United States Travel Guide: 5 Cities, Costs and Itineraries
Five cities, five completely different countries wearing one passport stamp
Overview
There is no single United States trip. New York, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Miami and Orlando have almost nothing in common beyond the currency and the flag, and treating them as one itinerary is the first mistake most first-time visitors make. New York runs on a subway and a grid, and you can genuinely go car-free for a week. Los Angeles is the opposite: distances are real, traffic is worse, and a rental car is close to mandatory. Las Vegas is a resort strip in the desert with its own pricing logic, resort fees included. Miami splits into a tourist beach strip and an entirely different Latin American city sitting right behind it. Orlando is theme parks, full stop, with ticket pricing that changes by the calendar date. What does connect them: sales tax gets added at the till everywhere, never shown on the price tag, and tipping 15-20% at any sit-down meal is not optional the way it can feel elsewhere, it is the wage structure servers work under. Budget for both on top of every number you see advertised. Canadians get an easier ride into the country than most nationalities: no visa, no ESTA, just a valid passport for a stay of up to 90 days, because Canada was never part of the Visa Waiver Program in the first place, it has its own longstanding exemption. Pick one or two of these cities per trip rather than trying to string all five together; the flights between them are real flights, not train hops.
Best time to visit
There is no single best window across all five. New York and Orlando are best avoided at their weather extremes (NYC deep winter, Orlando peak summer humidity). Las Vegas and LA run pleasant nearly year round with brutal exceptions (Vegas summer heat). Miami has a hard seasonal split around hurricane season, June 1 to November 30.
- Jan-Feb
- Cheapest hotel rates in most of these cities except Orlando, which stays busy over school breaks. NYC and to a lesser extent LA are coldest now; Vegas and Orlando are comfortable.
- Mar-May
- A strong window nationwide: NYC and LA warm up, Vegas is pleasant before summer heat, Orlando has spring break crowds worth planning around.
- Jun-Aug
- Peak season and peak heat. Vegas regularly exceeds 40C, Orlando runs hot and humid with daily afternoon thunderstorms, Miami sits inside hurricane season. NYC is warm and busy, not unbearable.
- Sep-Nov
- A genuinely good stretch for most of the list: NYC and LA at their best, Vegas cooling off, Orlando's crowds thin after Labor Day. Miami is still inside hurricane season until November 30, with peak storm risk in September.
- Dec
- Holiday pricing spikes everywhere, especially Orlando and NYC around Christmas. Miami and Vegas both work well as a winter-sun escape once the holiday premium passes.
Visa
Canadian passport holders do not need a visa or an ESTA for tourist visits to the United States. This is not the Visa Waiver Program (ESTA is specifically for the roughly 40 VWP countries); Canada sits outside that program entirely because Canadians have their own separate, longer-standing visa exemption for business and tourist travel under US immigration law. A valid Canadian passport and, typically, answering standard entry questions at the border or airport preclearance is what's required, for stays generally up to 180 days at the discretion of the CBP officer (tourist visits are usually granted up to 90 days in practice, though the officer sets the actual admitted period, which is stamped or noted electronically at entry, not fixed by rule). Automated fetches against the official CBP and State Department pages were blocked during this research session, so treat this as standard, well-established policy rather than something freshly verified today, and confirm on cbp.gov or travel.state.gov before you travel in case of recent change.
Money
Currency: USD. Near-universal. Contactless tap is standard in all five cities, and it is genuinely hard to find a place that's cash-only. Carry some small bills for tipping in cash-preferred situations (some Vegas dealers, some valet and bellhop staff) but you can run an entire trip on cards. 15-20% at any sit-down restaurant or bar is the real norm, not a suggestion, calculated on the pre-tax total; many receipts print suggested 18/20/22% amounts to make it easy. Counter service and coffee shops prompt for a tip on the card reader too, that one is genuinely optional. Valet, bellhop and hotel housekeeping are tipped in cash, a few dollars per bag or per night. Sales tax is added at checkout and never shown on the listed price: expect roughly 8-10% in most of these cities, higher in some categories in Las Vegas once resort and tourism taxes stack on top.
| Budget | Mid-range | Splurge |
|---|---|---|
| 100 | 280 | 650 |
Getting around
Flying is how you connect these five cities; none of them are a practical drive from each other. Within each city the story is different: New York is genuinely walkable with a 24-hour subway, Miami's core areas are walkable in patches but the metro area is spread out, and Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Orlando all assume you're either driving, using rideshare, or staying inside one resort or park complex. Renting a car makes sense for LA (close to mandatory) and for anyone doing Florida or Nevada day trips beyond the city core; it's a net negative in New York, where parking costs more than the subway fare for the whole trip.
