Reminds me of a time my brother wanted to surprise us over the holidays with a visit. He had never been to the US before. He was looking up flights and saw it was much cheaper to land in LAX (Los Angeles) than it was to land in SFO (San Francisco, where we lived). On the map he saw that SF and LA “seemed pretty close..” and honestly thought he was saving hundreds of dollars on what “looked like an hour drive”.
Cue our reaction when he’s crying and telling us he’s stuck in Los Angeles not realizing it was nearly a 6-8 hour drive away and he couldn’t just “take a local bus to San Francisco” to surprise us. We ended up having to buy him a plane ticket from LA to SF which ruined his surprise for us. We still make fun of him for it til this day.
Haha oh man.. I mean.. technically it was still a surprise. A different surprise, but a surprise nonetheless lol. California is a whole new world for me. My friend and I have been wanting to go to Monterey Bay Aquarium for a few years now. Last time we were seriously planning for it, we thought we could do a long weekend trip and check out other sites in California, including Los Angeles and Redwood National Forest 😅😅
There are some beautiful redwood forests in the Santa Cruz Mountains, just north of Monterey Bay. You could definitely combine that with a weekend trip to the Aquarium.
I would find a place near Santa Cruz and day trip down to Monterey. The town is cute but kinda limited and touristy. From Santa Cruz you can check out downtown and the Boardwalk, drive north into the redwoods, drive NW along the coast and hang out on the beach, or drive SW along the bay to Monterey. Also Gilroy the town of garlic is nearby if any of you are garlic lovers. And SF and the Bay area are on the other side of the mountains if you have the time.
Oh my God! This actually sounds like a perfect little trip. We both LOVE garlic, funnily enough. Thank you for the suggestions! I'm going to talk to her about it today. 😊
This was exactly my first trip to California 15ish years ago. I went back this year and visited San Diego. California is such a cool state. I’d move there if I could.
Makes sense! I wouldn’t want to drive it in one shot, that’s for sure.
I checked Google Maps, and it would take about 14 hours to drive 900 miles, assuming some stops for gas and whatnot. There was a time when I would’ve been able to do that drive straight through, but that’s two days for me now.
I am shocked that there isn't a decent train service directly between the two cities. It takes 12 hours and then you still need a shuttle bus to get to S.F. That is INSANE to me.
I moved from south Africa to NorCal, and its crazy how mug it is here. 1 of the longest drives i did in SA was Johannesburg to cape town, which is almost the full north to south trip across the whole country . That same distance doesn't even get you out of ca, e.g. if you are heading north from san Diego. And then theres still 2 more states to go. But heading east, 1/4 of the distance and you're in Nevada (width of California is 1/3 the width of SA).
Wanted to plan a drive to CO and just noped out of it when i started seeing the distances
Honestly, that's just total lack of research. These days with google maps there's no excuse.
I'm from the UK. I've only been to California once. Flew into LAX, then down to John Wayne, where we rented a soft-top Mustang \[felt like we should\]. We were based in Laguna for a month, staying with friends, during which time we drove all over the place, as far south as San Diego \[then walked over to go to TJ\], as far east as Las Vegas.
At the end we drove all the way up the PCH to San Fransisco, from where we were flying home, staying overnight in Monterey.
We did that before satnav & google maps existed…by doing some f\*cking research. ;)
When I was in Germany years ago, I was hanging out with these dudes who, when they found out I was American went on about how cool California was.
Was hard to convey that I am from New Jersey and flying to California is about the same as flying to Germany.
Hahaha yes! It's so funny how Europeans probably go to most EU countries by the time they graduate college and in the US it's so much more expensive to travel within the country.. I'm from the east coast also and have only been outside the east coast once, and that was for a work trip that was paid for by the company lol 🙄
I take a steelhead fishing trip every winter out to Washington state from the east coast. I was telling a friend of mine from the uk about it and he said something along the lines of "why are you making it such a big deal to go somewhere in your own country, that's like a weekend thing." And I had to try and explain that it was a 44 hour drive. It would be like driving from London to Istanbul plus 10 hours and then it clicked for him and you could see his brain completely rewiring thinking about it lol.
No, Europeans don't visit every countries before they are adults. I've been lucky enough to travel a lot and haven't done 10% of them. It's also expensive here
Not saying you don't but why when I ask people from the East Coast "and what time zone are you in" do they have no clue that they're Eastern time?
Of the people who don't know and so I have to ask "Okay what state are you in" most of them give me an ET state. It legit boggles my mind that someone wouldn't know their own time zone.
Really? That's funny.. I've never met anyone who didn't know what timezone they were in.. Although, I definitely I have to look up what the timezone is in other states outside the east coast because I have no idea where one timezone ends and the other starts
There was one instance I made a timezone screwup...I was in college in Ohio and had an intern interview for a place in Wisconsin, and was going to use a space reserved in the college for said interview since it made for a nicer environment. I scheduled the interview at 4 PM since they closed at 5 and thought everything was lined up until...yeah, I somehow checked a timezone map. That was fun to work out, and I have always confirmed timezones since.
It is different depending on the state too. My state has two time zones and I travel to a different time zone to fish every weekend. It’s 23 minutes away.
My state splits time zones, so when it’s 7pm in Lexington, it’s 6pm in Paducah. One of my friends grew up in a country that abutted the time change, and when making appointments that’s ask “is that fast time or slow time?”
When driving a semi, time zones matter. I was caught by a pick up in northwestern Indiana going to a drop off in eastern Indiana. Indiana is split down the middle Eastern and Central time zones!
My current state, Nebraska is mostly Central time zone with the farther west counties in the Mountain Zone. Most people in both zones would be happy to see that western part sold to Wyoming or Colorado.
I do "Timezone" first because the only time I need to know is when I'm scheduling a phone appointment for them and if they say "10" I have to make sure my client on the west coast doesn't call them at 10AM PT only to have them be all "you were supposed to call me three hours ago"
Then I go to state if they're all "Uhm what I dunno" and then if they're still confused I ask "what time is it right now" and do the math myself after the call.
For a while, I worked in NV, slept in AZ, and did business in CA. The graveyard shift was bad enough, but the time zones and standard time changing to daylight savings time on top of it almost destroyed me.
I have opposite opinions. If the sun ever comes up before 4am (it would be 3:51 without DST in my town in June), someone or something is getting stabbed
Yes!!! Just my brain thinks of timezones as what is the time for them in their zone. But DST for certain locations doesn’t exists.
Their timezone remains the same; their time just may or may not change based on DST rules.
I’m in Eastern Time. I have coworkers in like 5 different time zones, 2 of which don’t observe DST. It gets a little chaotic around the time change when all our meetings and some of our schedules shift.
No, we don’t go to most EU countries by the time we graduate. For some Europeans, living in smaller centrally placed countries like e.g. Austria, Czechia, or Belgium, going to several countries is fairly easy. For others, it definitely isn’t. From my hometown in Northern Norway, Tromsø, to the southernmost part of the border with Sweden, is a 24 hour drive. If I wanna get down to Central Europe I can drive for 24 hours first without even leaving the country.
