The United States is a country of supersized proportions. Geographically it may tag behind Russia and Canada, but everything else in this 50-state nation follows the mantra "bigger is better".

In America the roads are wider, the cars are chunkier, the storms are stronger, the music is louder, the personalities are bigger, the rich are richer, the lights are brighter, the hot dogs are longer, the pancakes are higher, the waistlines are larger and the television channels are greater.

A country of wide open spaces and sprawling cities, Arctic tundra and tropical rainforest, the United States has something to offer every traveler. There's the vibrant metropolises of New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, the eerie draw of the Nevada desert, the ski resorts of the Rocky Mountains, the steamy hedonism of Florida, the salty tang of the New England seaside, the rugged wilderness of Alaska, the baking hot lava fields of Hawaii, the endless corn fields of the Great Lakes region and the god-fearing folk of the southern Bible belt.

First-time visitors to the United States might feel like they've stepped into a familiar film set, but look beyond the big-box stores and fast-food chains and you'll discover America is much more than the sum of its imperialist stereotypes.

A country of disparate but deeply patriotic people, the only thing Americans love more than showing visitors around their extraordinary country is traveling around it themselves.

Survival guide 

The United States has six major climate zones. The tourist high season is between May and September (Memorial Day and Labor Day) when the highways are choked with RVs and the national parks are swarming with visitors. Almost all visitors to Alaska go in the summer between May and September. Winter is a great time to ski powder in Colorado or otherwise catch some vitamin D in Florida or southern California.

The US also experiences some extreme weather: tornadoes can rip across the Great Plains (Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma) in spring and summer, while hurricanes often wreak destruction across the southeast coast in the fall.

Countless motels line the side of US highways. The cheapest motel chain is Motel 6. Budget accommodation is not always easy to find, although America does have a growing network of youth hostels. Camping grounds are plentiful although often closed in the winter and many cater more for RVs.

You are expected to tip around 15% for service in cafes, restaurants, beauty parlors, good hotels and in taxis.

America has 5.7 million miles of paved roads and driving is a national obsession. Taking a coast-to-coast road trip (preferably in an open-top cadillac, a hummer, an RV or even an ice-cream van Borat-style) is as American as firearms and frothy milkshakes and definitely the best way to see the country.

The United States has major international airports in New York, Newark, Honolulu, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Houston, Boston, Washington DC, Chicago, Atlanta, Miami and Dallas-Fort-Worth.