One of the options we are considering is a mammoth road trip from Alaska down to South America!

I've always wanted to see the Florida everglades on one of those boat things with a big fan on the back! (Gentle Ben anyone? ) and I've love to see the Grand Canyon and go to the Burning Man festival in the Nevada desert, but otherwise I've not really thought about where I'd like to go in the US or Canada. Would love to see smaller out-of-the-way places rather than the big cities.

What are the "must sees" in your opinion?

I can imagine the mountains are beautiful! Had to google the islands (kept thinking of San Juan in Puerto Rico) they look great, definitely worth a visit. Could be an ideal spot to do some more scuba diving.

The main thing that normally puts North America near the bottom of places to go is that a lot of the US and Canada are so similar to here, so when I spend time there I want to make sure I catch more of the differences than the similarities, both in culture and environment.

Hopefully I'll be a bit more er.. culturally sensitive than these Brits in the US:

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/2syY12OPkwI&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/2syY12OPkwI&rel=1</a>

The first bit was very funny, the second very sad. How could they leave New Orleans like that? I hope they have done more since then but somehow I doubt it.

I went to New Orleans in 1994. It was definitely one of the prettier cities I visited and it was a lot of fun too. Great food, great music, great nightlife.