I arrived in the United States as a college student when I was 17. Of all the travels I have made in my life, that journey still stands out. A 12-seater plane descending from Pittsburgh into Bradford, Pennsylvania; my two suitcases bursting at the seams; an airport with a single conveyor belt; my confusion at discovering there was no taxi stand. “There’s one taxi in Bradford,” a fellow passenger informed me kindly, “but Bob doesn’t work on Sundays.” Two strangers gave me a ride to campus. As we drove along tree-lined roads, passing houses with American flags waving in the breeze, I remember wondering where all the skyscrapers I saw in the movies were. I realized, in that moment, that the United States was going to be very different from what I had imagined.
Though I moved back to India after graduation and now live in London, I still feel deeply connected to the US. How could I not? I have driven the Pacific Coast Highway and I-90; watched autumn arrive in New England in a blaze of color; spent spring breaks in Miami; stood beneath fireworks on the Fourth of July everywhere from Charleston to North Dakota to Las Vegas. And no matter how many times I return, New York City still makes me feel thrillingly alive.
But what most stays with me (and many travelers I talk to) are not the landmarks but the people. The cheerful good mornings from strangers. Conversations struck up while pumping gas or waiting for coffee. The fellow passenger on a long flight who ends up telling you their life story. There is a warmth and disarming openness to everyday American life that visitors speak about again and again—a generosity of spirit that seems increasingly rare in a world lived through screens and algorithms. That instinct to lean into life with curiosity, optimism, and kindness is, perhaps, America’s greatest attraction.
So, as the country marks 250 years, this issue is a celebration of the people and places that continue to make travel here endlessly rewarding. More than two decades after arriving in Pennsylvania as a teenager, America still surprises me—and that may be the reason I keep returning.
This article appeared in the July/August 2026 issue of Condé Nast Traveler. Subscribe to the magazine here.
