Skift Take
According to Lonely Planet and Rough Guides, cash gifts at dinner are a bad idea, inner cities are death traps, an Americans really want you to be on time for your appointments.
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The United States is the second greatest tourist draw in the world, with 60-million-plus visitors in 2010 alone (France, number one, attracted almost 80 million). Flipping through a few of the many English-language tourist guides provides a fascinating, if non-scientific and narrow, window into how people from the outside world perceive America, Americans, and the surprises and pitfalls of spending time here.