Stretched like a gargantuan wall across the 800ft-deep Black Canyon of the Colorado River, Hoover Dam is a thoroughly practical and intensely dramatic monument to civil engineering, an almost unrivaled example of creativity, efficiency and workmanshi..

The world's largest collection of art of the American West, the Gilcrease exhibits paintings, drawings, prints and sculptures by more than 400 artists-with significant holdings of works by Frederic Remington, Charles Russell, Albert Bierstadt, George..

Stretching across the narrow strait of the Golden Gate above the swirling union of the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay, this elegant Art Deco suspension bridge remains one of San Francisco's most beloved symbols. Yet it elicited passionate emotio..

Encompassing more than 1,017 acres of meadows, gardens and public buildings, verdant Golden Gate Park is the largest cultivated urban park in the US. Three miles long and half a mile wide, it has 27mi of footpaths and 7.5mi of equestrian trails, all ..

Part fully functioning film and television studio, part live-entertainment complex and amusement park, 420-acre Universal Studios Hollywood sprawls across and down a hillside overlooking the San Fernando Valley, 3mi northwest of Hollywood Boulevard. ..

Devoted to Native American culture and art, especially Southwest tribes, this fine museum contains 10 exhibition galleries and 32,000 works of art. Arches, colonnades and courtyards are hallmarks of Spanish Colonial architecture. The story of its 192..

At 14,110ft elevation, Pikes Peak is not the highest mountain in the US nor even Colorado. But it is arguably the most imposing high peak, probably the most famous, definitely the most accessible. Named in 1806 by Army Lieutenant Zebulon Pike, who de..

The first US national park to preserve the works of man (as opposed to nature), Mesa Verde was created by Congress on September 29, 1906. Today it attracts over 650,000 annual visitors, most of them in summer, when they can walk through five major cl..

Preserving one of the foremost cultural and historical areas in the US, Chaco Canyon was a major center of ancestral Anasazi (Puebloan) culture from AD 850-1250. Remarkable for its multistoried public buildings, ceremonial structures and distinctive ..

The 922,000-acre Olympic National Park was designated an International Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO in 1976 and recognized as a World Heritage Site in 1981. The Olympic Forest Reserve, which included most of the forested land on the Olympic Peninsula,..

Never been to Venice? Don't despair! St. Mark's Square, the stately Doge's Palace, the Campanile and the Grand CanalHH are all closer than you think-at the elegant Venetian in Las Vegas. The world's largest all-suite hotel and convention complex, the..

The oldest and best-known New Mexico pueblo has been designated a World Heritage Site, of enduring value to mankind, by the United Nations. A visit is a step back in time. Although Pueblo Indian ruins are found throughout the Southwest, here the site..

Collections from saddles and barbed wire to contemporary art are presented in this outstanding museum. The grand entrance opens onto The End of the Trail (1915, James Earle Fraser), a famous 18ft plaster sculpture of a lone Indian rider on a weary ho..

With its two massive gates, reflecting pool and 168 empty glass-and-granite chairs, this memorial stands as a solemn reminder of the April 19, 1995, terrorist bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building that killed 168 men, women and children. T..

Dominating Long Beach Harbor at the mouth of the Los Angeles River, this renowned passenger ship was permanently docked here in 1967 after 31 years of service in Great Britain's Cunard White Star line. On board, visitors can explore the bridge, offic..

Four internationally acclaimed galleries and a research library, occupying three levels of this fan-shaped complex, explore aspects of the history of the American West. Also on the site is the boyhood home of William F. "Buffalo Bill" Cody,..

Since it opened in 1955, the Magic Kingdom of Disneyland has been America's ultimate fantasy land, a place of pilgrimage that young children dream of visiting. In 2001, after a $1.4 billion expansion, Disneyland evolved into the Disneyland® Resort. N..

North America's most spectacular mountains, the Teton Range, rise dramatically above a broad valley near the headwaters of the Snake River, immediately south of Yellowstone National Park. Cresting atop 13,770ft Grand Teton, the Tetons, which extend a..

Towering 180ft above a 32ft rectangular base, this fluted, con-crete column (1934, Arthur Brown, Jr.)-which, despite persistent local lore, was not designed to resemble a firehose nozzle-ranks today among the city's best-known landmarks both for its ..

This 56sq mi park contains an enchanting array of rock spires, pinnacles, arches and hoodoos tinted in a palette of rich shades, considered by some to be the most brightly colored rocks on earth. Red, yellow and brown shades derive from the iron cont..