Crystal Cruises’ 1,070-passenger Crystal Serenity.(Photo: Courtesy Crystal Cruises)

Luxury small-ship line Crystal is taking a lead from the fast-food industry, offering discounts on combo packages. But instead of burgers, fries and a drink, cruisers will get a price break on Turkey, Italy and Spain.

Discounts reach up to 25%, or $12,200, for back-to-back Mediterranean sailings of 14 to 29 days this fall and next spring.

The “Explorer Combinations” feature stops in Dubrovnik, Sicily, Montenegro, Malta, Mykonos and St. Tropez, among others. Overnight stays include Venice, Monte Carlo, Lisbon, Istanbul, Barcelona and Sorrento.

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Although the high-end cruise line is hardly inexpensive, the combinations do offer a value for the price, bringing the cost as low as $217 per day. Crystal offers a wide variety of complimentary amenities, including all beverages and gratuities.

Combo options include:

- Oct. 17-26, 2013: Istanbul to Rome from $3,770
- Oct. 17-Nov. 2, 2013: Istanbul to Lisbon from $6,320
- May 30-June 15, 2014: Barcelona to Istanbul from $5,795

Cruises must be booked by June 28. For more information visit CrystalCruises.com.

This item was written by Larry Bleiberg, former travel editor of The Dallas Morning News and Coastal Living magazine. Bleiberg is serving as Guest Editor of The Cruise Log while USA TODAY Cruise Editor Gene Sloan is away.

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United landed its first Dreamliner in four months on Monday.(Photo: United Airlines)

United Airlines flew a Boeing 787 Dreamliner on Monday for the first time after a four-month grounding due to battery problems.

United Flight 1 started its voyage at 11 a.m. at Houston Intercontinental and landed at Chicago’s O’Hare airport shortly before 1:30 p.m. It is one of six Dreamliners operated by United.

The flight carried 162 passengers including United CEO Jeff Smisek and Boeing CEO James McNerney, according to the Chicago Tribune.

A second 787 is expected to land at Newark Liberty Airport at about 3:45 Eastern, the Tribune reports.

The fuel-efficient planes ran into problems when batteries overheated on flights on other airlines earlier this year. A fire broke out on one flight and another plane had to make an emergency landing. The batteries have been fixed to prevent any overheating.

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“The 787 offers an unmatched travel experience for our customers and co-workers, and we are thrilled to be flying it again,” Smisek said in a press release. “This is an exciting time at United. Our investment in the Dreamliner is just one more example of our commitment to delivering the best product, route network and customer service in the industry.”

United will operate additional Dreamliner flights from Houston to other domestic hubs this week. But the aircraft was designed for long-haul flights.

The Dreamliner will launch international service with a June 10 flight from Denver to Tokyo. Other routes will be added this summer including Los Angeles to Shanghai and Houston to London.

The carrier expects to take delivery of two more Dreamliners later this year.

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The violin and case recently authenticated as belonging to Titanic bandmaster Wallace Hartley will be on exhibit in Pigeon Forge, Tenn., and Branson, Mo., this summer before being auctioned in England in October.(Photo: Henry Aldridge , Son)

An iconic artifact associated with the world’s most famous ocean disaster is coming to Pigeon Forge, Tenn., this week.

The rosewood violin that belonged to RMS Titanic bandmaster, Wallace Hartley, will be unveiled Wednesday at the Titanic Museum Attraction in the Smoky Mountains tourist mecca, where it will be on exhibit through July 27. It then will travel to a sister attraction in Branson, Mo., for display from Aug. 1-15, the museum owners announced today.

The violin is set to be sold Oct. 19 in England by the auction house Henry Aldridge Son, and is expected to fetch somewhere in the six figures.

The existence of the instrument was made public in 2011, but the fact that it’s the real thing wasn’t announced until March by the British auction house, which spent seven years verifying its authenticity after it surfaced in 2006.

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Hartley and his fellow musicians have been depicted on screen and in written accounts as bravely continuing to perform, even as the ship was sinking. Their soothing renditions of selections such as Nearer, My God to Thee are credited with calming terrified passengers as they scrambled for the lifeboats.

“The violin without a doubt is the most iconic piece that has been recovered (from the Titanic), including the crow’s nest bell,” collector Craig Sopin told USA TODAY. “Almost every survivor talked about Wallace playing to the end. So here’s this violin that calmed passengers getting off the ship. But it’s also the very instrument they danced to earlier in the voyage. I truly don’t believe there would have been as many survivors without him.”

