Florida's favourite theme park city Orlando offers a lot to people who don't want to spend days on rollercoasters. The area has a planetarium, a 50-acre public garden and a Museum of American Folk Art. I can't tell you how any of these attractions were, because when I went to Orlando I spent days on rollercoasters....

It's one of my favourite Simpsons episodes ever - when Homer goes to the 'all you can eat' seafood buffet and they have to force him out of the door well after closing time. It felt a little like that episode when we visited the 'Fish...

On Florida's west coast there are two cities within a short drive of each other - St Petersburg and Tampa. They remind me of Auckland and Wellington (except for the proximity of course). Tampa is the serious, larger city and St Petersburg is the...

I turned into a shameless paparazzi snapper in St Petersburg when we scored free tickets to the Grand Prix. I have always admired Indy car driver Scott Dixon in that 'Kiwi boy done good' sort of way and I also find him very attractive. [IMG1...

A theme park might be the ultimate playland for children but I have decided it's way more fun when you're 26 years old. Not only are adults tall enough to enjoy all the rides but we can go wherever we want, buy everything which...

You know how lots of American films show homes with US flags flying in their front yards? Well, before I visited the States I always thought that was some sort of patriotic Hollywood invention, something you didn't see in real life. But I was...

We might have been in a scene of Jurassic Park as waves rippled through my glass of wine and the cheese on our 'real American burgers' trembled. In the restaurant, which was more like a shack to be fair, diners were getting wet through the...

The United States might be famous for their rednecks but I never imagined to have a run-in with one. I'd always thought of them as comical characters like the bucktoothed Cletus on The Simpsons. But when a man who looked like Cletus' cousin...

I developed a fear of alligators at the exact moment I ran over one with a canoe. Our guide Al had taken us deep into the Florida Everglades to paddle down a prairie. He had seemed very unconcerned by the big reptiles moving stealthily in...

One: The gun counter I know, I know. Michael Moore made a really famous documentary showing how WalMart sells guns. But it still shocked me to see them right there in front of me, in between the chilly bins and the toddler's t-shirts. I...

Two seconds in Florida is long enough to learn that everyone goes bananas for key limes. I had read enough Carl Hiaasen books to know that in the Sunshine State they eat something called key lime pie which they say kicks the arse of the all-American...

Ernest Hemingway based To Have and Have Not in Key West. The novel is full of eccentric characters and that's because the town is full of them too. I had the most hilarious encounters in Key West because everyone I met was so friendly and keen...

There's a saying in Key West that once upon a time America was shaken up and all the nuts fell to the bottom. Tim and I were in our rented Chevy looking for some fun when we realised Key West (the southernmost part of the United States) would be...

I tried not to think about the wonderful shoes and handbags I could buy with three thousand dollars. That was the amount we had just handed over for two weeks in a rented Chevrolet car. Trust us to land in Miami just at the peak of Spring Break when...

Paranoia was playing great games in my head as I flew on to 'US soil'. It was the first time I had visited the United States and Tim hadn't been there since 9/11 changed customs queues forever. We were prepared for security of the highest...

My eyes were glazing over and I was giving the odd robotic nod while wishing like hell I had never gotten myself into this conversation. It was the last time I would ever engage an American in the Clinton vs Obama debate. We were having our...

We were high up on Isla Bartolome when an Irish guy on our Galapagos Islands tour decided I was the 'Queen of Naff'. I had just asked if we should take a group photo against the breathtaking view and he ripped into me and my cheesy ideas....

What I like most about this travelling malarkey is it makes me interested in things I've always found a bit boring - like volcanoes. I had never understood people's fascinations with them until we visited the Galapagos Islands where you...

It was 8am and I was already getting the Galapagos all over body sweat. Being a person not used to sweating, I couldn't believe I was feeling so clammy first thing in the morning. My fellow tourists and I were equipped with snorkeling...