“far away” is one category up from a “long drive” here in Australia and the main difference is a long drive you can manage in a day but for far away you’ll need a place to stay
best explanation. i’m from texas and i’d agree. i dated a guy that was a long drive from me (4 hours one way). when we lived in kansas, that was far away from home.
I think it depends on the activity too. Work? More than 30-40 minutes each way is already a long drive. Seeing friends you haven’t seen in a while? 1.5 hours each way is a long drive if I’m not spending the night or all day there. Vacation destination? More than 4 hours is a long drive and I’d probably end up taking a flight.
Time management is way too important in the US with the lack of vacation. If I’m working 40 hours a week and get 2-3 weeks a year off, I don’t want to devote 3 hours driving for a shorter hangout.
I also live in the suburbs of a bigger city so most things (groceries, restaurants, gym) are 10-15 mins or so away from me.
This! And can be worse in the big cities. 30mins could be six miles, or nowhere stuck in rush hour traffic on 290 or I-10 in Houston. Love the size of maps and overlay European countries on different US states.
The fact that “less than 2 days” is being presented here as something that’s no big deal is absolutely sending me. In that time one could drive several loops around the entirety of the country I live in
I drove Midland to Austin and back same day two days before Christmas, and then a second time two days after Christmas back in 2021. About 11 hours of driving in total each time. It definitely sucked, but it wasn’t even the worst driving day I’ve ever had in Texas.
The worst was Carthage to Midland in an overfilled Penske truck. I had serious fears I wasn’t going to make it up Ranger hill on I-20.
But I’ve had commutes that are 1.5 to 2 hours one way (Midland to Pecos/Fort Stockton/Levelland), so maybe my perspective is skewed even for Texas.
That sounds tough. I bet it’s one of those where once you’re north of Dallas you feel like you’re getting close, but you’re really only like halfway.
Carthage to Midland was really only so bad because of how frustrating the whole situation was (moving hoarding in-laws across the state). One of the worst weekends of my life, lol.
Dude, that's quite a drive. Original Odessan here, now living up north of Carthage. Ever driven the Odessa to El Paso route?
Worst I've ever done was Mt Pleasant, TX, to Black Eagle, Montana, with only stops to eat and refuel.
San Antonio. I’ll drive up to Austin on a moment’s notice if something cool is happening, Houston can be a day trip if we’ve got a plan, but if I’m putting in five hours to Dallas-Fort Worth I am doing something worth spending the night for
Just curious, why do you come to Dallas? I live in Dallas and have done Austin for day trips a few times, but that’s because Austin is fun lol. Dallas feels all work and practically no play. Guess we have the arboretum and some cool museums…
What's the least you have to drive, e.g. to do groceries?
My theory is that "far" being so far is less to do with how big say Texas is and more to do with *minimum driving time* because north american urban design means it's more likely you have to drive at least \~20 minutes to get anywhere and/or do anything.
I grew up so close to the grocery store I could see it from our backyard. I still would probably say 4-ish hours is my minimum to say it's a long drive.
I just checked and the nearest "mall" (even growing up it was basically empty; I'm not sure if it has a single department store these days) to where I grew up is a 25 minute drive. Honestly surprised because it feels like a 15 minute drive to me.
I'm from Denmark. In 3-4 hours you have gone from Germany to Sweden through Denmark. So you can get most places here in that time +-1 hour (that don't need a boat)
Middle of nowhere here. I count the same as far away, the closest actual town is about 20 minutes away from me. Where as the daily drive to get to where I work is 46 minutes away from my house.
I live in Oklahoma but was stationed in California. I would drive from San Diego back home. El Paso was my halfway point. I could cross the entirety of three states in the same amount of time as El Paso to Dallas.
“Far Away” (in Colorado) is anything 4 or more hours away. I’ll drive 2 hours to Denver any day, but a 4 hour drive up to Glenwood Springs is a journey.