Sopin, a Philadelphia attorney, is a leading expert on the disaster and owns a large collection of artifacts from the doomed liner. He is among experts, including forensic scientists, who have studied the instrument. Skeptical at first, Sopin said he’s now convinced that the violin did, indeed, belong to Hartley.

Music journalist Steve Turner was just finishing his book, The Band That Played On: The Extraordinary Story of the 8 Musicians Who Went Down with the Titanic when he learned of the instrument’s existence.

“I thought it was either an elaborate hoax or the real thing,” he said in an interview. “There was just so much detail. Someone would have had to know so much.”

Hartley’s body was recovered on April 25, 1912, 10 days after the Titanic went down, killing 1,517 people. His was the 224th body to be recovered from frigid North Atlantic waters by the cable ship Mackay-Bennett.

Newspaper accounts reported that his violin, a gift from his fiancé, was in a case strapped to his body. Hartley’s mother was later quoted as saying, “My son was a good swimmer, but I know he would die clasping his violin. He was passionately attached to his instrument.”

The violin was returned to Hartley’s fiancé, the auction house said. From there, it took a circuitous route, including a stop at the Salvation Army. The current owner has not been named.

The Titanic Museum Attractions — giant ship-shaped structures parked on busy tourist strips in both towns – are the creation of John Joslyn and his wife, Mary Kellogg Joslyn. Joslyn co-led a 1987 expedition to recover artifacts from the wreck site. The Pigeon Forge museum opened in 2006, followed by the Branson location in 2010.

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Pinnacles National Park got its name because of the spires and rocky remnants of an ancient volcano.(Photo: Gavin Emmons, National Park Service)

Among the annual rites Americans undertake this spring — from cleaning the garage to prepping the garden to analyzing the schedules of their favorite baseball team — we’d like to suggest one more. Prepare to inspect your property.

In particular, promise yourself to visit some part of the 84 million acres of the most spectacular landscapes on Earth and most significant sites from our collective history: our national parks.

They belong to you, after all. Isn’t it about time you checked on the inheritance bequeathed to you by previous generations?

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There’s some good news and bad news for this year’s inspection tour.

The good news is that your holdings have expanded. In January, when President Obama signed the legislation creating Pinnacles National Park in California, he ended a 10-year drought, during which Congress had failed to create a new national park. That’s the longest fallow period since the world’s first national park, Yellowstone, was set aside in 1872.

In addition, the president dusted off a 1906 law and put it to use saving even more places with the mere stroke of his pen. Invoking the unique, unilateral authority granted presidents since the time of Theodore Roosevelt under the Antiquities Act, Obama created nine new national monuments.

These new national monuments commemorate people and places important to American history:

•Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad that ushered slaves to freedom across Maryland.

•A Civil War site at Virginia’s Fort Monroe.

•The Ohio home of Charles Young, the first African-American U.S. Army colonel who commanded the famed Buffalo Soldiers in the Philippine-American war and then led them in protecting Sequoia National Park at the turn of the last century.

•The California home and workplace of civil rights and farm labor leader César E. Chávez.

•A collection of sites in Delaware called First State National Monument, meaning the Park Service at last has a presence in all 50 states.

In addition to Pinnacles, these four other new monuments protect vital landscapes and ecosystems:

•1,000 acres in the San Juan Island archipelago in Washington’s Puget Sound.

•4,700 acres of sensitive archaeological sites at Chimney Rock in Colorado.

•7,200 acres of central California coastline at Fort Ord.

•240,000 acres around the Rio Grande del Norte in New Mexico.

All in all, that’s something to cheer about, an exercise in what Roosevelt called the “essential democracy” of the national parks, “the preservation of the scenery, of the forests … and the wilderness game for the people as a whole instead of leaving the enjoyment thereof to be confined to the very rich.”

This grand experiment, applying the Declaration of Independence to the land and proclaiming that our most majestic and sacred places should be preserved for everyone and for all time, has been renewed and refreshed by these additions. Every American is a little richer for it — and not just in the total amount of acres each of us co-own with one another.

