My Top Ten Places To Visit

Want to take a vacation?  Here are my top ten places to visit for your next vacation, as well as a brief description of what I did in each of them.

1. London, England: Home to tourist attractions like the London Eye and Big Ben, London is a beautiful spot to visit.  Yes, the main language is English, but it's still awesome to see how people live on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.  It does rain there a lot, but it won't put too much of a damper on your day.  If you're lucky you might just meet  Queen Elizabeth!

2. Minneapolis-St. Paul Metropolitan Area, Minnesota: I may be a little bit biased towards this one since it's only three hours away from where I am here, but it is definitely worth checking out! Take in a concert at the Xcel Energy Center, visit America's largest shopping mall before the new mall in Miami beats it out!  Check out some scientific stuff at the Minnesota Science Museum!  There's lots of things to do, and you won't regret it one little bit! 

3. Daytona Beach, Florida: This option is better than Orlando for the following reasons.  #1: There's a lot less people scrambling around the city because there are few to no themeparks and #2, there's actually your little bit of stereotypical Florida because Daytona Beach is actually on the coast, whereas Orlando is 50+ miles inland.  Come here, you won't regret it! 

4. Sault Ste. Marie, MI: This small town is home to the Soo Locks, part of the St. Lawrence Seaway.  It's a neat little place, and it's just a few miles away from the Canadian Border!  There's also a nice little Greek Restaurant downtown.  If you're willing to drive across the entire state of Michigan to get up to this little corner, it's totally worth it! 

5. Nashville, Tennessee: Home to the Country Music Hall of Fame, and featuring tons of honky tonk nightlife, this city and it's very vibrant atmosphere are just what you need to get away from the fast pace of life.  You'll also enjoy seeing the rich history of country/western music unfold before you.  Make the drive on down there!  It's worth it! 

6. Scuol, Switzerland: High up in the beautiful Swiss Alps, you'll enjoy the breathtaking views of all the mountain scenery that this little village has to offer.  For fun, you can ride a ski lift up to a little cafe where you'll find small children playing, go white-water rafting, or check out the local scenery. You can also check out the local youth hostel, Judenhedberg Scuol, which has lots of warm cozy rooms for you to enjoy! 

7. The Black Hills Area of South Dakota: This is really broad I know, but you can't exactly pinpoint one location for this.  If you go to any of the towns you'll find stuff to do that's fun for the whole family.  My top three locations would be Mt. Rushmore, which is near Keystone, Hot Springs, home to a dinosaur museum and a natural mineral swimming pool called Evan's Plunge, and Deadwood, which is an old ghost town that puts on live shows about standoffs and the death of George Armstrong Custer.  You will never regret this drive! 

8. Des Moines/Ankeny Iowa: Named as one of the fastest growing downtown areas by a recent study, the Des Moines area will pull you in.  There's an entire section downtown with lots of unique resturants.  It's also home to Drake University, a college with a very high job placement rate post graduation.  

Des Moines wouldn't be growing fast without Ankeny, a suburb to the north that's like a giant growing bubble that won't pop!  When I was here in April my family and I drove around looking for some businesses to stop at, and oh how busy this town is compared to Des Moines!  You'll also find what my mother calls the "Iowan Atmosphere", everyone being nice to each other and welcoming in outsiders with open arms.  Make the drive up down or over. 

9. Aschaffenburg/Kleinostheim Germany: These two very large cities really pop!  You'll see bus stops everywhere with German words and phrases and pop culture posters, be able to go for a row boat ride in a pond at a nearby park, and check out the Karl Theodore Von Dahlberg Gymnasium, which is a school for high performance HS students.  This is the area where I had my homestay on my Europe trip in 2012, and it was one of the most welcoming cities to be in.  Book your flights! 

10. Fargo, North Dakota: Possibly one of the flattest cities out there, Fargo has a nice charm to it.  The people are friendly, the atmosphere is great, and it's home to a great college (NDSU).  The people I know from Fargo are really lucky to live there, it's a blast from everything I've heard over the last two years and everything I saw in November when I went there for a college visit. 

And there you have it!  My top ten places to visit!  These were in no particular order, rather selected based on my favorites from the last seventeen and a half years of travel.  

For the locations outside of the US, I highly recommend trying to check them out with Google Street View, because creeping is fun and then you can see the things listed above for yourself. 

So, with that being said, happy creeping and happy traveling!