Charlotte Percival goes stateside as she dashes between New York, Washington and Miami - and finds her holiday unexpectedly extended.

After a seven-hour flight and four hours already wasted trying to find a hostel, our first glimpse of Manhattan - glittering with flashy electric banners, swarming with bright yellow taxis and electric with atmosphere - left us eager to take a bite out of the Big Apple.

Filled with renewed energy, I headed towards a pay-phone in the hope of finding a hostel with my housemates Claire and Laura. A friendly local cop told us our best bet would be a homeless shelter, but never girls to be beaten, we bagged ourselves a room at the Central Park Hostel. We finally arrived at midnight, soaked to the bone.

Early (ish) the next morning, we ditched our backpacks and jumped on the subway in search of Fifth Avenue and a shop to buy an American adapter for our hairdryer.

We walked through the financial district, stopping at Ground Zero where the Twin Towers once stood, and along Wall Street, passing the heavily-guarded American Stock Exchange and some ritzy looking apartments draped in the Stars and Stripes.

We blew a chunk of our budget on a meal at Planet Hollywood, where we saw costumes from films including Moulin Rouge and Austin Powers and placed our hands in the prints of Bruce Willis.

To catch a glimpse of New York buzzing by night, we took a lift up to the top of the 1454 feet tall Empire State Building. The 102nd floor observatory affords amazing views of huge skyscrapers (including one that houses a school), Times Square, the Statue of Liberty and the laser beam lights of cars zooming along packed roads.

Over the next two days we took a ferry from Battery Park to see the Statue of Liberty and walked across Brooklyn Bridge at midnight to see fantastic views of Lower Manhattan before catching a train to Boston.

Again we arrived at our hostel dripping wet. The dowdy but friendly Beantown Hostel was our home for two nights in the historic city of Boston.

Without the budget to sample Boston's seafood cuisine and museums, we strolled through Boston Common and the quaint Public Gardens, spent three hours in the American fashion chain Ambercrombie And Fitch, sat by the harbour and toured the Harvard University campus.

That evening we sat in Harvard Square to watch by candlelight students and street performers sing, dance, juggle or wiggle around inside hula-hoops.

Our next stop was America's capital city, Washington DC, which turned out to be one of our favourite destinations.

I dragged Claire and Laura all over the city by foot (subway stations are far apart) to see Washington's clean white buildings and vast collection of war monuments set among sparkling rivers, luscious green landscapes and wide open roads.

During our two-day visit we saw Arlington Cemetery - a 612-acre burial ground for military personnel which featured endless rows of white graves, including those of JFK, his wife and two of their infant children.

We walked through the huge green lawns of the national mall, filled with joggers and various teams playing baseball and soccer, past the 555-foot-tall white obelisk Washington Monument and the Korean War Monument - an eerie troop of 19 stone soldiers.

We took pictures of the Capitol, mistaking it for the White House until a tourist pointed out the error of our ways and sent us in the direction of George Bush's official home.

Poor Laura had to stop every ten minutes to apply an entire box of plasters to her massacred feet (the consequence of travelling in high heels) but soon perked up at the elephants, giraffes and cheetahs at the free Woodly Park Zoo.

Later we marginally escaped disaster when in our haste to catch our train to Miami, we mistakenly took a metro travelling in the opposite direction to the train station. After correcting ourselves and racing across the station and up ten flights of steps carrying backpacks and wearing high heels, we sank gratefully to the floor, as we heard an announcement that our train was running 15 minutes late.

Twenty-six hours on a train allowed us to see some of the South's most beautiful scenery and meet some of its most interesting characters. Two natives of Florida bought us cans of Budweiser while loudly entertaining us with tales of the state's history, including an account of Hurricane Andrew - the devastating storm of the 1990s.

We finally arrived and sat on our backpacks for an hour, hot and tired, waiting for a sky-train to take us across the glistening waters to Miami Beach. But we cheered up when our chariot arrived and we were treated to a spectacular view of downtown Miami sparkling in the darkness.

Our hostel in Miami Beach throbbed with an infectious party atmosphere. We walked in to find a party in full swing, and spent the next three days caught in the middle of the sizzling nightlife.

We visited an exclusive nightclub, The Bed, and nearly fell through the floor as we handed over our life savings for three bottles of lager; the cheapest bottle of wine cost £800.

And Laura got to sink her wounded feet into the sands of Miami's South Beach, before we swam in the Atlantic at 4am.

The next evening we visited Bayside Market, a huge outdoor shopping mall with a glitzy harbour, and shoppers dancing to live Latin musicians on the pier.

We also went to Key Biscayne and Miami Seaquarium, which houses an array of sea life and a fantastic dolphin show, where dolphins perform the "limbo" and soak you to the skin.

We left Miami in the haze of a tropical downpour and endured 32 hours on the train to spend the last day of our holiday in New York.

On our final day we strolled through Central Park, jumped around on toy store FAO Schwatz's piano (the one that appeared in the film Big) and boarded a subway train with the aim of collecting our bags from the hostel and heading off to the airport amid cries of: "I'd do anything to have another day in New York."

But at 4.11pm, the train jerked to a halt as Manhattan, along with much of North America, was cast into darkness during a huge power cut. Without realising it, we'd bagged ourselves an extra three days in New York.

Unable to contact the airline or airport and with only nine dollars between us, we chatted the night away in a pitch-black basement with 30 other travellers who we could not even see.

The next two days and nights were spent sleeping on a hard floor in Terminal Four of JFK Airport, with no money or shower, while pleading with our airline for a flight home.

We arrived back at York train station three days later than expected, tired, dirty, but with only one thing on our minds - where to next year?

FACT FILE

Charlotte travelled to London King's Cross from York by rail with GNER. For times and prices phone 08457 225225 or go to www.gner.co.uk. Charlotte travelled around the United States by rail with Amtrak. For routes, times and prices go to www.Amtrak.com or ask your travel agent for details.

Central Park Hostel, New York 212-678-0491 www.centralparkhostel.com

Beantown Hostel, Boston, 617-723-0800

Miami Beach International Travellers Hostel 305-534-0268 www.sobehostel.com

Updated: 08:46 Saturday, October 25, 2003