And the bad news? The budget stalemate in Washington, known as “the sequester,” is hitting the national parks especially hard. Right at the moment when these treasures are preparing for the busiest part of their year, the mandatory across-the-board funding cuts mean park managers won’t be able to hire all the seasonal workers needed for the tourist season. Some campsites will have to be closed. Some interpretive programs led by the nation’s most popular government employees, National Park Service rangers, may not be offered. This will diminish the educational and inspirational potential of what Stephen Mather, the first NPS director, correctly called these “vast schoolrooms of Americanism.”

Some in Congress, complaining about Obama’s flexing of the Antiquities Act, have threatened to repeal what has proved to be our nation’s most important conservation tool over the course of a century.

Sadly, as we learned in making our PBS documentaryThe National Parks: America’s Best Idea, congressional indifference to the health of our parks and shortsightedness in regards to their lasting value is nothing new. The earliest parks had to be protected by the Army (including Charles Young and his Buffalo Soldiers) because Congress didn’t get around to creating an agency to do the job until 1916, when the National Park Service came into being.

That same year, when it set aside what is now Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park, Congress declined to appropriate any money for the new park’s preservation on the belief, one senator explained, that “it should not cost anything to run a volcano.” And when Roosevelt used the Antiquities Act to save the Grand Canyon from being despoiled, many in Congress howled that he had overstepped his executive authority. Does anyone now doubt he did the right thing?

Old news or not, it’s still discouraging that our nation’s most special places, cared for by some of our most dedicated public servants and perennially enjoyed by millions of our citizens, so often get shortchanged by the people we elect to parse out the money we provide for the places we cherish the most.

But spring is not the season of discouragement. It’s the season of hope. From Acadia in Maine to the Everglades in Florida, from California’s Death Valley to Alaska’s Gates of the Arctic, there are now more than 400 sites in the national park system. Visit one this year. Take your family. Show your children — or your parents — part of the magnificent inheritance that belongs to every American.

“Climb the mountains,” as naturalist John Muir counseled, “and get their good tidings.” And when you come home after inspecting your property, you may want to inform the people you hire at the ballot box that you expect the executors of your estate to give it the attention and care it deserves.

Dayton Duncan and Ken Burns are the creators of the PBS documentary, The National Parks: America’s Best Idea. In 2009, they were named honorary park rangers by the director of the National Park Service.

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Gwyneth Paltrow has created city guides for London, Los Angeles and New York City as an extension of her lifestyle website, goop. More are being developed, she says.(Photo: Robert Deutsch, USA TODAY)

I was really prepared not to like actress Gwyneth Paltrow’s City Guides app, which includes a short video interview with a Manhattan gallery owner on how to start your own art collection, and recommends contacting “Ashlie, our go-to for a photo-shoot quality at-home mani/pedi in LA.”

But, the City Guides app ($3.99, iPhone and iPad) from Paltrow’s goop lifestyle and e-commerce company is so much more than an elitist, estrogen-laced, boutique-hopping shopping spree.

It is a fun, attractively presented and often-unpretentious guide to intriguing and sometimes-overlooked things to do and places to stay in New York City (including Brooklyn), Los Angeles and London, with more cities on the way.

And, City Guides is not only for tourists. Locals, with an unplanned Saturday unfolding before them, can just as appropriately use City Guides as an idea bank to cash in on available urban pleasures that might otherwise go unnoticed.

A video anchors each city guide, which can be downloaded for offline use. The New York City video features Paltrow in green khakis ambling through Manhattan, softly narrating and taking you to her favorite eateries, shops, galleries, and sections of the city, such as SoHo in the morning before the tourist swarms descend upon it.

The homepage of each guide includes the “most popular” bars, restaurants, galleries and attractions in a right-hand column, and then you can tap on each one to get the basics and view its location on a map.

Once you tap and view the map, you can get directions and also take advantage of “locate me,” a feature pinpointing your own location on a map in case you can’t decipher uptown from downtown.

City Guides is full of surprises and allures.

You are not going to find anything about the Statue of Liberty in the New York City guide, for example. But, you’ll pick up information about listening to filmmaker Woody Allen’s jazz band at the Hotel Carlyle on Monday nights, and John Dragonas’ Greek food cart on East 64th and Madison, “and the one on 62nd run by his brother Tony.”

There’s plenty of space given over to high-end haunts such as the Bar at Culina at the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills, and high tea with “live piano and violin” at Claridges Hotel in the Mayfair section of London.

But, each of the three city guides also has a wonderful section devoted to a taxi or black-car driver’s favorite bars, cafes and restaurants along his routes.