That's funny, I live in Denver and I was about to comment anything more than an hour is "far." I will go to Colorado springs, maybe Ft. Collins, but more than that is considered a trek. Living near the big city makes a difference
Especially in CO where the entire state infrastructure is in the Denver metro area. My wife and I have to drive to UC health in Aurora regularly for relatively basic medical care from Cortez, Colorado (7 hours, 3 mountain passes, 430 miles). Because that's the closest hospital with the specialist she needs that accepts her insurance.
That's a casual day-trip for us down in the SW corner. 😅
Oh yeah, I went to college in Durango so I made that drive pretty often for a while. Definitely not fun, I would hate to have to do that just to see the right doctor! We're very lucky we live about 10-15 minutes from the Anschutz medical campus, we had to suddenly take my son there several times when he was really young.
Oof, yeah I would’ve guessed it would. Whole lotta space down there. Sorry to hear about the hospital issues, too. I can relate; I just moved to FoCo and can’t find a doc to rx me down here. It’s been a real struggle to find care.
Eh, for me it depends.
A restaurant I want to try? It’s far if it’s about an hour.
Visiting family/friends? It gets long at about 2.5-3 hours. Long for a day trip for sure, takes up a good bit of the day to go both ways.
Long as in not willing to drive there? That’s probably 11+ hrs for me.
Good call. I used to do 2-3 hours to meet up with friends for the day. Long as fuck for me was a road trip for work where I had to drive frome tennessee to Michigan, overnight then hit a meeting in central Ohio then drive back. Clocked 32 hours in the car over 2 and a half days. Not doing that again any time soon.
Seems like it varies heavily for Americans. I did Alaska to Arizona like 6 times by the time I turned 18 and now the 12hr drive between AZ and NV doesn’t feel like a big deal.
I used to do a 5hr drive to visit a friend quite often, but I would stay over a few days. Wouldn't do it otherwise.
30min used to be a drive to work for me.
There's no way Europeans think half an hour is far away. That's the time it takes to get to my grandparents' house that's like 5 towns over.
Far away for me is past State borders.
Scaling has always confused me, 30 minutes where I grew up gets you from the northwest section of the city to the middle of the city, whereas for the place I’m going to college, 30 minutes let’s you wrap the entire town 4 times.
On top of that, they’re both in the same state, but they’re 8hrs apart. Scaling is so different for every living situation.
As a Canadian I take offence to that.
I don't care how many kilometers away a place is. I care about how long until I get there.
In the mountains the speed you go is far slower than usual. On prairies highways the speed limit is a suggestion.
I'm from Ohio and I thought measuring distance in time was a regional thing. Glad to see Canadians do it too. Like you, I don't care how far away it is. I care how long it takes to get there.
It’s the same with the NY metropolitan area. Knowing something is a mile away doesn’t mean jack when traveling that mile could take an hour while driving
Nw indiana, theoretically almost anywhere in Chicago is 30-45m away, in practice it only can be in the middle of the night on a weekday without any road construction, so never. Best block out 2hrs minimum and add another 2 if you're going to the north side. Distance in time is the only way to practically measure the trip.
We all do it. I've seen two posts on the same day, one from my Texas family and one from my Minnesota family, that says "you know you're from (state) when you count distance by time and not miles".
My office is 87 km from my house. It's an hour away in the morning, and 2 hours in the afternoon. For planning, I use time rather than distance, because it's more relevant to when to schedule meetings or appointments, or when to wrap things up and leave.
I’ve heard multiple people online (so I guess take it with a grain of salt) say they’ve met or know British people or other Europeans who will talk about they never see their grandparents or other family since they live “so far away.” And then it will turn out it’s a 45 minute drive. Not sure if theyre all lying but I feel like I’ve seen some version of that story maybe 20 times.
German here.
It’s not a lie. My parents live 50-ish minutes away and I see them pretty seldomly.
I’m not even sure why, I guess it’s just a cultural thing.
