Things to Do in North America

Open to the public since 1974, this distinctive round building on the National Mall is dedicated to contemporary and modern art in the United States. From the outside, the museum appears to be a solid, windowless concrete cylinder perched on four squat blocks; the interior, though, features a hollow cylinder lined with windows which look onto a central courtyard and allow in natural light.

Designed by an art collector for an art collector, the Hirshhorn was originally conceived by architect Gordon Bunshaft to house a bequest of 6,000 artworks by financier Joseph Hirshhorn. Hirshhorn’s art collection is composed of work by the greatest living artists of his 20th century life: Picasso, Matisse, Willem de Kooning, Louise Nevelson, Jackson Pollock and many more. The museum is surrounded by a four-acre, two-level sculpture garden highlighting works by Henry Moore, Alexander Calder, and more recently, Jeff Koons.

The museum today features rotating exhibits by the world’s most accomplished and controversial artists, like Chinese dissident Ai Wei Wei. One of the most popular outdoor attractions here is a Wishing Tree by Yoko Ono, a live tree to which you’re invited to pin a piece of paper with your fondest wish.

Founded in 1899, this is Hollywood's oldest cemetery, a burial ground for some of L.A.'s most historically important and famous citizens. Today, it's a gathering place for community events, like a huge celebration of Dia De Los Muertos (the Mexican Day of the Dead) and a popular summer-Saturday series of outdoor movie screenings.

Its original owners, San Fernando Valley developers Isaac Lankershim and son-in-law Isaac Van Nuys (whose names, respectively, are lent to a major boulevard in North Hollywood and a town in the northwest Valley), sold much of the cemetery in 1920 to Paramount Pictures, RKO Studios and the Beth Olam Synagogue. As a result, many entertainers (like Cecil B. DeMille, Douglas Fairbanks, and two of the Ramones) and prominent Jews (like gangster/entrepreneur Bugsy Siegel) are buried here.

In 1939, the entire cemetery was bought by morally-challenged ex-con Jules Roth, who proceeded to sell off dozens of acres of the cemetery's land (now used as adjacent strip malls) and embezzle millions from the business, allowing the grounds and graves to fall into complete disrepair for about 60 years. In 1998, the Cassity Brothers, a pair of Missouri funeral home owners, took steep advantage of bankruptcy proceedings and re-named their new bargain purchase the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. The Cassity Brothers have since authorized a 2000 documentary on the cemetery called The Young and the Dead, and introduced the Cinespia Series, where, on Saturday nights during the summer, classic films like Sunset Boulevard are screened against a mausoleum for large crowds of gourmet picnickers.

Throughout the year, various musical acts perform at the cemetery's on-site Masonic Lodge, and on Tuesdays, Saturdays and Sundays, guided tours are given by film historian Karie Bible, who also serves as the "Lady in Black," responsible for putting a fresh rose each day on the resident grave of Rudolph Valentino.

How to unwrap the culture and history of Louisiana, the Gulf, and the Mississippi river delta flood-plane? This rich cultural system of Creoles, Cajuns, French Arcadians, Spanish, French, Haitian and Afro-Caribbeans make a rich stew of culture – a culture closely tied to its environment, and its preservation is vital to the enduring legacy of the region. Enter the Historic New Orleans Collection. It is the Historic New Orleans Collection’s job to maintain it all, to record and preserve for mankind the incredibly diverse traditions of New Orleans and the Gulf South region. Through a collection of historic French Quarter buildings, the Collection operates museum galleries and walkthroughs which showcase some 35,000 artifacts, manuscripts, photographs, and prints shedding light upon Louisiana’s multifaceted and extensive past.

Historic Heritage Square takes you back in time to Arizona’s Victorian past. The square is home to the only remaining residential structures of the original Phoenix town site. Heritage Square features eleven Victorian buildings, each with its own unique design, history, and purpose. Today, the buildings have been refurbished and reopened as museums, restaurants, and shops. Each building is designed to give visitors a taste of life back in the original Phoenix settlement. The Baird Machine Shop, for example, was built in 1929 as a commercial structure. Today it is home to Pizzeria Bianco, a local pizza place featuring a wood-burning brick oven, homemade mozzarella cheese, and locally grown vegetables.

The cornerstone of the square is the Rossen House, a 2,800 square feet (260 square meters), fully restored, Victorian home which is now regularly open for guided tours. Build in 1895, the home features ten rooms and five fireplaces. Exhibits such as “A Victorian Christmas” and “A Victorian Wedding” all help the museum capture and show life as it was in the early twentieth century.

If you head east on winding highway 179 past Mitla, you’ll notice how suddenly Oaxacan landscapes can change - in this case, from arid valley to steep mountains wooded with oak. The thermal springs of Hierve el Agua are located on one such mountain, and a swim in the soothing water affords spectacular views of the surrounding peaks, including the “petrified waterfalls” - sparkling stalactite cliffs created from mineral content in the springs - the area is famous for. If you hike southeast from the camping/parking area, you’ll find trails that lead past an ancient Zapotec irrigation system and down to the bubbling source of the spring. Standing at the edge of this buttress of stalactites affords a dramatic view of the pools and valleys below.

Hierve el Agua is not a hot spring---the water hovers at swimming pool temperature, perfect for a long soak in the heat of the afternoon. Local lore ascribes the pools with healing powers and the site attracts all walks of life, from local families to hippie backpackers.

One of L.A.'s most visited tourist attractions, this 387,000 square-foot shopping mall and entertainment center makes an enormous, colorful splash on the sometimes scruffy Hollywood Walk of Fame. The complex includes the Dolby Theatre (formerly known as the Kodak Theatre) which hosts both the Oscars and Cirque du Soleil's Iris, a resident stage show which celebrates the history of film.

The core of Hollywood & Highland is arranged around a three-story courtyard, where soaring, elephant-topped columns evoke the Babylon set of D.W. Griffith's 1916 epic, Intolerance. Fanning out from here, you'll find over a dozen restaurants ranging from food-court outposts to destination dining, two night clubs, a bowling alley and 75+ retail shops, including large national chains like Gap, Build-A-Bear and Sephora.

Adjacent to the main mall is the famous Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, an ornate movie palace festooned with Far East flourishes and featuring a cement-paved forecourt bearing over 200 celebrity hand and footprints. Originally opened in 1927 by movie-house mogul Sid Grauman, the Chinese Theatre is still a popular movie theater with a single large screen and more recently, an additional six-plex. The "Forecourt of the Stars," as well as a slew of character impersonators lingering around it in full costume, attract busloads of out-of-towners and souvenir hawkers each day.

The High Museum of Art, Atlanta’s stunning temple of visual treats, is hard to miss. First, the building is built of white porcelain tile, and inside are four floors of galleries strung together by semicircular pedestrian ramps surrounding a sun-filled four-story atrium.

And that’s just the building. The High Museum of Art collection itself holds more than 11,000 works of art, including a stellar collection of American art, which includes fascinating works from the turn of the 20th century, plus contemporary pieces from the likes of Gerhard Richter and folk art from Georgia treasure Howard Finster. You can also see a marvelous collection of Italian paintings and sculptures from the 14th through the 18th centuries, as well as paintings by French Impressionists and German Expressionists. The collections of sub-Saharan African art and works by noted 19th and 20th century American and European photographers are also world-class.

The collection at the High Museum of Art rotates throughout the year, so each time you visit, you’ll see something you haven’t see before. The museum also hosts traveling exhibitions, concerts, lectures, workshops, and other events.