The Los Angeles guide, for instance, features professional driver Chuck Montgomery’s “Chuck’s Chews,” including recommendations for “a super-cool coffee shop in Silver Lake to a delicious new back-of-a-random plaza ramen shop, the best tuna sandwich ever and much more.”

A Gwyneth Paltrow-infused app, of course, is not just about tuna sandwiches.

Each city guide includes a section about trendy “New Openings,” ranging from Hinoki the Bird (“An inspired Asian departure from David Myers”) in Century City, Los Angeles, to Montmartre (“The newest Gabriel Stulman joint”) in the Chelsea section of Manhattan.

The biggest hole in the goop City Guides is that there are only three cities covered, for now. There is a whole, wide world to explore outside of New York City, Los Angeles and London, and you’ll have to go elsewhere for advice about visits and places to hang out to soak up the local vibe for the rest of the world.

An Android version of the app is called for, as well.

Some travelers might also consider it a shortcoming that the City Guides don’t really have any recommended itineraries for the day or night. The guides are more of a do-it-yourself, pick-and-choose your spots and visits kind of thing, which is totally fine if you have more of a spontaneous and adventurous personality.

The City Guides are meant to be informative; you can’t book a recommended hotel or make a restaurant reservation within the app, but it does give you information about the attraction’s website or contact details.

And, the information provided about each gallery, restaurant or local attraction is fairly bare bones, usually one paragraph, so you can’t find a dining menu or get much historical perspective about the venue.

But, the relative paucity of detailed information about each attraction really doesn’t detract too much from City Guides’ appeal. It is, after all, just an app, and it is geared for you to conveniently use on your iPhone or iPad, mostly when you are on the go, wandering around the city.

Gwyneth Paltrow’s City Guides by goop is a worthwhile city discovery app for tourists and locals, for women and men.

And, for guys, even if you are not looking for a pricey boutique in Manhattan’s SoHo section to find that perfect Spring dress, your better half might be.

MORE: Read previous columns

Is there a product, app or website you’d like the Digital Traveler to review? Send us an e-mail at travel@usatoday.com.

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The FAA approved Boeing’s plan to fix the 787 Dreamliner’s batteries on March 12 with more testing required.(Photo: David McNew, Getty Images)

United Airlines is getting its 787s back in the air.

The planes are returning after being grounded for four months by the federal government because of smoldering batteries on 787s owned by other airlines. The incidents included an emergency landing of one plane, and a fire on another.

The incidents never caused any serious injuries. But the January grounding embarrassed Boeing, which makes the 787, and disrupted schedules at the eight airlines that were flying the planes. The company had delivered 50 of the planes worldwide.

The grounding forced United to delay planned international flights and hurt its first-quarter earnings by $11 million. Others, including Japan Airlines and South America’s LATAM Airlines Group, also said profits were reduced. LATAM said it still had to make payments on the plane and pay for crews and maintenance. It expects to resume flying soon.

United’s first 787 flight was scheduled for 11 a.m. Monday from Houston to Chicago.

Passengers didn’t appear to be too worried. “We saw strong demand for the flight from the first weekend it opened for sale,” said United spokeswoman Christen David.

United is planning to use 787s on shorter domestic flights before resuming international flights on June 10 with new Denver-to-Tokyo service as well as temporary Houston-to-London flights. It’s adding flights to Tokyo, Shanghai, and Lagos, Nigeria, in August.

Those long international flights are the main reason the 787 exists. Its medium size and fuel efficiency are a good fit for long routes. Starting with shorter domestic flights “will give us a period to ramp up full 787 operations,” David said.

United Continental Holdings Inc. was the first U.S. airline to get the 787 and now has six. United has said it expects to have four fixed by Monday, with the other two getting their batteries modified in coming days.

The 787 uses more electricity than any other jet. And it makes more use of lithium-ion batteries than any other jet, because it needs to be able to provide power for things like flight controls and a backup generator when its engines are shut down. Each 787 has two of the batteries.

Boeing Co. never did figure out the root cause of the battery incidents. Instead, it redesigned the battery and its charger. The idea was to eliminate all of the possible causes, 787 chief engineer Mike Sinnett said in an online chat on Thursday where he and a Boeing test pilot took questions about the plane.

