Anybody who is even marginally interested in American history has probably had the experience of setting out optimistically to visit a historic site and, after a forty-minute drive, being confronted by a forlorn and obscure huddle of earthworks. There may or may not be a rusted iron plaque explaining the works; if there is, it most likely reads something like “Fort Walworth, built in 1810, was the scene of severe fighting during Pierce’s expedition of 1813. This marker erected and dedicated by the Daughters of the American Revolution, Newcomb Chapter, 1912.” Armed with this meager information, the visitor can do little but prowl bleakly through a scattering of masonry and return, highly unsatisfied, to his hotel.

On the other hand, in a city such as Philadelphia the tourist can find himself facing such a baffling variety of historic monuments that he spends a confusing and unrewarding day battling for parking spaces and running through crowded restorations.

Recently the American Heritage Society, in hopes of giving its members better access to the American past, established a series of tours of historic America. The tours were an immediate success and are now beginning their fourth season. Each of the tours is a seven-day excursion through a historically interesting region of the country. The tour groups are kept small—twenty-five people at most—and the society has gone to great pains to ensure the finest special attention, meals, and accommodations available along the way. The groups are met by historians who conduct them through museums, restorations, and battlefields, as well as homes and private collections that are not open to the general public. Here is a list and brief description of the tours we are offering during 1974. They all begin on a Saturday and end where they started on Saturday a week later, with the exception of the Pennsylvania tour, which ends in Wilmington, Delaware.

Virginia May II

We cover the formidable amount of history in this state with a tour that includes the twice-disputed battlefield at Bull Run; Jefferson’s estate, Monticello; the city of Richmond; the scrupulously restored colonial city of Williamsburg; the city of Fredericksburg; and Gunsten Hall Plantation.

California May 18

This journey through the northern part of the state begins in San Francisco and includes the once-notorious Barbary Coast; Muir Woods with its towering redwood trees; the Sonoma wine country; Sutler’s Mill, where gold was discovered in 1848; Carmel-bythe-Sea; and San Simeon, the astonishing pleasure dome of the late William Randolph Hearst.

Pennsylvania June 8

Starting in Philadelphia, the tour covers Independence Square and Fairmount Park; Valley Forge, where Washington held his army together for a miserable winter; the rich Amish country; the magnificently preserved battlefield at Gettysburg; Brandywine River Museum, with its fine collection of Wyeth paintings; and the Winterthur Museum, with the finest collection of American furniture and decorations extant.

Northern New