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5 Places To Visit In The U.S. In 2017

By Ramon Gomez, Jr.
Mar 15, 2017

 

Here are 5 U.S. destinations that look especially fetching right now, thanks to new hotel and restaurant openings, special cultural events and big anniversaries.

OAHU, HAWAII

In spring, the first Honolulu Biennial will bring international artists to show works alongside local artists.In 2016 the Four Seasons Resort Oahu at Ko Olina opened, as did the Surfjack Hotel and Swim Club in Waikiki. In the Chinatown district of Honolulu, the new Tchin Tchin! is a rooftop bar and small-plates eatery. Also in Honolulu, there’s SALT at Our Kaka’ako, a recently opened collection of eateries and shops. And don’t overlook the 15th Waikiki Spam Jam on April 29, a street festival that features Spam dishes from local restaurants, live music and related merriment.

PARK CITY, UTAH

Park City is 45 minutes from the Salt Lake City airport. It has an old-fashioned Main Street and the biggest ski resort in the country: Park City Mountain Resort, which combined with Canyons Resort in 2015, setting off changes all over town.

Chef John Murcko’s Firewood Restaurant opened in December on Main Street. Down the road, visitors can browse landscape photos at David Beavis Gallery, caffeinate at Pink Elephant Coffee Roasters, get a sugar fix at Peace, Love & Little Donuts or taste wine at Old Town Cellars, a private-label winery. (All opened in 2016.) But think twice before booking Jan. 19–29. Those are the 2017 Sundance Film Festival dates.

SAN FRANCISCO

The 50th anniversary of the Summer of Love is coming, and San Francisco ventures such as the Magic Bus (which does ’60s-themed local tours), San Francisco Love Tours (which uses VW buses with psychedelic paint jobs) and Flower Power Walking Tours will make the most of it in Haight-Ashbury and beyond. Find Jimi Hendrix’s old place on Haight Street (the apartment, above a tobacco shop, is a private residence), and the North Beach coffee shop where Janis Joplin did some singing. Now it’s Maggie McGarry’s Irish Pub, and there’s more singing than ever.Various street fairs are in the works, including one in Haight-Ashbury in June, and ’60s-themed exhibitions are planned at the California Historical Society, the De Young Museum, the Berkeley Art Museum and San Francisco City Hall. The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art will still be celebrating its May 2016 expansion.

YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK

All the usual reasons to visit apply, plus this: In early summer, rangers will reopen the park’s Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias, home to about 500 of California’s biggest trees. During the grove’s two-year closure, the National Park Service added hiking trails and boardwalks, upgraded toilets, removed a gift shop and rerouted tram traffic.

BOSTON

Boston is booming, adding restaurants and lodgings even as a commemorative note sounds: May 29 marks the centennial of the birth of favorite son John F. Kennedy. Expect special programming at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, and Kennedy’s birthplace in Brookline (a Boston suburb), now known as John Fitzgerald Kennedy National Historic Site. Meanwhile, the Godfrey Hotel Boston, a luxury boutique lodging in the Downtown Crossing area, opened in early 2016, as did Aloft and Element hotels on near the city convention center. A 326-room Yotel micro-hotel is due to open this year in Boston’s Seaport Innovation District.

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