100 Places in the USA Every Woman Should Go

By Sophia Dembling

100 Places in the USA Every Woman Should Go is a lively and highly subjective collection of places that will educate, illuminate, entertain, challenge, or otherwise appeal to women of all kinds. From historic (such as the Women's Rights National Historic Park) to kitschy (SPAM museum), these places and activities provide a wide-angle view of all that makes America, America.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Travelers' Tales
• Release date: Aug 19, 2013
• ISBN: 9781609520892

Book preview

Get to Know AmericaCross-Country Road Trip

AMERICA IS BIG.

Yes, you know that, but if you have never driven from sea to shining sea, then you don’t really know that.

It’s big.

Travel purists will tell you that the only way to know America is through her blue highways—small roads through small towns, where you can eat at the local diner and buy fruit from roadside stands. And yes, those kinds of drives are bliss, the best way to get an intimate experience of America.

But traversing the entire length of the nation on the Interstates is an education in America as a big hunk of geology.

I love the Interstate system, officially (and a little frighteningly) called The Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways. The Interstates were built not just to move Americans around, but to efficiently move troops and weapons should the need arise.

These are big-picture roads, and that’s one of my favorite things about them. They’re big like America is big. I love the signs that direct you not from town to town, but from great city to great city: SOUTH—MIAMI; WEST—LOS ANGELES. These signs give me the same thrill as an international airport. I love the major interchanges, with underpasses and overpasses cutting through the sky, shuttling us around in our little pods. This is industrial art on a most massive scale.

The Interstates take you past farmland and desert and then plunge you into cities, where suddenly they are battered and rutted and everything speeds up. (Entering St. Louis from the south, on I-44, is among my favorite examples of that—the roads get potholed and confusing, traffic gets thicker, and then there’s that crazy surreal arch, right there.) The Interstates cross rivers, follow railroad routes, weave aggressively through mountains. (Imagine the blasting that had to occur to build those highways. Just imagine.)

It doesn’t matter what route you take, a cross-country trip on the Interstate system is like time-lapse photography. I like going right through the middle, from east to west, so the nation unfolds for me the way it did the first settlers. You watch the huddled hills of the East relax into the Plains, which then start furrowing like a worried brow before the ground heaves and the Rocky Mountains burst from its crust.

I’ll never forget my first cross-country drive with a couple of friends when, after days of hypnotic corn fields, we spotted the first, barely discernible purple glimmers of the Rockies in the distance. I’ve always wondered, one friend mused, how the pioneers must have felt after weeks and weeks slogging across the prairies, then seeing…that.

My gosh, the Rockies are magnificent—claustrophobic in spots, then so grand and gracious they bring tears to your eyes. When you break through to the other side, the ground flattens again and parches as you reach the jagged western edge of the nation. And then, the Pacific Ocean and exotic lands beyond.

Going north-south is certainly fun, but it doesn’t have the visual impact of east-west. And small road trips are wonderful, of course. I always choose driving if it’s feasible for a trip. Someday, when I have all the time in the world, I’ll take the blue highways across America.

But to take the full measure of our nation, for a wide view of everything America has, of her scale and breadth and splendor, we have our broad, bold, splendid Interstates. God bless ’em.

PLACES TO LEARN MORE

There are roughly 837 gajillion road trip books and movies out there. I am going to suggest just one: Women’s Diaries of the Westward Journey, by Lillian Schlissel. It’s academic in tone and gripping in content. These are the stories of women who crossed the country in wagons and by foot. You think not being able to find a rest stop when you need it is a road trip hardship? How about giving birth by the side of the road? Burying loved ones? If anything can make you grateful for the Interstates, these stories will.

National Parks

AMERICA’S NATIONAL PARKS ARE NOT NATIONAL PARKS for nothing. The acreage carved out for posterity is some of the most breathtaking beauty America has to offer.

The parks are all different, all spectacular, all appealing for their own reasons. So I asked a bunch of women about their favorite national park and why, to give you lots of ideas.

It’s my book so I go first: Yellowstone National Park in the wintertime. Yes, it’s lovely in the summertime but it’s also crazy crowded. Getting stuck in a traffic jam in a national park is just wrong. But in the wintertime, when it’s under a blanket of snow and it attracts far fewer visitors, it is—it’s no use, I must use a cliché—magical. Great expanses blanketed in white are dotted with buffalo, who use their massive heads to push aside the snow and reach the grass beneath. Underground cauldrons roil under a layer of steam, mudpots burble ominously, geysers spew. (Did you know Yellowstone is essentially a big volcano? Try not to think about it.) Peak moment: after a day of snowmobiling, sitting in an outdoor hot tub at Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel when a light snow started falling.

