I arrived within the United States as a university pupil after I was 17. Of all of the travels I’ve made in my life, that journey nonetheless stands out. A 12-seater airplane descending from Pittsburgh into Bradford, Pennsylvania; my two suitcases bursting on 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 knowledgeable me kindly, “but Bob doesn’t work on Sundays.” Two strangers gave me a experience to campus. As we drove alongside tree-lined roads, passing homes with American flags waving within the breeze, I keep in mind questioning the place all of the skyscrapers I noticed within the films had been. I spotted, in that second, that the United States was going to be very completely different from what I had imagined.
Though I moved again to India after commencement and now stay in London, I nonetheless really feel deeply related to the US. How may I not? I’ve pushed the Pacific Coast Highway and I-90; watched autumn arrive in New England in a blaze of shade; spent spring breaks in Miami; stood beneath fireworks on the Fourth of July in every single place from Charleston to North Dakota to Las Vegas. And regardless of what number of occasions I return, New York City nonetheless makes me really feel thrillingly alive.
But what most stays with me (and plenty of vacationers I discuss to) aren’t the landmarks however the people. The cheerful good mornings from strangers. Conversations struck up whereas pumping gasoline or ready for espresso. The fellow passenger on a protracted flight who finally ends up telling you their life story. There is a heat and disarming openness to on a regular basis American life that guests discuss many times—a generosity of spirit that appears more and more uncommon in a world lived by way of screens and algorithms. That intuition to lean into life with curiosity, optimism, and kindness is, maybe, America’s biggest attraction.
So, because the nation marks 250 years, this concern is a celebration of the people and places that proceed to make journey right here endlessly rewarding. More than twenty years after arriving in Pennsylvania as a young person, America nonetheless surprises me—and which may be the rationale I hold returning.
This article appeared within the July/August 2026 concern of Condé Nast Traveler. Subscribe to the journal here.