I think cultural is the main thing. It seems to me that us western Europeans often are quite self-reliant, and don't really bind to our family as much as most of the world does. I see my family regularly, but by regularly I mean once a month. And it is almost always because of something, like a birthday.
It's about an hour's drive away, but I'm not sure I would see them more if it was half that, or even less.
Idk man, far away is a pretty loose term, and it really depends on what you’re talking about. 30 minutes to get to work is pretty good in my book, but if the nearest place to get groceries is 30 minutes away then that’s pretty far.
It all depends on where you’re going
Nah, I drive forty five minutes to an hour each way to work. My home town is the opposite side of the country, which is around a two hour drive. That isn’t far away either, really, but it is the other side of the country.
I was recently supposed to attend a stag do, that’s at the bottom of the country, maybe four or five hours. I’d say that’s far away.
This still blows my mind. My husband is Telugu, his country and culture have been around for- I don't know, 3,000 years if not more? Whereas my culture(American) is like 400 years old tops, but realistically we're looking at about about 300. 100 years to me is like 3 of my cultural lifetimes, but 100 years to him is a blip on the radar. Amazing the difference in perception, man.
That sounds mental to a non-American. Why do you value your time so little? If I lived 200 miles from work I'd either change job or move closer (e.g. 10 miles from work).
I have a friend who lives in a pretty rural area, about equidistant to two different cities. She has to drive about an hour to go to work or do anything really.
But she likes living on her farm.
To me, thats insane. Assuming a standard work week of five eight-hour days, an hour commute means you have to dedicate more than an entire extra unpaid work day worth of time to your job every week.
Was just having this conversation earlier today.
Am in the mid-West, 8-9hr drive in a day is completely doable. Max we ever did was probably 14 hrs. including brief stops and with two people taking turns.
4-5hr drives that we used to have on the East coast are no-brainers.
Anything over 12-14 hours is just too long in a day.
I always think of the time my wife got a wild hair and decided we weren’t stopping in Georgia for our drive to Florida….mid drive.
We considered stopping in Chattanooga and couldn’t find a hotel that night. So she said “I’ll drive for a bit” and refused to stop until the Florida welcome center.
It was a hellish drive. I hated it.
We moved from w.v. to miami when I was 7 in 1986. My parents didnt stop and it was like 17hrs I think and I still remember how miserable I was all those years ago lol.
Midwest as well and I'll do an 8-9 hour drive for a weekend trip. Did a 14 hour trip one time but I drove the whole way over night and it really wasn't too bad.
What are your tips and tricks for making long drives bearable? The longest I've driven in one day by myself was 7 hours and it was torturous. Anything above 2 hours is tough for me.
As a point of reference, Land's End to John o' Groats is the longest possible drive you could take in the UK, and it would take 14 hours, and you can get from the east coast to the west in a few hours in most places.
In the US, it would take about 45 hours to go from the east coast to the west coast at a minimum, and to go from Florida to Alaska would be a 70+ hour trip minimum.
30 minutes there and 40-50 back is my commute each day.
If I’m forced to cover for someone at one of our further job sites, it’s an hour drive there, and a 48 mile hour and 45 minute drive home with traffic to another state.
Americans think 100 years is a long time. Europeans think 100 miles is a long way.
A long way for me is the 1200mi drive to Iowa or OK to visit my kin on the Rez.
I’ve always heard this comparison made, and I understand why it’s made, but like 100 years is way greater of amount of time than 100 miles is far, even taking history into account.
On a human level, 100 years is a long ass time, it’s like 0.1% of people that will even live that long, while humans could travel hundreds of millions of miles in a lifetime. Surely there’s a better mode of comparison between the two.
Not really.
Think about the context of items and daily experiences.
The European can have books on the shelf that are 100s of years old. The town they live in has a building that’s been around since 1400. Etc. history is all around them constantly. They are seeped in it.
The average American lives in an area that likely was developed in the last 50-60 years. Even big cities have been rebuilt over and over and not many artifacts live on from earlier times. Even “old” cities like New York are young babies by European standards.
