Historical Sites in North America: A Traveler's Must-Visit List

When you’ve walked the Thames Path on a crisp autumn morning, passed the Tower Bridge at sunrise, and sipped tea in a quiet Soho café, you know London has history. But what if you wanted to step beyond the cobblestones of Westminster and into the deeper, wilder past of a continent across the Atlantic? North America isn’t just skyscrapers and national parks-it’s layered with stories older than the British Empire, carved into stone, wood, and soil by people whose names you may never have learned.

Chaco Canyon, New Mexico: Where the Ancestral Puebloans Built a City in the Desert

Imagine standing in the middle of a vast, silent desert, with nothing but wind and the shadow of a 1,000-year-old stone structure rising around you. That’s Chaco Canyon. Between 850 and 1250 AD, the Ancestral Puebloans built a network of great houses here-some with over 600 rooms, aligned with solar and lunar cycles. The precision of their astronomy rivals that of medieval European observatories, yet they had no written language, no metal tools, and no wheeled vehicles.

Unlike Stonehenge, which draws crowds year-round, Chaco feels untouched. You won’t find Starbucks here. You won’t even find reliable cell service. But you’ll find the same quiet awe you get standing in front of Salisbury Cathedral. The National Park Service maintains the trail, but the silence? That’s all the desert. If you’re flying from Heathrow, connect through Denver or Albuquerque. Rent a car. Drive 30 miles beyond the nearest town. The isolation isn’t a drawback-it’s the point.

Mesa Verde, Colorado: Clifftop Homes That Defied Time

Perched on the edge of a sandstone cliff, the dwellings of Mesa Verde look like something from a fantasy novel. But they’re real. Built by the Ancestral Puebloans between 600 and 1300 AD, these cliffside apartments were homes, storage spaces, and ceremonial centers. The most famous, Cliff Palace, has 150 rooms and 23 kivas (circular ceremonial chambers). The builders used sandstone blocks, wooden beams, and mud mortar-all sourced locally.

What’s striking isn’t just the architecture-it’s the scale of community. Over 100 people lived in Cliff Palace alone. Compare that to London’s medieval population: around 50,000 in 1300, mostly crammed into narrow alleys with open sewers. These people had indoor plumbing, heated rooms, and complex social organization. The park offers ranger-led tours. Book early. Only 120 people per day can enter Cliff Palace. If you’re planning a trip, consider combining it with a visit to the nearby Four Corners Monument-the only place in the U.S. where four states meet.

Montreal’s Old Port and Quebec City: Colonial Echoes of New France

While Londoners are familiar with Roman ruins and Tudor houses, few realize that North America once had a French empire stretching from the Gulf of Mexico to the Canadian Shield. Quebec City, founded in 1608, is the oldest European settlement in North America north of Mexico. Its stone walls, built by the French in the 17th century, still stand. Walk along Dufferin Terrace, and you’ll see the Château Frontenac-its turrets and copper roofs echoing the châteaux of the Loire Valley.

Montreal’s Old Port is even more intimate. Cobblestone streets, 18th-century warehouses turned into boutiques, and the remains of the original fort. You’ll find cafés serving poutine and maple syrup croissants, and street musicians playing accordion tunes that sound like they drifted over from Montmartre. The French influence here is alive-not a museum exhibit, but a living culture. If you’ve ever wandered through Covent Garden on a Sunday, you’ll feel at home here. The vibe is similar: artistic, slightly chaotic, deeply rooted.

St. Augustine, Florida: The Oldest Continuously Inhabited European Settlement

Londoners often think of Jamestown or Plymouth as the start of English America. But St. Augustine, founded by Spanish explorers in 1565, predates both by over 40 years. It’s older than any British colony in North America. Walk down St. George Street and you’ll pass whitewashed buildings with red-tiled roofs, wrought-iron balconies, and courtyards shaded by live oaks draped in Spanish moss.