Speaking of which, rules about snowmobiles are in perpetual flux, part of an ongoing tussle across the nation between park conservation and access. At the moment, you may snowmobile into the park, but check the park website for restrictions. You can also take snow coach tours. I’ve snowmobiled in from lovely little Cody, Wyoming (see Chapter 23) and saw amazing things I wouldn’t have seen if I’d arrived in a car. Still, I can take or leave the snowmobile, which is loud and seems terribly rude in such a pristine landscape. An alternative is to drive in and stay at one or both of the lodges; Mammoth and Old Faithful are open mid-December through mid-March. You can take snowmobile or snow-coach tours, cross-country ski, or snowshoe from there. And please do. Don’t make it a drive-through visit.

I also suggest Badlands National Park because it’s just so stunning and intense, and it’s impossible to take a bad photograph there. The buttes and spires, desert and prairie go kaleidoscopic in changing light. It’s the kind of place that makes your soul unfold to fill the space. A friend and I hiked out a while on Chimney Rock Trail, and it was like leaving the world as we know it behind. In a good way.

And a shout-out for Big Bend National Park in Texas, which is one of my favorite places in the world. It’s desert, mountains, canyons, and hot springs. It’s wild, kind of dangerous, and haunting. Out here, they say, the land is two-thirds sky. And they say out here, everything bites, sticks, burns, or breaks your heart. Also in a good way. The desert blooms in springtime and it’s lovely, though you might want to avoid spring break if you’re looking for solitude.

Now, for more inspiration, here’s what other women have to say:

Glacier National Park, Montana: Because of the mountains, says videographer Laura Mann. The mountains are bigger there than in any other national park I’ve been to. It’s like a wilder, less tourist-ridden Yellowstone.

Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado: Mesa Verde was way more interesting than the usual ‘hey, look at that cool tree/mountain/river/etc.’ stuff, and it was the first time I actually grasped the concept of people before ‘modern’ times, says Jennifer Medina, who grew up in Colorado and spent every childhood vacation going to national and state parks.

Rocky Mountain National Park: For earth mama reasons, says Lara Mayeux, a psychology professor who vacations there with her young daughters. She takes them hiking. The trail is covered in all kinds of tracks, and the girls like to try and identify them, she says. They take very seriously the job of using binoculars to look up the mountain in search of bears. We listen to the birdsong and try to identify the flowers that are growing along the trail. We watch the bighorn sheep on the meadow.

Arches National Park, Utah: Something there moved me to tears, says artist Therese Shirley Hardison.

Olympic National Park, Washington. So foggy and spooky! says Helen Anders, a travel writer.

Yosemite National Park, California: In winter, says editor Robin Galiano Russell. Just a Japanese tour bus…and us. So exquisite, and the 1920s lodge is amazing. (She’s talking about the Ahwahnee Hotel.)

Cuyahoga Valley National Park, Ohio: Not the jaw-dropper that some out west are, but it offers reassuring proof that nature manages to bounce back when we give it a break, says editor Jen Dennis. (An Erie Canal towpath has been turned into a walking/biking/running trail here.)

Everglades National Park, Florida: My favorite part was renting a canoe and paddling away on our own private bird-watching expedition, says travel writer Candy Harrington. We saw herons, egrets, storks, spoonbills, and more. The area was just flooded with bird life—and a few gators too! Best of all, we only ran into a few other folks that day.

Finally, Amy Forbus, an editor, had a little trouble deciding which park to choose. She was just back from a trip to Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky, where she took the six-hour Wild Cave Tour, and to Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee and North Carolina (the most visited national park of the bunch), where she climbed Mount Le Conte, the tallest mountain in the eastern United States. Yes, we feel like total bad-asses now, she says. But she also has a soft spot for Denali and Kenai Fjords national parks in Alaska. And Carlsbad Caverns National Park in Texas and New Mexico. What can I say? Amy says. I’m becoming a national park junkie.

That’s not hard to do. Bet you can’t visit just one.

PLACES TO LEARN MORE

The National Park website, www.nps.gov, is the place to start for information. And National Parks Traveler, www.nationalparkstraveler.com, is a great place for news and commentary about the parks.

The Ken Burns documentary series, The National Parks: America’s Best Idea, is an exhaustive (and a little exhausting) exploration of the parks. The PBS website about the series has lots of links to click, www.pbs.org/nationalparks.

Maine Coast

MAINE HAS MORE COASTLINE THAN CALIFORNIA, and the Maine coast has two personalities: There’s that whole Ye Olde Fudge Shoppe thing of touristy towns such as Ogunquit and Boothbay Harbor. These places are a fun and necessary component of a holiday on the coast of Maine. Most of the state’s sandy beaches are in the southern part of the state. I spent many summers in among the pines at a sleepaway camp on a lake in southern Maine. Once a summer we went to Reid State Park, where the beach was big and wide and the water was so cold, my ankles went immediately numb when I waded in. (I waded out immediately.)