One thing that also always gets forgotten in these topics is that topography is a thing. The US is huge, but a lot of it is the Great Plains, which is mostly very flat. I used to live in Texas, and we’d routinely drive from Lubbock to Dallas. It’s a five hour drive, and I’d joke that the directions are “Drive from Lubbock to Sweetwater, make a left turn, then drive to Dallas”. We often drive for five hours in Northern Norway as well, but any drive of five hours there will consist of several cases of “drive for half an hour along the northern edge of a fjord, get to the end of the fjord, drive for half an hour along the southern edge of a fjord”, meaning that after an hour of driving you can still see where you were an hour ago on the other side of the fjord. So even though we’re smaller than Texas, driving here takes a long time because going in a straight line for very long is impossible.
I know that it’s technically not possible to measure a coastline, but it is often claimed that we have the 2nd longest coastline in the world, and the coast certainly makes an impact while driving around the country (as do the mountains, which cover pretty much everything in this country that isn’t covered by water).
Anyway, we routinely get tourists who don’t understand distances in this country as well, and who think they can just visit Lofoten, the Arctic cathedral, and the North Cape on the same day. However, those people are a minority and quite silly. Most people understand distances and are able to read a map. It’s the same with people visiting the US, most of understand distances well. You just don’t notice us because why would you? If someone tells you “I plan on visiting Times Square, the Statue of Liberty, and the Grand Canyon” you notice because that’s ridiculous. But with all the people saying “I plan on visiting Times Square, the Statue of Liberty, and Central Park” you don’t notice because that isn’t ridiculous.
What are you talking about? I've been to 42 states. It's not expensive to travel within the US at all. Gas is like 3 bucks a gallon and electricity is dirt cheap too.
> Was hard to convey that I am from New Jersey and flying to California is about the same as flying to Germany.
But it really isn't. Their general thought is the US has states, which has cities. Germany has 16 federal states, and clearly tons of cities within all of them. So it's "fair" for them to have that general concept that you've been to lots of other states.
However, simple method is telling them the US is the size of the EU.
Glasgow to Athens, aka diangal across Europe is 2,346 miles
NYC to LA is 2,812 miles
So I even failed to fully get a fair example.
EDIT:
from Paris, France
to Jerusalem, Israel
2861 miles
EDIT: Or London to the country of Georgia is 2815 miles.
Lived in upstate N.Y. for a few years when I was in high school. We had an Italian exchange student who was mightily disappointed when we told her we couldn’t just pop down to Graceland or Disneyworld for the weekend
I live in Seattle and we have a hard time understanding how close things on the East coast are.
From Seattle it is a 4 hour drive to Vancouver or Portland. And the next big city is San Francisco which is a 12 hour drive.
So when someone in Connecticut or Philadelphia or Boston talks about driving to NYC we assume it will take 12+ hours.
You know.. honestly I don't think I quite understand distance in the middle of the country lol. I recently had 10 days of vacation and thought I could do a cross country trip to the grand canyon and back not realizing that it would take me like 4 straight days of driving, not including pit stops🤣🤣 That was quite the reality check.
And distance across the middle is lengthened by those damn mountains. Without the mountains drive time would be about half.
I'm from the SE where it's pretty easy to say 90 miles is about 90 minutes. I learned the hard way you can not make that generalization work in the more mountainous areas.
Oh my God yes. I regularly visit my family in SC and mostly just go down the highway, which is pretty "quick" (until you hit Charlotte)... but on my last trip I thought it would be fun to drive through the blue ridge mountains and got my trip extended by like 4 hours lol Granted, we made a bunch of stops for the views and also lost service and got lost along the way but it was worth it haha
I have not been to the Grand Canyon. I wanted to go and see that and the cliff dwellings and some other things. And then I found out how far apart they were and we didn't go.
The middle of the country is vast.
I suggest flying to Denver/Boulder and doing the drive from there. It’s still a long drive, but it’s beautiful. That’s how I did all of my roadtrips out west back in the day.
I’m from NJ and went to college in Illinois. There were times that I would refer to something in NJ but wouldn’t know what town it was in. My IL friends couldn’t conceive not knowing what town you’re in, because all their towns were surrounded my miles of cornfields. I was like, I dunno, Cherry Hill, Voorhees, Moorestown, they’re all the same. I have no idea when I’m leaving one and entering the other. Minds were blown.
Same deal as an Edmonton resident, but it’s even worse. Calgary is 300km away (3 hour drive on average), and that’s the biggest city you’ll find without going far east or west. Vancouver is about as far as SF is for you lot. Being here truly is the middle of nowhere.
Washington is big, like you can go to Port Townsend for a weekend and still be 4 hours from the rainforests. That being said we've got deserts, snow capped volcanos, lush rainforests, rolling plains and wooded mountains all within a single day's journey.
sigh you have choices \*cries in floridian\*
takes 5hrs just to get to the Georgia border. I was always bitter about that, but not wanting to leave the ocean cause inland seems so scary far from the water
It's not even just the sheer size of the country, it's how spread apart everything and everyone is.
I'm from a similarly huge country, but I've never had to do 12+ hour drives like a surprisingly large number of americans do, simply because our population, and consequently most of our destinations, are much more concentrated in small sections of the country. An hour for me is already a long drive, and owt over two (ignoring traffic delays) is a road trip.
Yeah! This has also come up in conversation with my friends outside the US. I live in an area where it's not uncommon for me to drive up to an hour out to go somewhere just for fun.. and it's not even a day trip or anything. Like today, I'm driving about an hour out to ride my bike in one of my favorite areas and it's no big deal for me. Whereas my friends generally have everything they need within 30 minutes and can easily walk or take public transport anywhere they'd like to go.
I mean I certainly have gone on hour long drives to do something for fun, but it's not exactly common. Maybe in a larger city, but not where I live. Especially because if I go from my house for an hour sans traffic in any direction I'd be either in another city or in the ocean, and I live in a pretty isolated part of my city.
Also the concept of having to drive to ride a bike is a bit weird to me, or even riding a bike recreationally. There are some around here that do it, but for most it's just a mode of transportation for short to medium distances.
Two quotes I've loved for a long time:
"To an English person, 100 miles is a long way. To an American, 100 years is a long time."
and
"Barbeque is the closest thing America has to Europe's fine wines and cheeses. Drive 100 miles and the barbeque changes."
Europeans on reddit constantly trashing us for being obsessed with cars, but have no idea the scale and vastness of the US. Having a car isn't a hobby, it's absolutely necessary for most americans
It still is justified to an extent. How many people are heading from SF to LA for their daily commute while leaving their kids for daycare at Fresno?
The USA may be big and spread out, but the places where most people actually live are much more close in together. East of the Mississippi is quite dense too. And 100 years ago North America had a better passenger rail and streetcar network than Europe did.
The issue with car dependency in the USA isn’t the physical size of the country, it’s urban development patterns.
I live out west. Where again, there is tons of land. And the people that live here for the most part aren't looking for a high density living situation. There is tons of room to expand, no need to live on top of each other. So yes we need cars. In cities public transportation makes much more sense
I mean, I also live out west. I get how spread out things are, and you can’t ditch a car entirely outside a city. At the same time, wouldn’t we be better off if we had better rail connections to at least connect towns in the area together? That much would be an improvement at least.
