Boston, New York City & Washington, DC

Follow a portion of the red brick trail that lines Boston's sidewalks and visit some of the most important historical sites of the American Revolution and the Abolitionist movement. This 2.5 mile walk, beginning at the Boston Common and ending at the Bunker Hill Monument in Charlestown, also includes the site of the Boston Massacre, Paul Revere's house, and the Old North Church.

Get a panoramic view of the Boston skyscape from the Prudential Skywalk. Currently the highest observation deck in New England that is open to the public, you can see all the way to the Boston Harbor to the east, and all the rest of this major Eastern metropolitan area to the west. See if you can spot the Old North Church, the Clock Tower, Quincy Market and many other Boston landmarks from your airy perch.

Salem, site of the first colony in Massachusetts, is remembered more for the fantastic events that occurred in 1692, when local girls accused three women of witchcraft. The accusations spread, and in one year nineteen women and one man were executed as witches. Theories about the reasons behind the witch hunt abound -- tension over traditional Puritan values conflicting with new commercial interests, fear of recent smallpox outbreaks and Indian attacks manifesting itself, even hallucinogenic fungus growing in the town's rye -- but not conclusive answer has been found. Explore the history, theories, and myths with your local step on guide. Want a more chilling witch experience? Visit the House of the Seven Gables, made famous in Nathaniel Hawthorne's short novel. In his version, the spooky, rambling house was cursed when bought unfairly from a witch. Even if you ignore the ghost stories, the house offers a great inside look at the oldest surviving 17th-century wooden mansion in New England.

Owned by relatives of Nathaniel Hawthorne, this house became the inspiration for the setting of one of America's most important first author's novels. Now reconstructed to specifically match some of the fictional liberties Hawthorne implemented in his novelistic descriptions of the house, the House of Seven Gables gives visitors a first-hand look at a re-creation of a novelist's vision, as well as a look at the architecture of a bygone era.

One of America's first cities, Boston straddles the Old and New World, its winding streets and busy harbor evoking Victorian England even while its skyscrapers and cutting-edge institutions reflect the American penchant for growth and change. See the city's (and nation's) origins at the Boston Common and State House, site of the Boston Massacre that helped spark the American Revolution. Copley Square and Back Bay bring to mind the literary Boston of Emerson, James, and Thoreau, with graceful houses and wide sidewalks testifying to the area's historic wealth (the posh area had more humble beginnings, however; it started out as a swamp!). The intellectual fervor continues in Cambridge, home to MIT, Harvard University, and all the students, cafés, and bookstores you'd expect in such a big-name college town. You'll also see Boston's North End, which the city's large Italian population has claimed for its own since the 1920s. While the gelato and cannoli here may be sweet, they're no match for Boston's weirdest disaster -- in 1919, a giant storage tank of molasses collapsed, sending a 15-foot-high wave of the sticky sweet goo through the neighborhood and killing 21 people.

The third-tallest building in the world (only the Sears Tower in Chicago and the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur are taller), the Empire State Building rises over the Manhattan skyline like a throne. Admire its Art Deco curves up close as you ascend a quarter of a mile skyward to get New York's best aerial view. From the top, you'll see the Monopoly-board patchwork of skyscrapers, hotels, apartments, and parks that make up the city. Note that the tallest buildings cluster in Midtown -- this section of the island has the strongest foundations, making it the only area where skyscrapers won't sink into the harbor.

The statue, a joint venture between the U.S. and France, was commissioned to honor the 100th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence and the friendly Franco-American relations established at that time. Once a gallows field for convicted pirates, Ellis Island became a federal immigration station in 1892. In the years that followed, Ellis Island saw roughly 12 million immigrants pass through its halls to enter the United States of America. In 1965 Lyndon B. Johnson declared the island part of the Statue of Liberty National Monument, and in 1990 it was reopened as the Ellis Island Immigration Museum, which today attracts over 2 million visitors per year. Afterwards, take a ferry from the islands to Battery Park, a short walk to the 9/11 Memorial. (Note: The 9/11 Memorial is pending availability).

