USA TRAVEL GUIDE, “THE WEST”

BY CLAY LARROY

Traveling is the kind of activity, which almost all the people love. For someone it is an opportunity to relax and abstract from everyday busy life. For others it is interesting to observe the way people of other cultures and mentality live. Some people consider it to be the best way to have fun and always try to visit as many clubs, pubs, restaurants and cafes as possible for their wallets and time limits. When you want to plan a vacation contact me!

THE WEST

The West region, western U.S., mostly west of the Great Plains and including, by federal-government definition, Alaska, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming. Virtually every part of the United States except the Eastern Seaboard has been “the West” at some point in American history, linked in popular imagination with the last frontier of American settlement. But especially it is that vast stretch of plain, mountains, and desert west of the Mississippi that has loomed so large in American folklore, a region of cowboys, Indians, covered wagons, outlaws, prospectors, and a whole society operating just outside the law.

As with other sections of the United States, regional boundaries are somewhat imprecise. The West of the cowboy and the cattle drive covered many non-Western states, including Kansas and Nebraska. Much of the West’s fiercest Indian fighting took place in the Dakotas, both of which are now considered to be part of the Middle West. Alaska and Hawaii, geographically the most western of all the states, are really no part of the popularly conceived West at all.

Furthermore, though the West was the last region of the United States to be settled and developed, its modern history predates that of the British colonies on the eastern seaboard. The Spaniards reached the Grand Canyon in 1540, what is presently Kansas in 1541, and San Francisco in 1542. Santa Fe was founded in 1610, only three years after the British founding of Jamestown. Extensive settlement, however, was still hundreds of years away.

Americans have long regarded the West as the last frontier. Yet California has a history of European settlement older than that of most midwestern states. Spanish priests founded missions along the California coast a few years before the outbreak of the American Revolution. In the 19th century, California and Oregon entered the Union ahead of many states to the east.  
The West is a region of scenic beauty on a grand scale. In much of the West, the population is sparse and the federal government owns and manages millions of hectares of undeveloped land. Americans use these areas for recreational and commercial activities, such as fishing, camping, hiking, boating, grazing, lumbering, and mining. In recent years, some local residents who earn their livelihoods on federal property have come into conflict with the government agencies, which are charged with keeping land use within environmentally acceptable limits. 

 
Hawaii is the only state in the union in which Asian Americans are the largest ethnic group. Beginning in the 1980s, large numbers of Asians have also settled in California. Los Angeles - and Southern California as a whole - bears the stamp of its large Mexican-American population. Now the second largest city in the nation, Los Angeles is best known as the home of the Hollywood film industry. Fueled by the growth of Los Angeles and the "Silicon Valley" area near San Jose, California has become the most populous of all the states.  Perhaps because so many westerners have moved there from other regions to make a new start, Western cities are known for their tolerance and a very strong "live-and-let-live" attitude.

REFERENCE SITES:

http://www.travelresearchonline.com/

https://www.britannica.com

Late afternoon on the West Coast ends with the sky doing all its brilliant stuff.

Joan Didion

Experience life by traveling with friends and family!