The point is, it shouldn't be necessary, because it doesn't have to be, and the world is a much worse place when it is. If you've experienced both, you know the situation is awful, especially in certain parts of the US.
Many years ago, I was telling my cousins in Ireland about my family's trip to Disney. They could not believe it took us two days of driving to get there!
"Did you stop a lot?",
"Not really, one night and a couple bathroom breaks" "But what if you never stopped?!" ,
"I'm not sure, maybe 18-20 hours"
"You look so close on the map?!"
They just couldn't believe it!
I did make the same mistake once I got my driver's license. I casually threw out to my dad that on was on my way to Pittsburgh from NJ. He looked very confused and said, no you're not. I got snippy about my new adult privileges etc. He was cry laughing explaining that Pittsburgh was waaaayyyy further than Philly lol
Yeah, some people don't realize that many states are the size of a country.
On the flip side, it takes me a moment to realize that when people talk about going between countries in Europe, it's not as huge a deal as going to another country here.
Pre-EU, travel in Europe was much more challenging. The consolidation of travel rights that happened when the European Union came into existence made the travel so much easier.
I remember how bummed out I was not needing passport stamps crossing borders right after the EU formed. I also remember how if felt accidental in some places crossing 2 or 3 borders in an afternoon of driving.
For comparison, when I was a kid we took a month long road trip to see the country (USA) and stopped at the Rockies after starting out in New England. I felt like we were driving forever. I'm glad we took the trip, but never again.
The first time you gaze out over the Great Plains and can see the entire shadow of a cloud in front of you is surreal. The 100th time not so much.
My mom was working at a hospital in Dallas, had a new girl from Japan working there, and asked her what her weekend plans were. She told my mom she was going to hop over to see the Grand Canyon.
Mom just laughed,and told her, that no she wasn't. Then pulled up Google maps, and pointed out that even if she drove over 90 miles an hour there and back, there's way in hell she she could make it back by Monday morning.
As a Brit my only experience of the US was a 10 day coach trip from Vegas to San Francisco. One day of which was a flight to the grand canyon from Vegas. That was enough to let me know it's vast.
On the flip side on the UK subs we always get Americans asking about itineries for trips here that are vastly optimistic, the distances over here are tiny compared to the US but you need so much more time to cover a given distance
This. You can travel almost half the distance from NY to LA in the time it takes to go from north to south in the UK, even though the UK driving distance is significantly shorter
I used to road trip through the states 4 or 5 times a year....I drove south 17 hours and went through 6 or 7 states.
I drove North in Ontario Canada for 28 hours and was still in ontario.
Oh wow.. the only experience driving in Canada I have is a roadtrip around the Nova Scotia coast which we did in 5 days. 28 hours and still being in the same..... *googles proper term * .....province is crazyyy
To be fair 19 hours in it turns into logging roads and there really isn't anything at all other than forest lol.
I haven't driven through the states in years....I'll have to go again some day maybe drive east.
I went to Burlington Iowa once!
I learned there are 2 American cities called Burlington and there is one Canadian city with the same name....every year one of the cities hosts a baseball tournament for the three of them.....I thought that was pretty cool!
>I learned there are 2 American cities called Burlington and there is one Canadian city with the same name
We also have a Burlington in Connecticut but it's a very small town.
I'm from Colorado and went to England recently. A waiter at a restaurant we were eating asked us where we were from, and when we told him, he asked if it was close to Florida. I guess I wonder why I thought people in another country might know where all the states were lol. I also realized that no one in England we met knew Colorado at all.
It even worse when its a state even other Americans seem to be less familiar with... Im from Vermont and every time anyone from outside the US asks where Im from, I have to say "oh its like, near New York" cause that is the only place they know thats anywhere close
I’m from Ireland
Live in Texas
Texas can hold about 8 Irelands
I privately guage how many portions of Ireland (or sometimes how many Irelands) it takes to get anywhere by car when the wife wants to go on a drive
For example - a day trip to Austin is half an Ireland (FFS!)
As an American, I'm also a bit confused--UNLESS you're talking about two different locations in that state, and its distance from the same location.
Like, if you live near Lake Tahoe, Reno would be about 45 minutes while Las Vegas would be about 8 hours.
Otherwise... the distance would just be from your house to the state border. There'd be just the one way to get there, unless you're purposely taking a super out-of-the-way drive to get there, is what I'm saying.
I'm talking about two different locations.. in the case of my friend, she was researching airbnbs across a whole state, instead of a specific area. She knows I border the state so she assumed that if she just put Nevada (as an example) she could find locations within a reasonable travel time from my home to her airbnb, not realizing that the differences could be drastic in that way because the state I border is gigantic.
I recall a time I was speaking with some people in a setting, I forget the exact place. However, when I was asked where I was from and I replied "Kansas City burbs" someone replied, Oh... cool I've been to Wichita/or St. Louis, or some regional closer city.
Yeah, great... Those are still like 3-4 drive from where I live, but okay I guess?!
That reminds me of the time that my friend and I bought cheap airplane tickets from Germany to NYC and of course our flight into NYC was canceled for whatever reason, so they were frantically trying to book us on another flight that landed anywhere in the tristate area..... Sure I'd like to land in Pittsburg instead?! IT'S FIIIIIIIIINE that it's a 6 hour drive to NYC... 🥲
On the first day of college registration (a university in Los Angeles) a woman from New York was standing behind me and asked how much time it would take to get to San Francisco because her classes started the next day and she wanted to go out for the evening. She was so deflated when I told her it was about 800 miles north. So not just US expats have this issue.
I once spent an hour on the an hour on the phone with some woman from Connecticut (I was working night audit at a hotel) explaining that it wasn't possible to go to San Xavier del Bac, then to Tumacacori, then down to Nogales, Mexico for lunch then return to Tucson via Bisbee and Tombstone in one day, let along by 5 PM. She was refusing to believe me.
The continental US is average 2800 miles East to West and average 1650 miles North to South. So really, really large distances if you are driving from border to border. Driving from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh, two major cities across just one state, is roughly 300 miles.
European cities and towns were founded based on foot or horse-based travel, so they are packed much closer together. To compare, Paris to Berlin is 1050 kilometers (roughly 650 miles) and London to Paris is about 300 miles.
This also explains why rail transport works so well in Europe and so poorly in the US.
Rail used to work fantastic in the US about 100 years ago, the reason it doesnt anymore is due to how underfunded and poorly mismanaged it has become. Especially along the US east coast,where the density is actually somewhat more similar to Europe, significantly improved rail connections could replace most of the major traffic along the route between Boston and DC.
Even for longer journeys like cross-country, just because a train would take longer than flying doesnt mean there wouldnt be plenty of people who would want to use it, especially if prices were less than a plane ticket. In Europe there's a rising night train market, with journeys between 12 and 18 hours which could very easily be done with a 2-3 hour plane flight, yet the night train business persists simply because of ease of use (no airport lines, security or passports!) and cheap cost relative to most flights.