Tour Lower Manhattan, where industry, immigration, and colonial history converge. As the symbol of Western capitalism, Wall Street's modern traders bristle with cell phones, PDAs, and other modern tech accessories. This area's original traders, however, were Dutch colonialists, who gave the street its name by building a wall here to protect themselves from British settlers. Nearby Trinity Church, once the tallest building in the city, holds the grave of Alexander Hamilton and other Revolutionary luminaries who helped shape the emerging United States, and thousands of immigrants, who shaped the modern country, came in through Battery Park, the immigration entry point for the city until the operation moved to Ellis Island.

As Daniel Libeskind's design for the World Trade Center site slowly materializes, new hope and peace are infusing lower Manhattan. See the site where the original towers stood and where countless family members, friends, and sympathetic strangers paid their respects to those killed in the September 11th attacks, and witness the new plans for the future businesses, public space, and memorials that will soon stand here.

See the essentials of New York City on a tour with an experienced local guide. Stroll past the chic shops and art galleries of Greenwich Village and SoHo, and soak up the Bohemian style of the East Village. Then score authentic New York City pizza and knock-off designer sunglasses in Little Italy and Chinatown, respectively. The combination of each neighborhood’s ethnic enclaves creates the complex culture so characteristic of New York City.

The names of its residents alone would be enough to draw anyone to Philadelphia: Benjamin Franklin, Betsy Ross, Edgar Allan Poe, Walt Whitman. Explore "America's most historic square mile" with a local licensed guide and see where the founding myths of America were created. Independence Hall saw the signing of both the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, which was read in public for the first time after the ringing of the Liberty Bell on July 8, 1776. The Bell itself now rests in its own pavilion, where it is rung every Independence Day.

Go on a guided tour of the building where the men and women who have been chosen to represent the citizens of the United States convene to discuss and decide on important legislature.

Follow your guide through the hallways where some of the most influential Americans have walked and see the courtrooms where some of the most defining decisions in American history have been made.

George Washington so liked his estate at Mount Vernon that he placed the capital nearby so he didn’t have to move when elected president. Tour his gardens and mansion, where George and Martha lived from 1761 until his death in 1799. Don’t look for any cherry tree stumps in the garden, though—Washington never actually chopped down the tree as a lad. (We hate to ruin the story, but we cannot tell a lie!)

Created on the former estate of the family of Robert E. Lee’s wife Mary Anna Custis Lee (herself a descendent of Martha Washington), the Arlington National Cemetery contains the remains of more than 245,000 persons, mainly comprised of veterans and military casualties from every military incursion—from the American Revolution to the Iraq War. At the cemetery, make sure to visit the Tomb of Unknowns. Comprised of Yule marble quarried in Colorado, the tomb weighs more than 75 tons. And see the eternal flame that marks the grave of President John F. Kennedy.

Drive down Massachusetts Avenue N.W, also known as Embassy Row, to see where diplomats from around the world live, work and represent their respective countries. Then head to Georgetown and learn the history of Herring Hill’s 200-year-old mansions and other houses of the movers and shakers during this two-mile tour. In the mood to shop? You’ll end up in Georgetown’s shopping and restaurant district.

Night is the perfect time to see the capital, when white marble monuments and silvery pools glow in the floodlights. See the geometric memorials of the Mall—the imposing rectangular Lincoln Memorial, and the line of the Washington Monument bisecting the sky—as well as the innovative and moving monuments to the veterans of the Vietnam and Korean Wars

With more than 900 artifacts, 70 video monitors, and four theaters screening historic film footage and eyewitness testimonies, the Holocaust Museum provides a comprehensive -- and moving -- account of the Nazi persecution of Europe's Jewish communities and others during the 1930s and 40s. See newspapers and newsreels from the period, recreations of ghettos and concentration camp barracks, and a room filled shoes stolen from deported Jews that helps make real the sheer number of people killed during this tragedy.

Choose between visiting the Air & Space Museum, the Natural History Museum, the American History Museum, the National Portrait Gallery, the American Indian Museum or the American Art Museum. In a tomb in the Smithsonian Castle lie the remains of John Smithson, an Englishman who left his fortune to the U.S. government in 1829 for the establishment of a museum in his name. (The government was a bit at a loss, given that Smithson had never visited the U.S., had no connections to the U.S., and never told anyone why he was leaving his money to the U.S.) Since then, the Smithsonian Institution has grown into 16 museums, covering everything from art to zoology. See the giant squid and the insect zoo in the National Museum of Natural History, check out the Wright Brothers’ plane in the National Air and Space Museum, or venture with your Tour Director into the further reaches of this world-class institution.