If you were seeking a 2 week holiday probably on the east side of the middle of the US, not in a city, but within reasonable driving distance of an interesting town; with great views, good nature, nice village or small town to shop and eat in, probably on water- coast or lake- but definitely not crowded where the weather would be good in late May/early June, where would you go? And how would find a nice cottage/apartment/cabin to rent for the trip?

Please do not assume knowledge on the part of this very non americanised questioner. Thanks in anticipation.

Sounds like Hot Springs, Arkansas might work for you. It's about an hour from Little Rock, and is a lovely resort town in the mountains. Lake Hamilton is just outside of town, and there are many vacation resorts with cabins and condos for rent. I would start looking on the Web for local travel agents or real estate companies that handle rentals. (Do a search on a search engine for "Hot Springs", or go to the regional section in Yahoo.) Good Luck!

That sounds like the Eastern Shore of Maryland (not too far from D.C., Annapolis and Baltimore) or somewhere near Charleston, S.C. Almost all of the Eastern U.S. will have nice weather, with the exception of the rain storms that roll in periodically.

Sheila,

So many possibilities! Is one region more interesting to you than another? (New England, the South, the Appalachian Mountains, the Great Lakes?)

I'm sure there are several places that would fit your description, so maybe airfare would be a determining factor? If you can find a really cheap ticket to Chicago (or New York, or Atlanta, or wherever) there will almost certainly be an interesting small town on a lake or ocean nearby. For example, there are even a few pleasant small towns on Lake Erie near Cleveland (don't laugh, I'm serious!).

Are you interested in water activities? It may (or may not) be quite hot even in the northern states that time of year (it was 32C in Detroit on June 6th), but the lakes may not have warmed up yet.

Also, do you plan to use public transportation to get to/from a major city? Some wonderful small towns may only be accessible by private car, while others may be directly on a rail or coach line.

If you are a member of an automobile association, you might ask if they are affiliated with the American Automobile Association. AAA has regional guidebooks that list accomodations and restaurants, even for some fairly small towns. Again, you would need to know what area you'd like to visit (each guidebook usually covers several states within a region). E-mail me if you decide on a region and can't get the AAA guide. (By the way, these guides are mainly just for eating and sleeping, not a lot of sightseeing info, but they're free to AAA members, and worth every penny.)

Sorry to have answered your question with so many other questions, but I hope this will help narrow your search.

Asheville, NC. I entered "Asheville" in Go@net's search engine and received a page full of links for travellers... try it.

Excuse me, that should read "Go2net.com"

Hi, Sheila,
We haven't been to Asheville but have heard it's very nice indeed.
You wouldn't be the first from "over the sea" to spend time there, though, since Flora Macdonald called it home for a time (after the you-know-what.)

1. If you want to be near the water and if hot weather is really important to you, I would choose the area around Charleston, SC. Lots of history there, and wonderful beaches nearby. The city of Charleston is fascinating and has excellent restaurants, galleries, etc.
2. If you want to be near the water and hot weather is not as important to you as the other factors you mentioned, I would choose somewhere in Maine near Bar Harbor/Acadia National Park or Camden. Maine is absolutely gorgeous and has lovely rural areas and small towns, lots of hiking, rugged cliffs, nice beaches, whale-watching, great seafood. But the weather in Maine in May/June is unlikely to be "hot" -- daytime will be pleasantly warm, probably in the 70s, and evenings will be cool and you'll need a sweater. A great website is www.visitmaine.com
3. If BOTH being on the water and hot weather are not so terribly important to you after all, then I would choose somewhere in the mountains of Virginia (Blue Ridge/Shenandoah) or western North Carolina near Asheville. Both are lovely with lots to do in terms of hiking, etc. And both have some lakes and rivers nearby. Asheville also has the Biltmore Mansion to tour which is gorgeous, and Asheville also has lots of art galleries and things like that. Virginia has Monticello near Charlottesville which is very interesting and fun to visit. Both have their advantages. But if you stay in the mountains the weather will be cooler than it would be, for example, in Charleston on the coast. It should still be plenty warm though.
Good luck with your decision.

Thank you all very much. Now all I have to do is persuade my husband!

Maybe I'm more "out of the loop" than I knew....but WHO IS FLORA MACDONALD????? (a few posts up)

Maybe I'm more "out of the loop" than I knew....but WHO IS FLORA MACDONALD????? (a few posts up)

Sorry to be so long, but I don't usually read this forum.

Flora Macdonald, very famously in Scotland, transported James Stewart, the Young Pretender, from South Uist to Skye in the teeth of searches for him by the treachorous English, disguised as her maid, after Culloden at the end of the '45 rebellion

She is the person, of whom the song
"Speed bonny boat
Like a bird on the Wing
Over the Sea
To Skye"
(The Skye Boat Song)
was written

I think the comments above were related to my Scottishness, and I much appreciate them

Please e-mail me if you want to know more

Got it.

Sheila, is this some kind of revisionist history? I was taught that Charles Edward Stuart, aka Bonnie Prince Charlie, was the young pretender and the person that Flora sneaked over to Skye?

You're absolutely right!

My only excuse is that I posted that after midnight last whilst suffering from red wine poisoning.

Such humiliation!