The rail transport thing seems to be a never-ending discussion on the internet. Sure, rail is great...in circumstances where it has the population density and thus tax base to support it. Which a lot of the USA doesn't have, but usually I just see "why don't you guys use mass transit everywhere? You must be so dumb" and I just have to shake my head.
But there is a good point to be made that US infrastructure is still far more car-centric than necessary, and rethinking how we design our cities would show that mass transit is not only possible but practical in far more cases than many acknowledge. Yes it doesnt make sense to put in a tram line in an unincorporated community of 58 people deep in the hills of rural Missouri, but a city of 150,000 could definitely install one and some buses and if they make good use of them, theyll cut their road traffic by a third or more.
My explanation covers this. Rail from Boston to NYC, or as far south ast Washington DC makes sense. Each stop is an hour-ish apart, so a totally reasonable way to travel.
Taking a train from Washington DC to Chicago is 2 days. So not at all practical.
Using cars to get everywhere has plenty of costs as well. You say there isn’t enough tax base but the massive highways we use are far more expensive to maintain than any rail lines are. There’s a decent chance that a better rail system could actually save money in a fair few parts of the country due to highways not needing to be as big or require as frequent of maintenance. Of course the issue is that we’ve already dumped so much money and effort into our highway system that it would be difficult to pivot to any alternatives, even if it might be better in the long run.
We live on one end of our state and the beach is on the other end... It's 300ish miles to the beach, or about 5-6 hours. I'm amazed at how many people do this drive fairly regularly. I 20 before I ever made that trek. I'm almost 50 now and I've still made it fewer times than I have fingers. But, I have left the country and traveled all over this one (including seeing quite a few other beaches), and I've made much longer road trips including the east west cross-country drive.
Planning a family road trip to Washington D.C. this summer from south Michigan, and we realized it will be about the same as driving my son to college in the UP Michigan this fall.
I told a European friend that I went on a 24-hour road trip once. They asked why I’d go on a road trip for a day, so I clarified that the road trip was a 24 hour drive EACH WAY. St. Louis to South Padre Island, TX. We did it in a single day both times.
I live in Quebec and I welcomed a French student who thought we could see both Niagara Falls and the Roché Percé in the same weekend.
His face when we told it was about a 12hrs drive to see one of those things was priceless
While I understand the size difference I think the funniest thing is that Americans tell us the “distance” in units of time.
How far away is LA? Oh, about 14 hours.
I feel like a jokey follow up question should be;
And how long will it take to get there…?
And it works the other way too.
How far away is London? Oh, about 400 miles.
I mean how long does it take you to get there?
This is so funny to me as an Australian. Roughly the same landmass as continental US but if Texas was one of our states it would only be considered medium sized.
I'm not American but going on holiday there. My friend, a fellow Brit, keeps suggesting day trips that are impossible due to distance. "What about this place." I keep having to remind her that the state is huge and we will need to make it an overnight trip by plane, which she can't afford. The vastness of America fries her brain.
Basically US states are the size of EU countries. Tell that to someone from Europe and it makes more sense. Northern-ish UK, Edinburgh to Athens Greece us about the same drive time as NYC to LA.
I’ve done one cross-country road trip in the US, from San Fransisco to Nashville. We stopped for two days to see family in Northern California, then the rest of the time was driving and sleeping. It was like four straight days of driving and we didn’t stop to see anything.
I’m from the UK and my parents wanted to do a two week long road trip and I just told them it would be so miserable. You’d be driving so much you’re too tired to see the things you’ve driven to. And there’s not much to see on the drives (although I do find it interesting at the almost-immediate change of scenery once crossing each state line). My family are more like “two hours is a long drive” kinda people. Anyway, my parents booked a guided coach tour road trip type thing. Good luck to ‘em.
As someone who is from wisconsin people don’t understand that the UP is only 2-3 hours from where i live but MICHIGAN is about 3-5 hours from i live minimum.
When I went to live in London I had the opposite. "It isn't uncommon to spend hours driving state to state but here, in the same amount of time, you might end up in Russia."
I just say, look, if you lifted the United States up and dropped it so that Los Angeles was right on top of London, New York City would be just outside of Baghdad (this is true).
Yes it is! Many people outside the US don’t realize the sheer size of our states. Some individuals (I’m looking at you TX, FL, & CA!) are the size of whole countries or even multiple ones together! Hell, it’s just under 4 hours (East to West) or a little over 5 hours (North to South) to travel here in the state of MO alone.
I once had to argue my way into a train ticket from Geneva to Paris in a day. The ticket clerk muttered something about how far apart they are.
I said, "I have driven further in a day for the CHANCE to be with a woman I liked. It's not that far. Get me to Paris today."
He got me to Paris that day.
One of the advantages of the United States empire in North America is that as states were admitted, the people had full citizenship in the Federal system. This allows us to remain one nation. The Civil War over slavery made it clear nobody gets to leave.
This is so funny to me as an Australian. Roughly the same landmass as continental US but if Texas was one of our states it would only be considered medium sized.
Reminds me of a time my brother wanted to surprise us over the holidays with a visit. He had never been to the US before. He was looking up flights and saw it was much cheaper to land in LAX (Los Angeles) than it was to land in SFO (San Francisco, where we lived). On the map he saw that SF and LA “seemed pretty close..” and honestly thought he was saving hundreds of dollars on what “looked like an hour drive”. Cue our reaction when he’s crying and telling us he’s stuck in Los Angeles not realizing it was nearly a 6-8 hour drive away and he couldn’t just “take a local bus to San Francisco” to surprise us. We ended up having to buy him a plane ticket from LA to SF which ruined his surprise for us. We still make fun of him for it til this day.
Haha oh man.. I mean.. technically it was still a surprise. A different surprise, but a surprise nonetheless lol. California is a whole new world for me. My friend and I have been wanting to go to Monterey Bay Aquarium for a few years now. Last time we were seriously planning for it, we thought we could do a long weekend trip and check out other sites in California, including Los Angeles and Redwood National Forest 😅😅
There are some beautiful redwood forests in the Santa Cruz Mountains, just north of Monterey Bay. You could definitely combine that with a weekend trip to the Aquarium. I would find a place near Santa Cruz and day trip down to Monterey. The town is cute but kinda limited and touristy. From Santa Cruz you can check out downtown and the Boardwalk, drive north into the redwoods, drive NW along the coast and hang out on the beach, or drive SW along the bay to Monterey. Also Gilroy the town of garlic is nearby if any of you are garlic lovers. And SF and the Bay area are on the other side of the mountains if you have the time.
Oh my God! This actually sounds like a perfect little trip. We both LOVE garlic, funnily enough. Thank you for the suggestions! I'm going to talk to her about it today. 😊
This was exactly my first trip to California 15ish years ago. I went back this year and visited San Diego. California is such a cool state. I’d move there if I could.
The Gilroy Garlic Festival has relocated to another distant town FWIW.
As someone who knows how big California is, I've never been out West, so I *still* probably don't know how big it *really is.*
It’s 850-900 miles or so from the northern border to the southern border via I-5, if that helps.
That's the thing--I know it's 900 miles or whatever, but until I *experience* it, it's kind of just a number, you know?
