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Wyoming, "the Cowboy State", looks like the Nullarbor Plain on a Himalayan holiday. Its name comes from a Delaware Indian word meaning "on the great plain" and its 253,500 sq. kilometres range from Rocky snow peaks to hot springs to truly great plains.

Above our highway across those plains a thunder cloud curls like a slow tidal wave. I turn the car radio to local stations that are pure Bruce Springsteen: "Radio's jammed up with gospel stations / Lost souls calling long-distance salvation." Eventually, I find a country music one that's all honky-tonk and heart-strings; the DJ announces a singer who, "prior to his recording career, graduated from drag racing school." Seriously.

Indeed, hot rods and music have significantly influenced fashion in parts of Wyoming. In roadhouses from Spotted Horse to the Snake River Valley you meet men who look like hopefuls at a ZZ Top audition, with long-drop beards, shades and baseball caps that make you think you've stepped back into an early1980s LP cover.

Wyoming has a landscape like Marlboro Country minus the class litigation. So, how best to explore it? Give yourself at least a week, and a comfortable car (there's a lot of driving). To truly soak up the spirit, stay a few nights in one of the state's historic hotels. There's the Grand Old Lady of Cody, The Irma Hotel, built in 1902 by Buffalo Bill and named after his daughter (he named the town after himself); The Frontiersman in Medicine Bow, where the front desk sign still says, "Guests without luggage pay in advance" and Room Three is haunted by "Jake" the ghost; and the 1903 Franklin Hotel (in neighbouring Deadwood, South Dakota) whose ghost - every hotel seems to have one - is said, improbably, to be Teddy Roosevelt.

In Cody, allow yourself at least half a day at the Buffalo Bill Historical Centre - this is true West, true grit, no "Duke", no spaghetti. By contrast, just east of Wyoming in Deadwood, South Dakota, Kevin Costner's Midnight Star Saloon is a cross between a Western-themed poker machine palace and a shrine to the movie costumes of Kev of the Wolves. But, just up the hill - Boot Hill, in fact - from the Midnight Star, the real James Butler "Wild Bill" Hickock (1837-1876) and Martha "Calamity Jane" Burke (1852-1903) lie buried side by side. Down on the main street is the Number Ten Saloon where Wild Bill copped a bullet in the back from a hired varmint named Jack McCall. Wyoming has fewer than half a million citizens. Friendly as they are, that's the way they like it. At a roadhouse in the village of Shell (population 150) a jovial barman points out to us a bumper sticker with his state's message to America and the world: "Keep Wyoming beautiful. Don't move here. Visit."

ROAMING WYOMING

Cody. Founded (in 1896) and named after himself by showman Colonel William Cody. Its Buffalo Bill Historical Centre has four superb collections - the Whitney Gallery of Western Art, Plains Indians Museum, Cody Firearms Museum and Buffalo Bill Museum.

Devil's Tower. The enigmatic, geological star of Close Encounters of the Third Kind; near Sundance, north-east Wyoming.

Fort Laramie. This trading post/Army fort/Pony Express station (founded 1834) played a pivotal role in the opening of the West. An impressive museum, extensive ruins and preserved buildings remain at this National Historic Site.

Jackson Hole. The Grand Tetons' best known ski resort. Bill Clinton holidays here, as do 14,000 elk during winter in the town reserve. Spend a day tearing through champagne snow and forest trails on a snowmobile.

Thermopolis. The world's largest mineral hot springs (simmer in an outdoor spring while snow falls on your head). The excellent Wyoming Dinosaur Center is a Jurassic parking lot for wonders like a full Triceratops Horridus skeleton, 140 million years old.

Yellowstone National Park. North-west Wyoming's (and North America's) crown of creation: Old Faithful Geyser, Mammoth Hot Springs, Yellowstone Falls, bison, elk and grizzlies ... they're all here.

Crazy Horse Monument (Black Hills, South Dakota). The Oglala Sioux chief, Crazy Horse, (whose fighters defeated General Custer at Little Big Horn in 1876) is commemorated in the world's largest sculpture: 8.5 million tonnes of mountainside have been moved, so far. It has taken 50 years to shape Crazy Horse's 30 metre high head and 88 metre long arm.

Mount Rushmore. (Black Hills, South Dakota). Presidents Jefferson, Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt give you the very large and stony eye.

Carhenge (Nebraska). On a windy plain near the town of Alliance, sculptor Jim Reinders has recreated historic Stonehenge to scale - using old Cadillacs and other American dinosaurs.

Accommodation: Chains like Best Western, Ramada and Days Inn have advance purchase plans without a fixed itinerary, with rooms from US$40/night per double. For best rates book in advance from Australia.

Tips: Avoid travelling in peak periods such as Thanksgiving and US Labor Day long weekend in September.

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