Hello, guys! I really appreciate your answers. Unfortunatelly, I can't postpone my trip because my brother is studying in Canada, and going back to Brazil in december. As so, we decided to take advantage of this and embrace a big travel around America. :)

I'm still not sure of how many people are going to be, but I figure that all my siblings are going with me, which would sum up to 6 people. I like the big cities, but I'm not really a fan of those mainstream "must-see" places. All I like to do is to know a little bit of the locals routine, meet new people at parties and go to places they like to frequent. Basically, I like to get into a city's soul. I don't really know if that's something plausible, but is just how I feel.

Something I really would like to do is to snowboard in Colorado. After a few searches, I saw a lot of people talking good stuff about those mountains. What do you guys recommend in this matter, I mean, what's the best place near Denver to snowboard?

About NY, we are going to spend the New Year's Eve there, but I already have the hotel booked. We are leaving at Jan 02. That said, how many days should I reserve to the traveling itself? 6 days is good enough or should I spare a few days for the unexpected?

Are there any national parks open this time of year?

And finally, since I'm in the planning phase, which towns do you guys recommend me to spend some time? As I said before, I really like to know different cultures (being in the US is, for me, a new experience by itself).

Again, thank you very much for your attention. :)