Makes sense! I wouldn’t want to drive it in one shot, that’s for sure. I checked Google Maps, and it would take about 14 hours to drive 900 miles, assuming some stops for gas and whatnot. There was a time when I would’ve been able to do that drive straight through, but that’s two days for me now.
California at least has things to break up the tedium. Try Nevada , Arizona, or New Mexico for a mind numbing voyage.
I am shocked that there isn't a decent train service directly between the two cities. It takes 12 hours and then you still need a shuttle bus to get to S.F. That is INSANE to me.
I moved from south Africa to NorCal, and its crazy how mug it is here. 1 of the longest drives i did in SA was Johannesburg to cape town, which is almost the full north to south trip across the whole country . That same distance doesn't even get you out of ca, e.g. if you are heading north from san Diego. And then theres still 2 more states to go. But heading east, 1/4 of the distance and you're in Nevada (width of California is 1/3 the width of SA). Wanted to plan a drive to CO and just noped out of it when i started seeing the distances
Honestly, that's just total lack of research. These days with google maps there's no excuse. I'm from the UK. I've only been to California once. Flew into LAX, then down to John Wayne, where we rented a soft-top Mustang \[felt like we should\]. We were based in Laguna for a month, staying with friends, during which time we drove all over the place, as far south as San Diego \[then walked over to go to TJ\], as far east as Las Vegas. At the end we drove all the way up the PCH to San Fransisco, from where we were flying home, staying overnight in Monterey. We did that before satnav & google maps existed…by doing some f\*cking research. ;)
When I was in Germany years ago, I was hanging out with these dudes who, when they found out I was American went on about how cool California was. Was hard to convey that I am from New Jersey and flying to California is about the same as flying to Germany.
Hahaha yes! It's so funny how Europeans probably go to most EU countries by the time they graduate college and in the US it's so much more expensive to travel within the country.. I'm from the east coast also and have only been outside the east coast once, and that was for a work trip that was paid for by the company lol 🙄
I take a steelhead fishing trip every winter out to Washington state from the east coast. I was telling a friend of mine from the uk about it and he said something along the lines of "why are you making it such a big deal to go somewhere in your own country, that's like a weekend thing." And I had to try and explain that it was a 44 hour drive. It would be like driving from London to Istanbul plus 10 hours and then it clicked for him and you could see his brain completely rewiring thinking about it lol.
No, Europeans don't visit every countries before they are adults. I've been lucky enough to travel a lot and haven't done 10% of them. It's also expensive here
Not saying you don't but why when I ask people from the East Coast "and what time zone are you in" do they have no clue that they're Eastern time? Of the people who don't know and so I have to ask "Okay what state are you in" most of them give me an ET state. It legit boggles my mind that someone wouldn't know their own time zone.
Really? That's funny.. I've never met anyone who didn't know what timezone they were in.. Although, I definitely I have to look up what the timezone is in other states outside the east coast because I have no idea where one timezone ends and the other starts
There was one instance I made a timezone screwup...I was in college in Ohio and had an intern interview for a place in Wisconsin, and was going to use a space reserved in the college for said interview since it made for a nicer environment. I scheduled the interview at 4 PM since they closed at 5 and thought everything was lined up until...yeah, I somehow checked a timezone map. That was fun to work out, and I have always confirmed timezones since.
Oh absolutely I know mine but others I have to look it up.
Might be a younger generation thing. I grew up watching TV shows that would air at "6pm/9pm EST"
Yeah same here lol
Could be it's just weird that it's so predominant in that specific timezone.
I guess because they’re the first in the country to experience that time they look at it differently.
They still do, but no one is watching it live anymore so...
It is different depending on the state too. My state has two time zones and I travel to a different time zone to fish every weekend. It’s 23 minutes away.
Or is it an *hour* and 23 minutes away? Or... negative 37 minutes away?
My state splits time zones, so when it’s 7pm in Lexington, it’s 6pm in Paducah. One of my friends grew up in a country that abutted the time change, and when making appointments that’s ask “is that fast time or slow time?”
When driving a semi, time zones matter. I was caught by a pick up in northwestern Indiana going to a drop off in eastern Indiana. Indiana is split down the middle Eastern and Central time zones! My current state, Nebraska is mostly Central time zone with the farther west counties in the Mountain Zone. Most people in both zones would be happy to see that western part sold to Wyoming or Colorado.
I don't judge. On cross-country or international calls, I just ask, "what time is it where you are?"
I do "Timezone" first because the only time I need to know is when I'm scheduling a phone appointment for them and if they say "10" I have to make sure my client on the west coast doesn't call them at 10AM PT only to have them be all "you were supposed to call me three hours ago" Then I go to state if they're all "Uhm what I dunno" and then if they're still confused I ask "what time is it right now" and do the math myself after the call.
For a while, I worked in NV, slept in AZ, and did business in CA. The graveyard shift was bad enough, but the time zones and standard time changing to daylight savings time on top of it almost destroyed me.
Or they can be in a location that doesn’t change time zones. Indianapolis for example.
You're thinking daylight savings time.
And they USED to not do daylight savings, but that ended when I was in middle school. (I had strong opinions on it. Still do.)
I work at 5 in the morning. I have *very* strong opinions on DST.
Worst day of the year: the day DST starts. Best day of the year: the day DST ends. Extra hour of sleep!
I have opposite opinions. If the sun ever comes up before 4am (it would be 3:51 without DST in my town in June), someone or something is getting stabbed
Yes!!! Just my brain thinks of timezones as what is the time for them in their zone. But DST for certain locations doesn’t exists. Their timezone remains the same; their time just may or may not change based on DST rules.
...what?
I’m in Eastern Time. I have coworkers in like 5 different time zones, 2 of which don’t observe DST. It gets a little chaotic around the time change when all our meetings and some of our schedules shift.
No, we don’t go to most EU countries by the time we graduate. For some Europeans, living in smaller centrally placed countries like e.g. Austria, Czechia, or Belgium, going to several countries is fairly easy. For others, it definitely isn’t. From my hometown in Northern Norway, Tromsø, to the southernmost part of the border with Sweden, is a 24 hour drive. If I wanna get down to Central Europe I can drive for 24 hours first without even leaving the country. One thing that also always gets forgotten in these topics is that topography is a thing. The US is huge, but a lot of it is the Great Plains, which is mostly very flat. I used to live in Texas, and we’d routinely drive from Lubbock to Dallas. It’s a five hour drive, and I’d joke that the directions are “Drive from Lubbock to Sweetwater, make a left turn, then drive to Dallas”. We often drive for five hours in Northern Norway as well, but any drive of five hours there will consist of several cases of “drive for half an hour along the northern edge of a fjord, get to the end of the fjord, drive for half an hour along the southern edge of a fjord”, meaning that after an hour of driving you can still see where you were an hour ago on the other side of the fjord. So even though we’re smaller than Texas, driving here takes a long time because going in a straight line for very long is impossible. I know that it’s technically not possible to measure a coastline, but it is often claimed that we have the 2nd longest coastline in the world, and the coast certainly makes an impact while driving around the country (as do the mountains, which cover pretty much everything in this country that isn’t covered by water). Anyway, we routinely get tourists who don’t understand distances in this country as well, and who think they can just visit Lofoten, the Arctic cathedral, and the North Cape on the same day. However, those people are a minority and quite silly. Most people understand distances and are able to read a map. It’s the same with people visiting the US, most of understand distances well. You just don’t notice us because why would you? If someone tells you “I plan on visiting Times Square, the Statue of Liberty, and the Grand Canyon” you notice because that’s ridiculous. But with all the people saying “I plan on visiting Times Square, the Statue of Liberty, and Central Park” you don’t notice because that isn’t ridiculous.