But beyond the outlet stores and cinnamon-scented gift shops, even beyond the harbors and lobstermen (mmm, lobster…) the Maine coast is deeply soulful. Here are crashing waves, rocky islands, tidal pools, and lighthouses. I’m going to stick my neck out and say that it is impossible not to be deeply affected by the Maine coast.

Acadia National Park stands on a collection of rocky islands that heaved from the Earth’s crust in the aftermath of enormous glaciers passing through. Even the highest mountain within 25 miles of the shoreline between Nova Scotia and Mexico, Cadillac Mountain, had its top sheared off by glacial traffic, though it still stands: 1,529 feet of pink granite and pines overlooking the park. Acadia also has forests, lakes, ponds, wetlands, and tidal pools. Not so much beaches, unless you’re O.K. with sea-critter skeletons mixed with your sand.

Park at Jordan Pond House Restaurant, and you can just stroll around the pond like Victorian ladies did, when the tradition of tea and popovers on the lawn began (it continues), or take up on foot or by bike on the network of carriage roads. You’ll lose most of the crowds pretty quickly, says Hilary Nangle, who lives in Maine and wrote Moon Handbooks to Acadia and Coastal Maine.

Hilary also suggests taking the ferry from Stonington to the Isle au Haut section of the park. As a resident told me, it’s the place where you can set yourself on a granite cliff, gaze out to sea, and all your questions will be answered, she says. Or, hike up to Great Head, a 1.4 mile loop through forests and over cliffs. It’s a not-too-tough hike but you won’t meet many people en route. Even if you do, there are plenty of nooks and crannies on the ledgy summit where you can hide, Hilary says.

Schoodic Peninsula is the only part of the park that is on the mainland. Begin at the point—watching waves crash on the pink granite slabs is mesmerizing, says Hilary. Then hike up Schoodic Head and watch for eagles and osprey. Heaven!

And then there are the islands, scattered along the coast like crumbs off a broken cookie. Monhegan Island has been an artists’ colony since the 19th century. Robert Henri, George Bellows, Rockwell Kent, Edward Hopper (not yet famous when he summered on the island in 1916), and the Wyeths (see Chapter 57) and hundreds of other artists, famous and obscure, have painted the scenery of Monhegan.

Monhegan is still a magnet for artists, many of whom open their studios for visitors. You can pick up a schedule of studio openings near the dock. While you’re there, pick up a hiking map too.

The Monhegan Museum is in the keeper’s house and outbuildings of a still-working (but now automated) lighthouse. It includes exhibits on history, nature, and art. (Cool fact about the art museum, Hilary reports. It only shows the works of deceased artists because there are so many artists on the island. It would be a social/political nightmare otherwise.)

Monhegan is only 1.7 miles long and not quite half a mile wide, but they still managed to carve out 17 miles of hiking trails. And the island is on the Atlantic Flyway migratory path, so birders love it. You could see more than a 100 species on a long weekend in season. Monhegan may be reached via ferries from Boothbay Harbor, New Harbor, and Port Clyde. (And, by the way, these are also good places to get on a puffin tour and see colonies of those fine little fellows.)

From up and down the craggy, perilous coastline, lighthouses cast protective beams. You could make a vacation of viewing all 60 lighthouses, perhaps starting with the Portland Head Light, a little north of Portland. It was America’s first lighthouse, commissioned by President George Washington and built in 1787. If you’re truly passionate, Maine’s annual Open Lighthouse Day is in September, when dozens of real, functioning lighthouses are opened to the public.

www.visitmaine.com

Cape Cod, Massachusetts

If you’re fond of sand dunes and salty air

Quaint little villages here and there

You’re sure to fall in love with Old Cape Cod

So sang Patti Page in the popular 1957 song. And she’s right, you know.

Cape Cod, a beckoning finger of land that reaches out into the Atlantic and wraps around Cape Cod Bay, exudes an aura of away-from-it-all-ness even in the middle of summer, when it’s full of sun-baked tourists. Cape Cod has various personalities, from the festive gay mecca of Provincetown on its tip; to the laid-back vibe of Martha’s Vineyard, a one-time hangout for James Taylor and still a favored getaway of his former wife, Carly Simon; to the upscale ever-so-everness of Nantucket, and the raw glory and great, rolling dunes of Cape Cod National Seashore.

Cape Cod inspires poetry from its devotees.

