USA, July 1988

In 1988 I took my first trip outside of Europe and visited the United States. Since it was my first trip there, I did the basic 'Western USA' tourist route, which seems to be one of the standard trips for first time tourists.

First stop was San Francisco, which is a convenient place to start since it's reasonably similar to European cities, compared with Los Angeles or Las Vegas.

San Francisco skyline Statue in Japanese Garden, San Francisco Peacock in San Francisco Zoo, showing off Gorilla in San Francisco Zoo, grouchy

The next stop was Los Angeles, with the usual tour to the Hollywood Bowl, Grauman's Chinese Theater, Universal Studios and Disneyland.

Hollywood Bowl Fake blue sky at Universal Studio The house that Psycho built...
Chinese Theater, Los Angeles Handprints at Chinese Theater, Los Angeles Handprints at Chinese Theater, Los Angeles (who is who)
Disneyland Disneyland attractions Queue at Star Tours which was a new attraction at that time

From there it was on to Las Vegas and onwards on a sightseeing flight across the Grand Canyon to the Grand Canyon National Park. To get a sense of scale, look for the waterfalls on the first image.

Grand Canyon waterfalls Hoover Damm from above Fractal landscape at Lake Mead Fractal landscape at Lake Mead Sunset at Grand Canyon

Oddly enough, later travels brought me back to all those places I visited on my first USA journey. I was back in San Francisco in 1991 and 2000, went to Los Angeles in 1993, visited Las Vegas in 1991 and 2002 and went back to Grand Canyon National Park in 2002.

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