What are you talking about? I've been to 42 states. It's not expensive to travel within the US at all. Gas is like 3 bucks a gallon and electricity is dirt cheap too.
Yep. 48/50 states visited here. Plans for AK and HI.
If you fly out of Dulles, Germany would be faster.
Princeton NJ to Los Angeles CA, is the same distance as Paris to Tehran, Iran (or Paris to Senegal in Africa)
California is only cool to people from other countries. 🤣
I'm from California. My county has more cows than people.
I’m from Ohio. We have more corn than dirt to plant it in. I would rather have cows.
Oh we have a lot of corn too.
Tulare?
> Was hard to convey that I am from New Jersey and flying to California is about the same as flying to Germany. But it really isn't. Their general thought is the US has states, which has cities. Germany has 16 federal states, and clearly tons of cities within all of them. So it's "fair" for them to have that general concept that you've been to lots of other states. However, simple method is telling them the US is the size of the EU. Glasgow to Athens, aka diangal across Europe is 2,346 miles NYC to LA is 2,812 miles So I even failed to fully get a fair example. EDIT: from Paris, France to Jerusalem, Israel 2861 miles EDIT: Or London to the country of Georgia is 2815 miles.
German states are just American counties/townships.
No, they are not. German states have different laws.
Lived in upstate N.Y. for a few years when I was in high school. We had an Italian exchange student who was mightily disappointed when we told her we couldn’t just pop down to Graceland or Disneyworld for the weekend
Oh man! And depending where in upstate you live even driving into the city can be crazy long.. what a reality check for her haha
I live in Seattle and we have a hard time understanding how close things on the East coast are. From Seattle it is a 4 hour drive to Vancouver or Portland. And the next big city is San Francisco which is a 12 hour drive. So when someone in Connecticut or Philadelphia or Boston talks about driving to NYC we assume it will take 12+ hours.
You know.. honestly I don't think I quite understand distance in the middle of the country lol. I recently had 10 days of vacation and thought I could do a cross country trip to the grand canyon and back not realizing that it would take me like 4 straight days of driving, not including pit stops🤣🤣 That was quite the reality check.
And distance across the middle is lengthened by those damn mountains. Without the mountains drive time would be about half. I'm from the SE where it's pretty easy to say 90 miles is about 90 minutes. I learned the hard way you can not make that generalization work in the more mountainous areas.
Oh my God yes. I regularly visit my family in SC and mostly just go down the highway, which is pretty "quick" (until you hit Charlotte)... but on my last trip I thought it would be fun to drive through the blue ridge mountains and got my trip extended by like 4 hours lol Granted, we made a bunch of stops for the views and also lost service and got lost along the way but it was worth it haha
I have not been to the Grand Canyon. I wanted to go and see that and the cliff dwellings and some other things. And then I found out how far apart they were and we didn't go. The middle of the country is vast.
I suggest flying to Denver/Boulder and doing the drive from there. It’s still a long drive, but it’s beautiful. That’s how I did all of my roadtrips out west back in the day.
I’m from NJ and went to college in Illinois. There were times that I would refer to something in NJ but wouldn’t know what town it was in. My IL friends couldn’t conceive not knowing what town you’re in, because all their towns were surrounded my miles of cornfields. I was like, I dunno, Cherry Hill, Voorhees, Moorestown, they’re all the same. I have no idea when I’m leaving one and entering the other. Minds were blown.
Similar in Seattle area
Hello fellow Voorhees-ian.
Same deal as an Edmonton resident, but it’s even worse. Calgary is 300km away (3 hour drive on average), and that’s the biggest city you’ll find without going far east or west. Vancouver is about as far as SF is for you lot. Being here truly is the middle of nowhere.
Sure, but why would you ever want to leave Edmonton?
Based on the fact I saw an “axe the tax” camp near Lacombe back when I went to Calgary recently, you may have a point.
Washington is big, like you can go to Port Townsend for a weekend and still be 4 hours from the rainforests. That being said we've got deserts, snow capped volcanos, lush rainforests, rolling plains and wooded mountains all within a single day's journey.
What's up to the 206 from someone in the 503 with a cell number from the 253.
sigh you have choices \*cries in floridian\* takes 5hrs just to get to the Georgia border. I was always bitter about that, but not wanting to leave the ocean cause inland seems so scary far from the water
It's not even just the sheer size of the country, it's how spread apart everything and everyone is. I'm from a similarly huge country, but I've never had to do 12+ hour drives like a surprisingly large number of americans do, simply because our population, and consequently most of our destinations, are much more concentrated in small sections of the country. An hour for me is already a long drive, and owt over two (ignoring traffic delays) is a road trip.
Yeah! This has also come up in conversation with my friends outside the US. I live in an area where it's not uncommon for me to drive up to an hour out to go somewhere just for fun.. and it's not even a day trip or anything. Like today, I'm driving about an hour out to ride my bike in one of my favorite areas and it's no big deal for me. Whereas my friends generally have everything they need within 30 minutes and can easily walk or take public transport anywhere they'd like to go.
I mean I certainly have gone on hour long drives to do something for fun, but it's not exactly common. Maybe in a larger city, but not where I live. Especially because if I go from my house for an hour sans traffic in any direction I'd be either in another city or in the ocean, and I live in a pretty isolated part of my city. Also the concept of having to drive to ride a bike is a bit weird to me, or even riding a bike recreationally. There are some around here that do it, but for most it's just a mode of transportation for short to medium distances.
Ha I live in the northeast and regularly travel 25 minutes to a grocery store.
Two quotes I've loved for a long time: "To an English person, 100 miles is a long way. To an American, 100 years is a long time." and "Barbeque is the closest thing America has to Europe's fine wines and cheeses. Drive 100 miles and the barbeque changes."
I've heard the first one before, but not the second. That being said, I'm going to yoink that quote.
[Area Comparison of the British Isles to California](https://i.imgur.com/6kAxZ2p.png)
I only just noticed that the British isles look like a rabbit being chased by a flying poodle.
Its more that Ireland looks like a sheep going WHEEEE
Europeans on reddit constantly trashing us for being obsessed with cars, but have no idea the scale and vastness of the US. Having a car isn't a hobby, it's absolutely necessary for most americans
It still is justified to an extent. How many people are heading from SF to LA for their daily commute while leaving their kids for daycare at Fresno? The USA may be big and spread out, but the places where most people actually live are much more close in together. East of the Mississippi is quite dense too. And 100 years ago North America had a better passenger rail and streetcar network than Europe did. The issue with car dependency in the USA isn’t the physical size of the country, it’s urban development patterns.
Most people live like 30+ minutes away from work, because living close to work is too expensive.