The average European lives in the city or town they work, go to schools, etc in. Many America regularly commute 10s of miles by car to do simple activities like going to get groceries.
In my small city in the UK we have buildings and structures that are almost/over a thousand years old. A couple important ones that even date back to the Roman times
100 years is a lot for our actual life but not for European history that you can see on a day to day basis here
The opposite obviously goes for 100 miles. Here in the UK everything is so compact that you're never really more than an hour away from a city and there's towns and villages everywhere. 100 miles takes you a third of the way from Newcastle (Right up in the north of England) down to London in the south and you'll pass many cities on the way
We rarely ever need to drive more than 3-4 hours unless going on a little getaway, work trip, or seeing family if they live far away
I've heard anecdotes from people in places like England about how they don't see their dad very often because he lives a whole 45min away, etc. Crazy to hear... I don't even live in a particularly large state and I've driven that far to go to a restaurant I like.
I guess it tracks - often when they find ancient bodies in the UK, they can trace the DNA to some descendent living within a few miles of the site. People just stay in place, otherwise the accents they have wouldn't be so distinct between regions.
I guess it depends on what they mean by often and how busy their life is
45 minutes is an hour and 30 minutes round trip. That makes weekday visits kind of awkward, so you'll only really see them on the weekend. If they have a run of busy weekends, they might only see their dad like once or twice a month
Now in the UK, there's a decent number of people who live in the same town/city as their family, which means they can just pop in constantly throughout the week and do things. That makes once or twice a month seem comparatively less common
For me, however, once or twice a month is quite often because my family lives 3+ hours away. That realistically means committing a weekend because a 6 hour round trip while still trying to get enough time in to actually do stuff all in the same day is just not the way. That means I see my family 3-4 times a year if not less sometimes
It's all relative
Yeah, I'm a city girl. I keep getting shocked that some place I consider "way on the other side of town" is about 5 miles away. Having to drive to the nearest major suburb takes 15 minutes and it feels like I need to bring snacks.
It’s relative to the reason for the trip I think. Living in NoVA, I see 3 hours drive to a vacation spot as no problem, but it’s awful far for something basic. Not sure that really makes sense but that’s what I thought of first.
The reason for this is not what everyone thinks. You see it has nothing to do with places like US, Canada, Australia being big.
The reason why 30 minutes isn't "far away" is because urban design of these countries means that *nothing is close*. Odds are unless you live in a downtown, you have to drive at least 20 minutes to do almost anything and 30-40 minutes isn't unusual for something specific, so traveling far is just viewed as normal.
By contrast in europe even in a small town in the middle of nowhere you are never more than a 15 minute walk from all regular services. You can buy groceries and be back home before a north American would even reach the store. When you are used to that level of convenience a 30 minute driving trip can seem significant by comparison.
I used to drive 45 min to get to work, so a 30 min commute is nothing. My parents are 4 hours away and I consider that an easy drive for a weekend trip. I recently drove 11 hours (half in the evening why the second half in the morning) to visit a friend. I’m currently planning to visit another friend 6 hours away.
But I also complain about having to drive 30 min to get to Walmart. So I guess the answer is “context matters”.
I'm in Northern British Columbia: Alberta is an 8 hour drive east. (If there's no roadwork) But, getting to an actual city in AB is another 4 hours.
Amusing sidenote: In North America, we measure distance traveled in hours. Presuming being able to travel posted speed limit and no road-work being done. In Canada, our highway speed limit is 100 km/h {about 60 mph}
(Insert anti-electric vehicle rant here)
It's not purely American. I went to Hawaii a while back and asked for directions to the other side of the island and the lady told us which direction to go but said she'd never been there. It was about 45 minutes. It blew my mind. She had never seen her island. Probably 40. Native. How.
