Question for you American folk. I have an opportunity to travel to NY on business free of charge and then take a week off afterwards. Was thinking, if I can manipulate the schedule enough, of hiring a turd with wheels and driving down the East Coast then doing National Air and Space Museum, trying to catch a SpaceX launch, skipping the fuck out of Orlando and hitting Miami for a weekend. I may be able to claim the car on expenses, but not an internal flight. Anything else interesting to do down that route?
Was considering trying to nail some high value surplus (in UK) stuff, ship them back hooky brown box to myself as well then sell in UK to pay the rest of it off . Any retailers / surplus suppliers down that side of the coast?
I can't speak for any place but Washington, DC and a few things around NYC.
If you want to do the Smithsonian properly, you need at least a week. I had an entire summer living there a few years ago, and I still didn't quite get all the museums on the National Mall in (I did on subsequent trips!). The National Air and Space Museum on the mall is awesome, but the last Smithsonian museum I have yet to make it to (The Udvar-Hazy Center at Dulles Airport) is much better from what I've been told. Less cramped. Either way, come prepared to walk. A lot. Also, it's worth buying a Metro card and loading it up with $20 USD or so, even if you do have a rental car. Parking is exorbitant in DC, especially anywhere near federal buildings. Much cheaper to ride the metro around.
Other DC area stuff which may or may not interest you:
* Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials, Washington Monument, WWII memorial, Vietnam memorial ("The Wall"), Korean War memorial. If you like plane spotting, the Lincoln Memorial has a great view of arrivals if KDCA is running the RWY 19 River Visual approach, alternately departures if they are using the Mt. Vernon approach.
* Spy Museum is pretty neat, paid admission though
* Georgetown, cupcakes if you're into that fad (
). Oldest existing house in Washington. Expensive shopping.
* National Zoo, great great and lesser cat exhibits and elephants among a lot of other things.
* C&O Canal towpath, a wonderful biking/hiking trail. It extends all the way up to Cumberland, MD. When I was there I did a bike ride about 13 miles up to the Potomac waterfalls. Absolutely gorgeous.
* Mt. Vernon trail, another biking/hiking trail that goes south past National Airport all the way to George Washington's Mt. Vernon. I didn't actually do this one because it got hella hot the weekend after the C&O canal biking trip.
* In Rosslyn, VA you can find a well hidden historical marker at a nondescript parking garage...this is where Bob Woodward met with Deep Throat during the Watergate Scandal.
* If you find your way further north, the National Cryptologic Museum at NSA HQ at Ft. Meade is absolutely worth a visit. It's open to the public, not well advertised, but has amazing exhibits of stuff you won't see elsewere.
NYC:
* Times Square is fun
* USS Intrepid museum (basically take 46th St. west from Times Square and you're there. Awesome collection of aircraft on a restored aircraft carrier. Also a submarine, and a Concorde on display.