The Castillo de San Marcos, a stone fortress built by the Spanish in 1672, still stands. Made of coquina-a shellstone quarried locally-it absorbed British cannonballs during sieges, proving more durable than brick. Inside, you’ll find original cannons, prisoner cells, and a chapel where Spanish soldiers once prayed before battle. The museum doesn’t glorify colonization-it tells the story of the Timucua people, enslaved Africans, and Spanish soldiers who lived here. It’s history without the myth.

Chichen Itza, Mexico: A Maya City That Outlasted Empires

It’s easy to think of North American history as starting with Columbus. But the Maya civilization was already thriving when the Romans were still in decline. Chichen Itza, in Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula, was a major center of trade, science, and religion from 600 to 1200 AD. The Temple of Kukulcan, also called El Castillo, is aligned so that during the spring and autumn equinoxes, the shadow of a serpent slithers down its staircase.

They had a zero in their number system centuries before Europe adopted it. Their calendar was more accurate than the Julian calendar. And they built a massive ball court-larger than any in Europe-where games were played with rubber balls, sometimes ending in ritual sacrifice. Today, you can walk the Sacred Cenote, a natural sinkhole where offerings were thrown into the water. It’s eerie, beautiful, and humbling. If you’re flying from London, direct flights to Cancún are frequent. From there, it’s a 2.5-hour drive. Pack sunscreen. And water. And respect the site-no climbing the pyramid anymore. That’s been banned since 2006.

Fort Ticonderoga, New York: Where Two Empires Clashed

If you’ve ever walked the ramparts of the Tower of London or toured Windsor Castle, you’ll appreciate Fort Ticonderoga. Built by the French in 1755 and later captured by the British, then taken by American revolutionaries in 1775, it’s a living museum of colonial warfare. The fort sits where Lake Champlain meets the Hudson River-a chokepoint for armies moving between Canada and the American colonies.

Reenactors in wool uniforms fire muskets on weekends. You can see the original 18th-century cannons, the barracks where soldiers slept six to a room, and the powder magazine-still intact. What’s surprising is how small it is. It’s not a sprawling palace like Versailles. It’s a functional military post, built for survival, not show. It’s the kind of place that makes you think: these men fought for control of a continent with nothing but powder, lead, and courage.

Why These Sites Matter to Londoners

London has 2,000 years of layered history. You walk past Roman walls, Tudor taverns, Victorian factories, and modern glass towers without thinking twice. But North America’s historical sites offer something different: depth without density. There’s no rush. No ticket queues that stretch for hours. No souvenir shops selling £12 mugs. These places are vast, quiet, and often remote. They force you to slow down.

They also remind you that history isn’t just about kings and queens. It’s about farmers who grew maize on terraced hillsides. It’s about engineers who built aqueducts without cement. It’s about communities that thrived for centuries before Europeans arrived-and then vanished, not because they failed, but because the world changed around them.

If you’ve ever stood on the South Bank at dusk, watching the London Eye spin against the sunset, you know how powerful place can be. These sites offer the same feeling-just on a different scale. No crowds. No noise. Just stone, sky, and silence.

Planning Your Trip

Most of these sites are best visited between April and October. Winter in Chaco Canyon or Mesa Verde can mean snowdrifts and closed roads. Quebec City is magical in winter, but you’ll need serious gear.

Flights from London Heathrow to New York, Denver, or Toronto are frequent. From there, rent a car. Public transport won’t get you to most of these places. Pack layers. Even in summer, desert nights get cold. Bring a good pair of walking shoes-no flip-flops.

For food: try local specialties. In New Mexico, green chile stew. In Quebec, tourtière. In Florida, key lime pie. Avoid chain restaurants. Eat where the locals do. You’ll taste history too.

Final Thought

London’s history is written in brick and mortar. North America’s is written in earth and memory. One doesn’t replace the other. But visiting both gives you a fuller picture of how humans build, survive, and remember. You don’t need to go far to find the past. But sometimes, you need to go far to truly see it.