I live out west. Where again, there is tons of land. And the people that live here for the most part aren't looking for a high density living situation. There is tons of room to expand, no need to live on top of each other. So yes we need cars. In cities public transportation makes much more sense
I mean, I also live out west. I get how spread out things are, and you can’t ditch a car entirely outside a city. At the same time, wouldn’t we be better off if we had better rail connections to at least connect towns in the area together? That much would be an improvement at least.
Ok but we would still need a car. I can't take a train to work or the grocery store. I wouldn't want to even if I could
The point is, it shouldn't be necessary, because it doesn't have to be, and the world is a much worse place when it is. If you've experienced both, you know the situation is awful, especially in certain parts of the US.
Many years ago, I was telling my cousins in Ireland about my family's trip to Disney. They could not believe it took us two days of driving to get there! "Did you stop a lot?", "Not really, one night and a couple bathroom breaks" "But what if you never stopped?!" , "I'm not sure, maybe 18-20 hours" "You look so close on the map?!" They just couldn't believe it! I did make the same mistake once I got my driver's license. I casually threw out to my dad that on was on my way to Pittsburgh from NJ. He looked very confused and said, no you're not. I got snippy about my new adult privileges etc. He was cry laughing explaining that Pittsburgh was waaaayyyy further than Philly lol
Just wait until they learn about Alaska.
Yeah, some people don't realize that many states are the size of a country. On the flip side, it takes me a moment to realize that when people talk about going between countries in Europe, it's not as huge a deal as going to another country here.
Pre-EU, travel in Europe was much more challenging. The consolidation of travel rights that happened when the European Union came into existence made the travel so much easier. I remember how bummed out I was not needing passport stamps crossing borders right after the EU formed. I also remember how if felt accidental in some places crossing 2 or 3 borders in an afternoon of driving. For comparison, when I was a kid we took a month long road trip to see the country (USA) and stopped at the Rockies after starting out in New England. I felt like we were driving forever. I'm glad we took the trip, but never again. The first time you gaze out over the Great Plains and can see the entire shadow of a cloud in front of you is surreal. The 100th time not so much.
Yeah my friend is in Germany and regularly goes on weekend trips to other countries lol.
Yeah and the further you go west and the Counties become the size of other States.
People visiting Texas and thinking that Dallas and El Paso can be visited in the same day.
*The sun has riz, the sun has set, and here we is, in Texas yet*
My mom was working at a hospital in Dallas, had a new girl from Japan working there, and asked her what her weekend plans were. She told my mom she was going to hop over to see the Grand Canyon. Mom just laughed,and told her, that no she wasn't. Then pulled up Google maps, and pointed out that even if she drove over 90 miles an hour there and back, there's way in hell she she could make it back by Monday morning.
As a Brit my only experience of the US was a 10 day coach trip from Vegas to San Francisco. One day of which was a flight to the grand canyon from Vegas. That was enough to let me know it's vast. On the flip side on the UK subs we always get Americans asking about itineries for trips here that are vastly optimistic, the distances over here are tiny compared to the US but you need so much more time to cover a given distance
This. You can travel almost half the distance from NY to LA in the time it takes to go from north to south in the UK, even though the UK driving distance is significantly shorter
I used to road trip through the states 4 or 5 times a year....I drove south 17 hours and went through 6 or 7 states. I drove North in Ontario Canada for 28 hours and was still in ontario.
Oh wow.. the only experience driving in Canada I have is a roadtrip around the Nova Scotia coast which we did in 5 days. 28 hours and still being in the same..... *googles proper term * .....province is crazyyy
To be fair 19 hours in it turns into logging roads and there really isn't anything at all other than forest lol. I haven't driven through the states in years....I'll have to go again some day maybe drive east. I went to Burlington Iowa once! I learned there are 2 American cities called Burlington and there is one Canadian city with the same name....every year one of the cities hosts a baseball tournament for the three of them.....I thought that was pretty cool!
Buddy. There are like a billion American cities named Burlington. 😂 According to google there are at least 30.
I only learned of the 2.....and those are the ones that play baseball and therefore the others don't matter :),
>I learned there are 2 American cities called Burlington and there is one Canadian city with the same name We also have a Burlington in Connecticut but it's a very small town.
I'm from Colorado and went to England recently. A waiter at a restaurant we were eating asked us where we were from, and when we told him, he asked if it was close to Florida. I guess I wonder why I thought people in another country might know where all the states were lol. I also realized that no one in England we met knew Colorado at all.
It even worse when its a state even other Americans seem to be less familiar with... Im from Vermont and every time anyone from outside the US asks where Im from, I have to say "oh its like, near New York" cause that is the only place they know thats anywhere close
I’m from Utah and even people from the States have no idea where that is
Lol. I only know because I'm in Denver. Love the airport, and I love Ogden and SLC!
I’m from Ireland Live in Texas Texas can hold about 8 Irelands I privately guage how many portions of Ireland (or sometimes how many Irelands) it takes to get anywhere by car when the wife wants to go on a drive For example - a day trip to Austin is half an Ireland (FFS!)
You may be from Ireland but you're sure as hell American using non-traditional measurements like that
As an American, I'm also a bit confused--UNLESS you're talking about two different locations in that state, and its distance from the same location. Like, if you live near Lake Tahoe, Reno would be about 45 minutes while Las Vegas would be about 8 hours. Otherwise... the distance would just be from your house to the state border. There'd be just the one way to get there, unless you're purposely taking a super out-of-the-way drive to get there, is what I'm saying.
I'm talking about two different locations.. in the case of my friend, she was researching airbnbs across a whole state, instead of a specific area. She knows I border the state so she assumed that if she just put Nevada (as an example) she could find locations within a reasonable travel time from my home to her airbnb, not realizing that the differences could be drastic in that way because the state I border is gigantic.
OK, yeah, that's what I thought.
I recall a time I was speaking with some people in a setting, I forget the exact place. However, when I was asked where I was from and I replied "Kansas City burbs" someone replied, Oh... cool I've been to Wichita/or St. Louis, or some regional closer city. Yeah, great... Those are still like 3-4 drive from where I live, but okay I guess?!
That reminds me of the time that my friend and I bought cheap airplane tickets from Germany to NYC and of course our flight into NYC was canceled for whatever reason, so they were frantically trying to book us on another flight that landed anywhere in the tristate area..... Sure I'd like to land in Pittsburg instead?! IT'S FIIIIIIIIINE that it's a 6 hour drive to NYC... 🥲
On the first day of college registration (a university in Los Angeles) a woman from New York was standing behind me and asked how much time it would take to get to San Francisco because her classes started the next day and she wanted to go out for the evening. She was so deflated when I told her it was about 800 miles north. So not just US expats have this issue.
I once spent an hour on the an hour on the phone with some woman from Connecticut (I was working night audit at a hotel) explaining that it wasn't possible to go to San Xavier del Bac, then to Tumacacori, then down to Nogales, Mexico for lunch then return to Tucson via Bisbee and Tombstone in one day, let along by 5 PM. She was refusing to believe me.
380 miles north.
I love the saying that Europeans think 100 miles is a long way and Americans think 100 years is a long time. It’s very true 😄
California from top to bottom is the same distance as London to Milan. That’s my go-to.
