Which states should I visit next?

[STLGusty]

The states I'm currently considering is;
• Colorado
• Montana
• Wyoming
• South Dakota
• North Dakota
• Kansas
• Iowa
• Nebraska

Great list of possible states!  There are only three states I haven't been to yet (Delaware, Alaska, and Hawaii), so based on what you've said you enjoy, here's my thoughts:

-Colorado - Lots to do if you love the outdoors (Colorado Springs is tourist-filled with Pike's Peak, Garden of the Gods... Go north to Rocky Mountain National Park and Estes Park)

• Montana - Huge state with big skies!  One of my favorite states.  This is a state that's great if you enjoy the outdoors.  Glacier National Park is one of my favorite national parks - a true hiker's paradise.

• Wyoming - Along with Montana, this is the other one of my favorite states.  As with Montana, it's a great state if you enjoy the outdoors.  Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Park (my personal favorite of all national parks) are wonderful to experience.  Even if you aren't a huge hiker, the tourist area of Jackson Hole is very beautiful.

• South Dakota  - Anytime we go West we tend to pass through South Dakota.  I always stop at the Corn Palace in Mitchell, as well as the Badlands National Park.  There is also Wind Cave National Park (really neat), and there's a lot of nature in the BLack Hills area, as well.  More tourist areas are Mount Rushmore and the carving of Crazy Horse.

• North Dakota - From what I have experienced, there isn't a toooon here, but I thought Theodore Roosevelt National Park was awesome.

• Kansas - Kansas is another state we tend to drive through when going West.  A lot of people think Kansas is boring - and some of it is - but it has sections of beautiful hills and some powerful storms (if you're into that kind of thing!).

• Iowa - I'm personally not a huge fan of Iowa, but that doesn't make it bad!  When I was younger we went to the Amana Colonies there. 

• Nebraska - Like Iowa, I'm not a huge fan, but the people are nice!  I personally don't have many suggestions of things to do there.

If you enjoy shopping, you may want to visit Chicago, Illinois or St. Louis, Missouri.  The West part of St. Louis has two great outlet malls with tons of shopping opportunities.  St. Louis has historical areas and nightlife, and the St. Louis Arch.  Our zoo is huge (and FREE!), and the city museum is awesome to explore.  We also have a great science center (that's FREE, too)!   You may want to swing by and see the St. Louis Cardinals play baseball, too.

Wherever you end up, it sounds like you are going to have FUN!!! 

[S.o.a.r.]

If you enjoy shopping, you may want to visit Chicago, Illinois or St. Louis, Missouri.  The West part of St. Louis has two great outlet malls with tons of shopping opportunities.  St. Louis has historical areas and nightlife, and the St. Louis Arch.  Our zoo is huge (and FREE!), and the city museum is awesome to explore.  We also have a great science center (that's FREE, too)!   You may want to swing by and see the St. Louis Cardinals play baseball, too.

Wherever you end up, it sounds like you are going to have FUN!!! 

Much thanks for your help and many suggestions!
From the looks of it, the states I've chosen are ironically best for outdoors people and I'm sadly not one of them. Sure, I've dreamed about visiting Yosemite but at the same I've heard of bad things happening there in form of animal attacks among other things. So I've decided to change things around and travel to most likely Boston, NYC and possibly D.C in 2018 since that's three major cities with many different attractions that's more my style. But I'll definitely check out St. Louis after reading your description; it sounds way more fun than I would've thought!

[LadyMoondancer]

Animal attacks are easy to avoid if tourists use common sense--don't feed wild animals, don't get too close to wild animals (especially bison, bears, or moose), and don't go off marked paths and fall into a hot springs, like that guy did at Yellowstone recently.  (He died, sadly.  But it's not like he wasn't warned.)

But if you aren't outdoorsy, yeah, those aren't the ideal states to visit. 

You could visit Seattle, then go down to Portland, then follow some of the beautiful coastal routes and enjoy the California / Oregon coast.

Did you decide how you'd be getting around the US?  Train, bus, car, airplane . . . ?

[S.o.a.r.]

Animal attacks are easy to avoid if tourists use common sense--don't feed wild animals, don't get too close to wild animals (especially bison, bears, or moose), and don't go off marked paths and fall into a hot springs, like that guy did at Yellowstone recently.  (He died, sadly.  But it's not like he wasn't warned.)

But if you aren't outdoorsy, yeah, those aren't the ideal states to visit. 

Yeah, I've also heard that the national parks are pretty safe as long as you do as you're told, which is no problem for me since I wouldn't dare step one foot off the trail. Eventually, in the future, I would really like to visit both Yellowstone and Yosemite, as well as other national parks. Those places actually makes me want to be a outdoorsy type of person; to venture outside of my comfort zone and experience something amazing. But, I'll hold off on that for the time being... =)

You could visit Seattle, then go down to Portland, then follow some of the beautiful coastal routes and enjoy the California / Oregon coast.

Did you decide how you'd be getting around the US?  Train, bus, car, airplane . . . ?

So far we've been traveling by plane, subway and busses. Apart from doing a lot of walking to experience the every day surroundings. I'm usually not much for walking here at home (duh!) but when on vacation it's kind of the thing to do, right? We've talked about taking a roadtrip through the US in the future, but that's a few years away at the least. So we'll be sticking to busses and/or trains/subway when traveling within the US and airplanes for the international traveling.

I'm strongly considering "only" NYC and DC on the 2018 trip; I mentioned Boston in the previous post but can't really think of anything specifically I wanna see/do there. I've been once in NYC and loved it but was only there for about 4 days. Didn't even get to experience Central Park! And Washington DC feels like an obvious choice because of The White House, apart from its location fairly near to NYC.

[Roccoriel]

I've been to all of the states you list with the exception of North Dakota. I'm an outdoorsy type person, so I loved them. I mainly did hiking in Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado. For Iowa, Nebraska, and South Dakota, I was taking a field class. They are all beautiful and all very different with lots of natural parks.

If you are more into cities and shopping, however, and want to see the Midwest, I second that you should visit Chicago. My husband lived there to complete he Master's degree when he first moved to the US from Paris, and well, it's his first love hahahahaha. Beautiful city, lots to do, lots of amazing shopping, museums, etc. Even I like it and I am so not a city person (don't tell him or he'll think i want to move there haha). It even has 29 miles of beaches!

East coast also has a lot of history, museums, and shopping, as well as some nice parks and beaches.