I was visiting the US Post Office site and found a cool link to "SeeAmerica.org". They're running a contest with a dream vacation in each state.

Being from Califronia, I checked out their itinerary for my state. Oddly they bypass Southern California - and although they concentrate on Northern Califronia, their trip spends only one day in San Francisco before moving north.

Aside from that quirk - most of the suggestions for places to stop are spot on! (Especially the Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens).

I was wondering if any of the other state itineraries were equally valid. Please check out your state and let me know. Might make for some fun travelling in the future.

The Massachusetts itinerary looks like an artificially-concocted promo that tries to give equal attention to each section of the state, whether that's valid or not. For example, they allocate one day for Boston, where there are a million things to do, and one day for Worcester, where they recommend the Worcester Art Musem, which is nice but certainly isn't more deserving of your time than the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Also, several of the "days" are much too full of activities to actually be accomplished in one day.

Finally, their copy says, "No trip to Massachusetts would be complete without a visit to Plymouth Rock, the enduring symbol of the Pilgrims' arrival in the New World." Well, anyone who's actually FROM MAssachusetts will laugh and tell you it's the stupidest, most overrated tourist trap in the state, don't waste your time!

P.S. Those stamps sure are hideous!

I viewed 3 states where I've lived: New York, Pennsylvania, and Florida. NY chose some pretty areas of the state but was very general for NYC so hard to tell what that would be like. I liked the PA choices, all interesting areas, and was impressed that they included Reading Terminal Market and the Rodin Museum in Philly. FL was very limited - a few cities on the east coast, nothing on the gulf coast and nothing in the Keys. I kinda liked the '50s style stamps. I don't think the state itineraries were meant to be all-inclusive but they seemed to pick very pretty or interesting areas (with exception of Florida).

I checked the two states that I'm most familiar with...KY and TN. They are good whirlwind tours of the states and for the most part complete......it would take more than a couple of days to fully see any state except maybe RI or DE.

But the KY and TN iten. will give you a feel of those states.

They do a good job in Utah!

Utahtea

For North Carolina they link to the visitnc website (official tourism website for the state)

North Carolina...You're one the wrong page. There's a link to all the states tourism departments. You want to click the contest area on the left side of the main page. Then click on your state's "stamp"

Okay, after going to the right area, I think I prefer the link to visitnc.com.

Day 1 Cherokee (argh, one of the tackiest places in the USA), Day 2 Asheville, Day 3 Charlotte, Day 4 Pinehurst and area, Day 5 Cape Fear Coast, Day 6&7 Outer Banks.

They forgot the entire Triangle (Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill) and Triad (Greensboro, High Point, Winston-Salem) a/k/a Tobacco Road. This area has some significan NC tourism stuff (state capitol, NHL Playoffs, Durham Bulls baseball, universities, Old Salem, Civil War/Rev. War sites, Furniture stuff, Seagrove Pottery, and even the N.C. Zoo)

The MN itinerary focuses on a trip down the Mississippi, which would be pretty, but in my opinion the north shore of Lake Superior (Duluth to Grand Portage) and Boundary Waters region (Grand Marais to Ely) are much more spectacular.

And of course in Mpls, they have to send you to Mall of America instead of, say, an afternoon walking around Uptown and the Lakes or checking out the Walker Art Center or Mpls Institute of Arts....