Connectivity
US carriers (Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile) and prepaid brands sell tourist SIMs at airport kiosks and phone shops, but an eSIM bought before arrival (Airalo, Holafly, or similar, US or North America regional plans) is usually cheaper and skips the airport queue. Wifi is free and reliable in hotels, cafes and most restaurants across all five cities; theme parks and casino resorts also run free guest wifi, though it can slow to a crawl in crowded areas.
Where to go
Locations on this map
- Las Vegas36.17, -115.14
- Los Angeles34.05, -118.24
- Miami25.76, -80.19
- New York City40.76, -73.99
- Orlando28.54, -81.38
Las Vegas
A desert city built entirely around one four-mile stretch of casino resorts, where the free spectacle outside rivals anything you pay to see inside, and the real cost shows up at checkout, not on the room rate.
Los Angeles
America's second-biggest city spread across 500 square miles of freeways, beaches, and neighborhoods that barely touch each other: Hollywood, Downtown, the Westside, and a coastline running from Malibu to Long Beach.
Miami
A Latin American city that happens to sit in the United States, split between the postcard strip of South Beach and neighborhoods, Wynwood, Little Havana, Brickell, that most visitors never see.
New York City
Five boroughs, one subway map, and more good restaurants per block than you can plan around. The observation decks get all the marketing; the neighborhoods are where the city actually lives.
Orlando
Central Florida's theme park capital: Disney World and Universal Orlando anchor a trip that runs on advance planning, date-based ticket pricing, and a lot of walking in heat and humidity.
Frequently asked questions
Do Canadians need an ESTA to visit the United States?
No. ESTA is specifically for Visa Waiver Program countries, and Canada isn't one of them because Canadians already have their own long-standing visa exemption for tourism and business travel. A valid Canadian passport is what you need at the border or airport preclearance, nothing to apply for in advance. Confirm on cbp.gov before you go in case of recent change.
Which of these five US cities is cheapest?
Orlando and Las Vegas can be run cheaply outside their headline attractions (theme park tickets, resort fees) since accommodation competition is fierce. New York and Miami's South Beach run consistently pricier. Los Angeles sits in the middle but a rental car and parking add a real daily cost the others don't all share equally.
Is tipping really necessary in the US?
Functionally yes at any sit-down restaurant or bar, 15-20% of the pre-tax bill. Service workers in most of these states are paid a lower base wage on the assumption tips make up the difference, so skipping it isn't read as a judgment call the way it might be read elsewhere, it's read as underpaying someone for their work.
Do I need a car in these cities?
Depends entirely which one. Essentially mandatory in Los Angeles, very useful for day trips out of Las Vegas and Orlando, optional but sometimes handy in Miami, and actively unnecessary in New York, where transit and walking cover almost everything and parking costs more than it saves.
Are prices shown with tax included?
No, in any of these five cities. What you see on a menu, a hotel rate, or a shelf tag is pre-tax. Sales tax gets added at checkout, typically in the 6.5-10% range depending on the city, and Las Vegas hotel rooms add a separate resort fee on top of both the room rate and the tax.
What is a resort fee and which city has them?
A nightly charge, separate from the room rate and separate from tax, that most Las Vegas Strip hotels add for pool, gym and wifi access whether you use them or not, typically in the range of USD 35-55+ a night, and it is rarely shown in the headline booking price. It is the single most commonly missed line item when budgeting a Vegas trip.
When is hurricane season and does it affect a Miami trip?
The Atlantic hurricane season runs June 1 to November 30, with the highest risk window in August through October. It doesn't mean the city shuts down, most days in that window are normal, but afternoon storms are more common and there's real storm risk worth covering with travel insurance if you're visiting Miami or Orlando in that stretch.
Can I visit all five of these cities in one trip?
You can, but it's an ambitious, expensive, flight-heavy trip rather than a relaxed one; treat it as a multi-stop tour with a real flight between most legs, not a single flowing itinerary. Most first-time visitors do better picking one or two cities and going deeper rather than covering all five thin.
Is New York or Los Angeles better for a first US trip?
New York rewards visitors who like walking, transit, and density, and it's the easier city to do without a car. Los Angeles rewards visitors who want beaches, outdoor space, and a slower pace, but it demands a rental car and tolerance for real driving distances between neighborhoods.