Downtown Portsmouth is a very walkable historic seaport city. Once one of the nation’s busiest ports and shipbuilding cities and its depth is expressed in the fine architecture. There are significant examples of Colonial, Georgian and Federal style houses, some are now museums.

The town was originally settled in 1753, by Europeans from Pennsylvania. By 1858, Statesville was growing rapidly and soon began a leader in the production of tobacco and tobacco products, the manufacture of blending whiskey, and a large distributer of roots and herbs.

Uptown Charlotte is the area most cities consider their downtown area. A symbol of the New South where traditional industry blends with innovation and creativity.

Mooresville was originally settled by Europeans that had originally settled in Pennsylvania. They established cotton farms, which eventually grew into large plantations.

Mount Vernon is an American landmark and once a vibrant 18th century plantation and home to the first President of the United States. The estate is located on the banks on the Potomac River.

This trip was done on one of the many ferries that travel the Rhine. I say this so you know that you do not have to book a riverboat excursion, just merely hop on a ferry. Some of the ferries have dining tables and chairs where you can sit, eat and drink as you enjoy the romantic scenery.

The home of Thomas Cole, Cedar Grove, is located in Upstate New Yorkvillage of Catskill. Cole was an English painter, known for his landscape paintings. He first arrived here in 1825 on a sketching trip.

The city hosted the noteworthy Columbia Records recording session in 1928 know as the Johnson City Sessions.

During the 1920’s, the Prohibition era, Johnson City had ties to Al Capone and his bootlegging distribution network in the Appalachian Mountains. This earned the city the nickname “Little Chicago”.

Kennebunkport is a coastal town in southern Maine, settled in the 1600’s as a ship-building Mecca. Former sea captain homes are now guest houses and inns. Dock Square, the center of town in Kennebunkport, is known for its quaint shops and restaurants.

The Lyndhurst mansion was designed by Alexander Jackson Davis in the Gothic Revival-style. The 67-acre estate landscape design was the work of Ferdinand Mangold. The Tarrytown estate had three resident families: the Pauldings, the Merritts and the Goulds.

Having heard people say how the Thousand Islands region was a gorgeous part of New York State, I felt a roadtrip was necessary. Nicknamed the “Venice of America” in the early 1900’s Amidst the gentle waters of the St. Lawrence Seaway lie the villages of Alexandra Bay, Clayton, the town of Cape Vincent and the city of Ogdensburg.

Sea Cliff is not the usual look-alike homes Long Island town that dominate parts of Nassau County. Instead, the village has Victorian buildings listed on the National Register of Historic Places with clapboard, shingle, turrets, wood trim and carvings. Many were build as summer homes in the the late nineteenth century resort town and they have been called one of the best collections of late Victorian homes in New York’s Nassau County. The town is intimate, at one square mile, most residents are able to walk to restaurants, beach, stores and 16 town parks without getting in the car.

I originally discovered Owego on a trip back from the Thousand Islands. It was only a quick drive through, but there was a certain charm of the downtown that called me back.

The Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum was the first library solely dedicated to a President of the United States, and is located on the grounds of the family estate, Springwood. Located a short distance from Springwood was Val-Kil. Eleanor Roosevelt considered Val-Kil to be her first real home.

Wilderstien, is a Hudson Valley house museum that was occupied by three generations of the Suckley family, in Rhinebeck, NY. Thomas Suckley was a descendant of two prominent New York families: the Beekmans and Livingstons.

This section of Brooklyn, was land once owned by the Ditmas Family. The Ditmas Park Historic District is a National Historic District which contains approximately 2,000 buildings, mostly residential.

Salem was originally settled in 1766 by members of the Moravian Church, a Protestant denomination that began in the 1450’s in what is now the Czech Republic.

I have to start off by saying I did not expect what I saw at Winterthur. I had initially thought it would be a nice gilded age house museum, where you tour and admire different rooms filled with paintings and antiques. Instead, what I experienced in the former home of Henry Francis du Pont, was an extensive collection of American decorative arts in 175 rooms with over 90,000 individual objects on an estate with 1,000 natural garden acres of rolling hills, streams, meadows and forests.

Coney Island is the name of both a neighborhood and a landmark amusement park. Between 1880 and World War II, Coney Island was the largest amusement park in the United States. Switchback Railway, a gravity coaster was built in 1884.

Just off bustling King Street, is Carlyle House, built by merchant John Carlyle between 1751 and 1753 in the Georgian-style. The house is architecturally unique as the only stone 18th century residence in Alexandria.