Hey, happy Canadian here with free and generally excellent health care, high taxes, decent education system, fewer gun related homicides than in the USA and legal weed.
So I visit America quite a bit and have some favorite places:
Maine, from Bar Harbor down to Freeport and Portland! That #1 highway/road is one of my favorite drives in the world. Beautiful. People can be standoffish until they realize you're from Canada and then they become sympathetic, assuming they know where Canada is. The rest of Maine sucks, is like visiting the end of the friggin Earth. But I could live in Camden no prob
Boston: one of my favorite cities in the USA, love it and have always been a Sox and Pats fan. But please tell them to stop turning away Canadians at bars because all we have as ID's are our phony looking Canadian drivers licenses. Dude, I'm 52 and haven't been ID'ed in like 30 years, so why do I need a passport to get a beer????
California: The nice parts, San Diego is nice, La Jolla yes...Monterey and Carmel yes yes, San Fransisco is great except for all the homeless people around Union Square...ditto for Santa Monica except for all the homeless people on the beach smoking hash all day and night...in Canada we have terrible drivers and Florida has rude drivers too (mostly snowbirds from Canada influencing their habits I bet) but drivers in California were courteous and polite and generally I felt safe on the road...and friendly, Californians are super friendly, and they know their geography cause the cute gal at Whole Foods in San Diego knew where the east Coast of Canada was, so I guess your education system in that state is superior to the rest of the country.
My wife and I were driving from San Fransisco to Monterey and got lost looking for this small town with a big factory outlet, so we stopped to ask this Spanish looking family for directions (they were all dressed up real nice too, shiny boots, pressed shirts, bolo ties,)... I guess they knew we were from out of state, eh, on account of our white complexions, eh, so they tell us how to get to the town, eh, and we say, eh, thanks buddy and he and his son tip their hats to my wife! I love Californians man, so friendly and polite...asked a cashier at a drug store in Carmel why are Californians so friendly and she thought for a second and replied "364 days of sunshine!" Even the parking ticket under my rental car's wiper blade in Carmel had a polite note please asking me to not park there but there was no fine. Eh.
Florida: parts of Tampa are awesome, Hyde Park North is great, the beaches area from Madeira Beach to Indian Shores is nice...I also like Miami Beach...but generally when it's legal to shoot someone cause they took your parking space (Stand your Ground), I don't wanna visit that state.
Haven't been to NYC but my wife has been there three times and loves it.
Wanna visit New Mexico.....California again....... :/ ....dat's it. You can keep the rest of the country.