Features // USA

The free ride across the harbour to Staten Island is one of the highlights of any visit to New York City, but is there any point in getting off the ferry? Culturally Staten Island has more in common with suburban New Jersey than with the other four New York boroughs – and with parts of…

You’ve been sitting for the last few hours in a cramped chair next to (or rather half under) someone else’s child, you’re tired and you can’t sleep because the child’s feet are digging in to your side. But at least you’re starting your holiday. We all know the feeling – you’re exhausted from travel but kept…

Spend more than five minutes in New York and you’ll start to understand how much the locals love pizza. There are more pizza joints on a typical block than garbage cans, mailboxes and parking spaces. So as you’d expect, this is one town where pizza genealogy is taken very seriously, and title of best pizza…

New York’s ski resorts are the envy of the world.The service is reliably slick, the lift queues move quickly and there’s huge versatility, from the mellowness of Québec’s Most Treblant to the sophistication of Aspen, the rawness of Jackson Hole and the steep slopes of BC’s Fernie. But ploughing down perfectly groomed pistes all day…

This is not a guide for Sex and the City fans. Cocktails and glam clubs are still big in Manhattan, but good old-fashioned pubs, aided by the US craft beer revolution, are back in vogue. This tour takes you to the oldest, most venerable Manhattan alehouses. Technically the oldest tavern in the city, Bridge Café…

These 15 iconic film locations will transport you straight into the movies. Want to chase Rocky Balboa up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art or tuck into Amélie’s crème brulée in Café des Deux Moulins? No problem. You’ll even be able to experience fictitious spots: swim off the shore of Jaws’ Amity Island;…

We’ve just published new editions of The Rough Guide to First-Time Europe and The Rough Guide to First-Time Around the World, and they’ve got us thinking about the advice we wish we’d been given before our first big trips abroad. Travelling for the first time can be daunting. Do you go alone? What do you…