The changes include more heat insulation between each cell and charging the battery to a lower maximum voltage.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Rest assured: The FAA says it is not possible for an Android phone to hack into a Flight Management Computer and certainly not into a Flight Control Computer. Here, United Airlines First officer Mike McCann sits in the cockpit of a Boeing 787 Dreamliner.(Photo: Kevork Djansezian, Getty Images)

Question: I have recently read about the possibility of an airliner’s onboard computers being hacked with a phone that runs on an Android OS. I would appreciate it if you could weigh in on this.

— submitted by reader Rodney, Texas

Answer: It is an urban myth. The FAA denounced the claim as untrue; it is not possible for an Android phone to hack into a Flight Management Computer and certainly not into a Flight Control Computer.

Modern fly-by-wire aircraft recognized the potential for a software problem causing issues. Therefore, there are different types of computers with different operating systems in the flight control system. Using an everyday analogy, it’s like there are PCs and Macs operating side by side. A problem with the software of the PC will not affect the Mac.

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The claim of being able to hack an airplane has arisen before. It was untrue then and is untrue now.

Q: Regarding cellphone use on planes, what risk is there that they will interfere with aviation systems? Is this a myth or something proven with facts?

A: The issue is that the Federal Aviation Regulation requires that cellphones not be used in flight. So long as those rules are in place, usage is not allowed. The FAA requires demonstration of non-interference by electronic devices before they are allowed to be used in aircraft. This certification process has been in use for many years and has proven successful. The pressure to allow cellphone usage without the certification process is a safety degradation that the FAA has, so far, not been willing to make. Any transmitter has the potential to create interference with aircraft systems. Which ones? This is exactly what the certification process is designed to determine.

The issue of cellphone interference is neither myth nor proven fact.

If you would like contact the FAA at www.FAA.gov, they can provide further information.

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MORE: Read previous columns

John Cox is a retired airline captain with U.S. Airways and runs his own aviation safety consulting company, Safety Operating Systems.

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Daytona International Speedway: Racers take the green flag during one of Daytona’s summer races.(Photo: flickr/Brian Marshall)

NASCAR has held races in almost all of the lower 48 states throughout its history. Some were flops or faded from memory, but others have withstood the test of time and through the decades only the occasional repaving job has been done to these monolithic structures. Here’s 10Best’s top 10 list of the greatest American racetracks worth traveling to see.

Las Vegas Motor Speedway

One of the newer tracks on the schedule, Las Vegas held its first race in 1998 and has since become a landmark event, being one of the first five races of the year. The banks are high at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and the turns ruthlessly abrupt. Also, the infield features one of the most open garage areas in all of NASCAR: The Neon Garage. There, fans can walk above the crews and drivers to watch the mechanics/mad scientists of NASCAR work on their 850-horsepower behemoths.

When:Early March

Getting There:The facility is located just 12 miles north of downtown Las Vegas via Interstate 15.

Watkins Glen International

One of only two tracks on the NASCAR Sprint Cup schedule that involve right turns, ‘The Glen’ is a fast and fluid road-course track. It has hosted races for Formula One, Indycar, and several endurance series and is regarded by many across the world as one of the best road courses in North America.

When:Mid-August

Getting There:Watkins Glen is located in the Finger Lakes region of New York, and is far removed from the hustle and bustle of any big city. The nearest airport is Greater Rochester International, an hour and a half drive away. Watkins Glen specializes in campgrounds and has historically been one of the best tracks for RVing/camping.

Michigan International Speedway

This mainstay of the NASCAR schedule is located in the Irish Hills region of Michigan near Detroit, the headquarters of two of the three competing car manufacturers in NASCAR. With a wide surface and fresh new pavement, the track allowed Marcose Ambrose to set a track record with an average speed of over 200mph in 2012.

When:Early June, Mid August

Getting There:Detroit’s Metropolitan Wayne County Airport is less than an hour drive from the track with the towns of Brooklyn and Jackson providing plenty of lodging not too far away. Campsites are also extensive and have excellent views.

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Richmond International Raceway

Historic Richmond has what is often called ‘the perfect race track’ by drivers and fans alike. The three-quarter-mile track has a wide surface and enough grip for cars to run side by side, but not enough to pass. This creates dilemmas for the drivers, of when and where to pick battles, which leads to great on-track excitement. The September race date is held under the lights and is the cutoff point to make the NASCAR equivalent of the playoffs: The Chase.

When:Late April, Mid September

Getting There:Richmond International has the benefit of a great location in Richmond, Va., so there’s plenty to see and do in and around the track. Richmond International Airport is just five miles from the circuit and the lodging options are almost limitless.