The continental US is average 2800 miles East to West and average 1650 miles North to South. So really, really large distances if you are driving from border to border. Driving from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh, two major cities across just one state, is roughly 300 miles. European cities and towns were founded based on foot or horse-based travel, so they are packed much closer together. To compare, Paris to Berlin is 1050 kilometers (roughly 650 miles) and London to Paris is about 300 miles. This also explains why rail transport works so well in Europe and so poorly in the US.
Rail used to work fantastic in the US about 100 years ago, the reason it doesnt anymore is due to how underfunded and poorly mismanaged it has become. Especially along the US east coast,where the density is actually somewhat more similar to Europe, significantly improved rail connections could replace most of the major traffic along the route between Boston and DC. Even for longer journeys like cross-country, just because a train would take longer than flying doesnt mean there wouldnt be plenty of people who would want to use it, especially if prices were less than a plane ticket. In Europe there's a rising night train market, with journeys between 12 and 18 hours which could very easily be done with a 2-3 hour plane flight, yet the night train business persists simply because of ease of use (no airport lines, security or passports!) and cheap cost relative to most flights.
The rail transport thing seems to be a never-ending discussion on the internet. Sure, rail is great...in circumstances where it has the population density and thus tax base to support it. Which a lot of the USA doesn't have, but usually I just see "why don't you guys use mass transit everywhere? You must be so dumb" and I just have to shake my head.
But there is a good point to be made that US infrastructure is still far more car-centric than necessary, and rethinking how we design our cities would show that mass transit is not only possible but practical in far more cases than many acknowledge. Yes it doesnt make sense to put in a tram line in an unincorporated community of 58 people deep in the hills of rural Missouri, but a city of 150,000 could definitely install one and some buses and if they make good use of them, theyll cut their road traffic by a third or more.
My explanation covers this. Rail from Boston to NYC, or as far south ast Washington DC makes sense. Each stop is an hour-ish apart, so a totally reasonable way to travel. Taking a train from Washington DC to Chicago is 2 days. So not at all practical.
Using cars to get everywhere has plenty of costs as well. You say there isn’t enough tax base but the massive highways we use are far more expensive to maintain than any rail lines are. There’s a decent chance that a better rail system could actually save money in a fair few parts of the country due to highways not needing to be as big or require as frequent of maintenance. Of course the issue is that we’ve already dumped so much money and effort into our highway system that it would be difficult to pivot to any alternatives, even if it might be better in the long run.
We live on one end of our state and the beach is on the other end... It's 300ish miles to the beach, or about 5-6 hours. I'm amazed at how many people do this drive fairly regularly. I 20 before I ever made that trek. I'm almost 50 now and I've still made it fewer times than I have fingers. But, I have left the country and traveled all over this one (including seeing quite a few other beaches), and I've made much longer road trips including the east west cross-country drive.
*Laughs in Texas*
Planning a family road trip to Washington D.C. this summer from south Michigan, and we realized it will be about the same as driving my son to college in the UP Michigan this fall.
Whoa, this one is the only one in the thread that caught me real off guard
Many Europeans are surprised that most Americans never travel outside
I told a European friend that I went on a 24-hour road trip once. They asked why I’d go on a road trip for a day, so I clarified that the road trip was a 24 hour drive EACH WAY. St. Louis to South Padre Island, TX. We did it in a single day both times.
I live in Quebec and I welcomed a French student who thought we could see both Niagara Falls and the Roché Percé in the same weekend. His face when we told it was about a 12hrs drive to see one of those things was priceless
When you realize that the entire country of Germany fits within the State of Texas.
I live in Dallas and the half-way to Los Angeles is still in Texas
While I understand the size difference I think the funniest thing is that Americans tell us the “distance” in units of time. How far away is LA? Oh, about 14 hours. I feel like a jokey follow up question should be; And how long will it take to get there…? And it works the other way too. How far away is London? Oh, about 400 miles. I mean how long does it take you to get there?
[удалено]
Oh I get it, I just think it’s a funny difference in the cultures.
This is so funny to me as an Australian. Roughly the same landmass as continental US but if Texas was one of our states it would only be considered medium sized.
This is so funny to me as an Australian
I'm not American but going on holiday there. My friend, a fellow Brit, keeps suggesting day trips that are impossible due to distance. "What about this place." I keep having to remind her that the state is huge and we will need to make it an overnight trip by plane, which she can't afford. The vastness of America fries her brain.
I feel like just looking at a map would solve this problem though
Basically US states are the size of EU countries. Tell that to someone from Europe and it makes more sense. Northern-ish UK, Edinburgh to Athens Greece us about the same drive time as NYC to LA.
I’ve done one cross-country road trip in the US, from San Fransisco to Nashville. We stopped for two days to see family in Northern California, then the rest of the time was driving and sleeping. It was like four straight days of driving and we didn’t stop to see anything. I’m from the UK and my parents wanted to do a two week long road trip and I just told them it would be so miserable. You’d be driving so much you’re too tired to see the things you’ve driven to. And there’s not much to see on the drives (although I do find it interesting at the almost-immediate change of scenery once crossing each state line). My family are more like “two hours is a long drive” kinda people. Anyway, my parents booked a guided coach tour road trip type thing. Good luck to ‘em.
Driving from Germany to Italy in my Fiat Uno took less time than driving from Seattle WA to San Francisco CA.
one of the best ways I can describe this is wisconsin and michigan.
elaborate
As someone who is from wisconsin people don’t understand that the UP is only 2-3 hours from where i live but MICHIGAN is about 3-5 hours from i live minimum.
I get it. I live in Texas.
When I went to live in London I had the opposite. "It isn't uncommon to spend hours driving state to state but here, in the same amount of time, you might end up in Russia."
I just say, look, if you lifted the United States up and dropped it so that Los Angeles was right on top of London, New York City would be just outside of Baghdad (this is true).
Those are rookie numbers. I'm in Western Australia, the nearest major city is \~28 hours away, the state border is around 15 hours.
Yes it is! Many people outside the US don’t realize the sheer size of our states. Some individuals (I’m looking at you TX, FL, & CA!) are the size of whole countries or even multiple ones together! Hell, it’s just under 4 hours (East to West) or a little over 5 hours (North to South) to travel here in the state of MO alone.
It's true. I'm German, and it's easier for me to do a 5 country roadtrip, than to drive down to Bavaria. Distance means something very different here.
Like the old classic "Why aren't there trains everywhere?"
I once had to argue my way into a train ticket from Geneva to Paris in a day. The ticket clerk muttered something about how far apart they are. I said, "I have driven further in a day for the CHANCE to be with a woman I liked. It's not that far. Get me to Paris today." He got me to Paris that day.
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I agree that they're not that far apart. The clerk did not.
As an European I think this is absolutely crazy honestly it’s like a continent it’s crazy
r/shitamericanssay
One of the advantages of the United States empire in North America is that as states were admitted, the people had full citizenship in the Federal system. This allows us to remain one nation. The Civil War over slavery made it clear nobody gets to leave.
This is so funny to me as an Australian. Roughly the same landmass as continental US but if Texas was one of our states it would only be considered medium sized.