Trade Center, the Golden Gate, Rembrant's work and the Vatican will all still be there when I'm through. And maybe they'll just have to wait until next time, if I'm busy. How many days does any of this take?

I must agree with Jim Rosenberg..if all you go for is the major sights, why not rent a video and save yourself a lot of trouble. My best memories of my many travels are the ones where we stayed long enough to eat at the same little seaside cafe (in Portugal) and become friends with the proprietor, the night we discovered a strange little town in northern Spain that had a medieval castle that no one there seemed to know anything about, the little back streets we explored in Provance, etc. My advice would be to just pick one city, if time and money are limited, and find a way to experience it in some way that is meaningful to you.