Charlotte Motor Speedway

A 20-minute drive from Charlotte, the one-and-a-half-mile Charlotte Motor Speedway was built in 1960 to provide a “home game” of sorts for the racing teams, almost all of which are based within 50 miles. While the track looks simple enough, the devil’s in the details. A bottle neck makes the first turn legendary, and no part of the Speedway is symmetrical. This popular race is the season’s longest, on Memorial Day weekend: the Coca-Cola 600 runs from 6:00 p.m. until almost midnight.

When:Late May, Mid October

Getting There:Charlotte Douglas International Airport is 20 miles away, and uptown Charlotte is a mere 15-minute drive from the racing facility. Charlotte Motor Speedway is less than two miles from I-85, making it easy to locate.

Darlington Raceway

The first paved track over a mile in length used by NASCAR, Darlington goes by many names that hint at the track’s maliciousness: The Lady in Black, Too Tough to Tame, etc. The track appears wide, yet has only one practical lane of racing right along the wall. With absolutely no margin for error, drivers have to do battle under the lights the night before Mother’s Day for 500 miles with a track that is known to make even the best drivers take caution.

When:Mid May

Getting There:Located in the coastal flatlands of South Carolina, Darlington is much like Watkins Glen in its semi-isolation. Myrtle Beach International Airport is 75 miles away and Charlotte’s Douglas International Airport is 90. Nearby camping locations are extensive.

Talladega Super Speedway

Talladega holds the dubious honors of being the hardest partying track in NASCAR, the largest track, and the most dangerous for the drivers with race speeds averaging well over 190mph. Legends persist that the land the track sits upon was used by Native Americans as burial grounds, and was subsequently cursed when they were driven out by settlers. Over the years, Talladega has been the site of many of the closest finishes in NASCAR history, and much of its most intense racing. Perhaps the legends were true…

When:Early May, Mid October

Getting There:Birmingham International is the closest airport at 50 miles from the track. Talladega specializes in campsites and wild infield parties, so if you’re not into the idea of partying until the wee hours of the morning, then you’ll definitely want a hotel room.

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Indianapolis Motor Speedway

Located in Indianapolis, ‘The Brickyard’ is the oldest track that NASCAR visits, and hosts one of the most prestigious events the sanctioning body conducts, second only to the Daytona 500. The two-and-a-half-mile-long facility is simply stunning in every respect. The front stretch is a canyon of grandstands on both sides, with the pagoda-style track headquarters presiding over its finish line. A track tour will be a memory you won’t soon forget.

When:Late July

Getting There:Indy is much like Richmond in how close it is to everything you need. A seven-mile drive lies between the speedway and Indianapolis International Airport, with plenty of lodging and camping options all around.

Bristol Motor Speedway

A perfect example of NASCAR-style “bull ring” racing, Bristol is unlike any other track in the world. The half-mile concrete oval boasts 30-degree banks and average lap times of less than 15 seconds. Bristol’s fast and furious track is surrounded by grandstands so there’s not a bad seat to be found. This increases your odds of seeing one of the infamous fights that tend to break out between drivers after a race at Bristol.

When:Mid-March, Early August

Getting There:The town of Bristol lies on the border of Tennessee and Virginia, with the raceway itself a few minutes south in Tennessee. Greenville-Spartanburg airport is three hours away by car; Knoxville is only two.

Daytona International Speedway

It’s surely no surprise that the track hosting ‘the Great American Race,’ aka the Daytona 500, would make our list. This stretch of Atlantic coastline is where NASCAR began, with races on the sands of Daytona Beach. The Speedway hosts the Daytona 500 in February, and another contest the first weekend of July, to signal the halfway point of racing season. This location played host to one of the most memorable moments in NASCAR history when, on July 4th, 1984, President Ronald Reagan flew in on Air Force One during the race and greeted the race winner (and NASCAR legend) Richard Petty, who scored his 200th career victory that day.

When:Late February, Early July

Getting There:Daytona International Airport is actually located directly next to the track’s back stretch. Thanks to the geography of the Florida coast, the Speedway is easy to spot: it’s the largest and tallest structure for miles around. Important note: you’ll want to book your hotel far in advance.

10Best provides its users with original, unbiased, and experiential travel content on top attractions, things to do, and restaurants for top destinations in the U.S. and around the world.

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