I love how the trees gradually turn craggy as you head down Route 6A, like Van Gogh’s apple tree drawings, says Jill Goodman, a painter. The crooked little streets are on a human-size level and have an intimacy about them. Then there’s the solitude of the dunes, which I can’t get enough of. Oh, and the gorgeous patches of color everywhere, as nearly everyone has a garden or window box. The Cape is where I want to retire. I’d live there now if I could.

I love the light and the air and walking barefoot in the surf and falling asleep on a sand dune, says Debby Kaspari, also an artist. And steamed clams, she added.

The Pilgrims first landed on what is now Provincetown before heading across the bay to settle Plymouth. In 1848, trains started running from Boston to Sandwich, and by 1873, they were running all the way to Provincetown, establishing the Cape as one of the nation’s first summer resorts. President Kennedy summered here, but he was not the first U.S. president to do so; a few decades earlier, President Grover Cleveland had a summer home in Bourne. More recently, presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama (and families) have vacationed on Martha’s Vineyard.

Explore Cape Cod’s great outdoors on the Shining Sea Bikeway or the Cape Cod Rail Trail. Take a sunrise or sunset tour of its windswept dunes. Hike nature trails at the Cornelia Carey Sanctuary (The Knob), named for the woman who donated the land for protection. Meet local fauna at the Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary and the Monomoy National Wildlife Refuge. Explore the Great Salt Marsh in Barnstable by kayak. Visit the Nauset and Highland lighthouses. The lighthouse grounds are open all year, and you can visit the Nauset tower during periodic open houses May through October; guided tours of the Highland are offered daily in season.

The Old King’s Highway (Route 6A that Jill mentioned) is a must-do meander through the Cape’s sweet historic villages. Frequent stops for exploring and shopping are required.

And, of course, there are beaches every which way. On the Atlantic Ocean side, the Cape Cod National Seashore is more than 40,000 acres of pristine nature—40 miles of coastline, marshes, ponds, and uplands for swimming, biking, hiking, or contemplating. Here the surf is grand and pounding, and the water is brrracing.

Look for the collection of interesting shacks perched on the dunes and built from the ’20s to the ’50s. Exuding history but perpetually threatened with demolition (many have been), they recall the Cape’s freewheeling days, when artists, writers, and other iconoclasts used the remote getaways to escape and create. And party. Today you can sample the life with an overnight stay offered through various residency programs.

The water lapping the beaches on Cape Cod Bay is less tempestuous and therefore more kiddy-friendly, and warmer, though still chilly, averaging in the 60s and 70s in summertime. Water on the Nantucket side is warmest because of the Gulf Stream.

People who love the Cape all have their favorite beaches, or favorite beaches for various activities. The only way to find the right beach for your style is to research and sample, which is hardly a hardship (except parking, which can be challenging).

Cape Cod is a tourist magnet, and its beaches and quaint towns can be busy and crowded in high season. Yet somehow, the magic of the Cape manages to transcend the throngs.

www.capecodtravelguide.com

PLACES TO LEARN MORE

The Big House: A Century in the Life of an American Summer Home by George Howe Colt is a moving memoir about the declining WASP lifestyle and the evolution of a summer resort, told through the story of a big, old house on the Cape.

Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve, Flint Hills, Kansas

I AM IN LOVE WITH THE great American prairie.

I love its grand vistas and its wildflowers and butterflies. I love the changing shadows and colors of the grasses in shifting light and passing seasons. I love the green, earthy fragrance and birdsong. I particularly love the prairie at twilight, when the sinking sun turns the scene impressionist.

The prairie reminds me of the desert. It appears bland and monochromatic, still and lifeless at first glance. But when you slow down and really look, you see it’s full of color and variety and life.

Only a sliver of virgin native prairie remains in North America, and few people give it much thought. Lawns and ranchland seem reasonable facsimiles. Prairie plants might strike us as weeds. Even for those of us who came of age in the 1960s and 1970s, when the modern conservation movement began, the prairie is sort of a deep cut—not as flashy as the ocean nor as darkly seductive as the forest primeval. Like the rain forest, it cleans our air, but it is the most endangered ecosystem on the continent.

But we’re coming around, and passionate grassroots groups (in an almost literal sense) between the Appalachian and the Rocky Mountains are snatching up remaining fragments and protecting them.

In 1996, the National Park Service joined the effort, establishing the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve in the Flint Hills of Kansas. One of the nation’s newest national preserves, it protects almost 11,000 acres of tallgrass prairie.

I have visited the preserve in late spring and late autumn. I’ve seen it under the baking sun, I’ve sprawled on the ground as twilight brought out the deer and coyote howls before melting into a long, Technicolor sunset.

Free bus tours are