NYC to ATL in 6 days

[Army of GOD]

Tl;dr

[thegreekdog]

Things I want to do during the 6 days:

- See a proper bit of small town America
- Go to a restaurant featured on "Man vs Food" (and maybe do the eating challenge - but no seafood please, not a big fan)
- Get drunk with friendly strangers in at least 2 different locations (do they have cider in the US by the way? I don't agree with beer, get the hangover before I get drunk)
- Spend a day out in the sticks a bit at a national park or similar
- Spend a day in a area with good shopping facilities (a mega-mall would be perfect but not some two-cent 100 shop thing, minimum 250 shops - remember even the mundane US shops will be new to me and there will be plenty on offer I can't get here in the UK, or alternatively an inner city market with lots of unique one-off independent shops)
- If possible, catch some sort of sports game (football preferably, not sure how the season dates work out for that with a September trip and how easy tickets are to get, happy to combine that into the small town bit and catch a college football game if that's worthwhile?)
- an afternoon at the beach

I realise getting all of that might be a tall order but that's giving you all a better idea.

So far I have:

Small town - New England or North Carolina
Man vs Food - pretty much everywhere
Get drunk - everywhere
In the sticks - New England
Shopping - Philly or Boston
Sports - anywhere?
Beach - North Carolina

Sound about right?

Edit - oh and I don't wanna bump into too many tourists - I wanna meet local people rather than fellow travellers.

Okay, you can check off a lot of your list in and around Philadelphia:

Small town America - there are plenty of suburbs (see following).
Man vs. Food - Tony Luke's (my favorite cheesesteak). - http://www.travelchannel.com/tv-shows/m ... iladelphia
Get drunk with friendly strangers - Good luck with that. We hate strangers, generally.
National park - Valley Forge
Mega-mall - King of Prussia (also close to small towns)
Sports - Philadelphia Eagles football
Beach - Cape May (September is a great time of year)

Hit me up when you're in Philly and we can grab a drink and take out the "get drunk with friendly strangers" bit.

[saxitoxin]

IMO ...

Things I want to do during the 6 days:

- See a proper bit of small town America

Authentic small town America doesn't have a lot going on in it, other than periodically getting flattened by the occasional tornado. All of the recommendations here are for small cities (i.e. 100,000+) or suburbs that are still pretty urban. I don't think you'd really want to waste the time it would take you to get to small town in America, unless you like looking at grain elevators or hanging out with Woodruff. Maybe if it were a tourist small-town like whatever the east coast equivalent of Taos, N.M., or Ojai, Calif. is ... ?

- Get drunk with friendly strangers in at least 2 different locations (do they have cider in the US by the way? I don't agree with beer, get the hangover before I get drunk)

The last time I was in Savannah we went south to Valdosta, Georgia and there's, as I recall, a town completely surrounded by Valdosta that's like 1 block long where all the bars have been placed because the town has voted all the liquor laws out of existence. It was like a non-stop party. Maybe JMac knows the name of that town, I think it starts with a "R"?

- Spend a day out in the sticks a bit at a national park or similar

I don't know anything about national parks in the east so can only make one comment. Last year when I was in Massachusetts I went to the Minuteman National Historical Park (outside Boston) which is an almost-urban national park, so a park-like setting, but not in the sticks nor designed for outdoor recreation. It was totally overrun by French tourists. You couldn't turn around without hearing some Frenchy talking in Frenchish. For outdoor recreation it has nothing to offer you, but if you're interested in military history it's pretty interesting. I'm not interested in that, so it just took the form of a rather dull 10 mile country walk past historic buildings, interpretive signs, and the occasional well-preserved British and/or American grave, but my companion who likes that kind of stuff found it TITILATING.

(IM biased opinion, if you want a real national park, cut your trip to 4 days and with the money you save come back next year to the west and go to a monumental park like Joshua Tree or Glacier.)

- If possible, catch some sort of sports game (football preferably, not sure how the season dates work out for that with a September trip and how easy tickets are to get, happy to combine that into the small town bit and catch a college football game if that's worthwhile?)

There's no authentic college football in the Northeast U.S. so don't go to a college football game up there. Colleges there play arena football on a 100-yard field to kill time until basketball season. I'm not saying that to be cute, seriously, if you go to a college football game in the NE you'll be like "what's the big deal about this?" Also, don't make the mistake of going to a Division 2 or 3 football game because you find the tickets are easy to get. Any of the schools on this list are in your area and any of them whose names don't start with a "V" will put on a good show for people who don't care all that much about the technique of American football but like pageantry, like bands, mascots, cheerleaders, and so forth.

[Metsfanmax]

I'd strongly recommend doing the trip up to the Boston area, and check out Cape Cod if the weather is nice. i think Maine is nice but I haven't gone up there yet myself. If you really wanted, you could take I-90 over to Buffalo and see Niagara Falls, before you go down. But that's a long and somewhat boring trip, and if you drive down through western PA to get to Atlanta afterward, that will be even more boring -- but you could see Pittsburgh, I suppose.

[notyou2]

I'd strongly recommend doing the trip up to the Boston area, and check out Cape Cod if the weather is nice. i think Maine is nice but I haven't gone up there yet myself. If you really wanted, you could take I-90 over to Buffalo and see Niagara Falls, before you go down. But that's a long and somewhat boring trip, and if you drive down through western PA to get to Atlanta afterward, that will be even more boring -- but you could see Pittsburgh, I suppose.

Cape Cod is nice but a lot of tourists. Fewer tourists in Maine in September. I have been all over Maine if you have any questions on that state.