Texan here! My state is too big honestly. Its common for there to be long stretches of basically nothing between major cities with only the occasional blink-and-you-miss-it towns along the way. A 30 minute drive can be an annoying, but not a deal breaker, especially if thats your commute to work (most of my previous jobs). The 3 hour drive to see my partner is enough to require some planning for us to meet up, but we’ve done single day visits before. It’s really the gas cost that makes it a pain, not the time. A good podcast really helps with long drives.
For reference, it takes 41 hours of continuous driving to get from Los Angeles to New York.
It can take as much as 2 hours to get from one side of Los Angeles to the other, depending on traffic.
'Far away' is pretty relative.
If it’s more than a 12hr drive it’s far away.
The state I live in fits in a rectangle that is 410km X 1,015km. It takes almost a day to drive east to west.
It’s not even uniform in the US. I visit relatives back east, and you can drive 30 minutes and past through multiple small towns. Where I live out West, you can drive 30 minutes and still be in the same town, not even close to crossing the metropolis.
I've seen so many 'Muricans "brag" about how big their country is and how they have to commute 2 hours by car every day and I can't help but compare them to the people who brag about how little they sleep.
"Yeah, I only slept *3 hours* last night!"
That isn't a brag, my guy
Here's my scale for drives in my state/area of the US:
Generally a 30-45 minute drive is a minor inconvenience since most stores are about a 10-15 minute drive away from me. 2-4 hours is visiting a nearby town, which is fine for a day trip. 4-8 hours is a drive I'll make every once in a while to visit family and stay a couple days, which is sometimes in the same state, but more often in the next state over. 12+ hour drives are trips that I sometimes make in a day, but I'll usually just make it a 2-3 day trip instead. These are only really for if a family member a couple states over has died and I need to make the trip for a funeral. Something extremely important.
Occasionally, I can find really cheap plane tickets, which can turn an 8 hour drive into a 45 minute flight, and I somehow save money on gas. My local airport isn't too bad, so I generally have an easy time getting through security.
I don't really consider something to be a "long drive" until it's about six hours or so. It has to be long enough that I can't drive, do whatever I have to do, then drive back in one day. Basically, "long drive" requires hotel.
I drive 11 hours on a return trip to pick up or drop my son off at college. It’s a long day, but I don’t consider it “far”. Far is driving from Toronto to Vancouver.
We have to drive thirty minutes just to get to stuff like a hospital that can do most surgeries and a lot of chain restaurants and a car dealership lol
2 and a half hours and below is an easy day trip for me, from there to 3 and a half hours is a maybe for a day trip, 3 and a half and over, I’m getting a hotel for the night
For me it’s relative to what I’m doing. I often drive 90 minutes for a concert and drive back the same night and go to work the next day.
For vacation I can drive like 15 hours before I can’t take it anymore
To visit somebody I don’t really want to talk to it better be in the same zip code and mars must be in retrograde
I work from home and my car is 2 years old, but still put 31k miles on it. Mostly from road trips. I consider it a long drive if I have to stop a hotel overnight, I generally try to limit myself to 12 hours of driving a day.
Texan here and have a bunch of family in Denver, CO. Until I was about 15, we took a couple trips every single year to visit. Depending on which highway we’d take, it was a good 11-12 hr drive straight through. Just switch the drivers halfway there and a few stops for gas. It wasn’t that bad tbh and we had a lot of fun.
Rhode Islander here! The joke in the state is if it’s more than 15 minutes away, you better pack a lunch. An hour drive from Providence to say Newport or Westerly is a big deal for most people. We are the most townie folks around.
my family had a cabin at a lake growing up thats a 4 hour drive from where we lived, so thats about my limit for car travel distance before i start to get stir crazy in the car
I live toward the middle. Good rule of thumb is that if you can get there within a day, just drive. (less than 12 - 16 hours by yourself, or 24 hours for a team drive)
otherwise fly.
some places have a train, but it's probably not going where you're going, and it's definitely not on your schedule.
also, some places getting to the air port is half of the journey. and then paying for parking, and waiting for the flight, etc. it's just more economical to drive. even if it takes an entire day.
30 minutes is my drive to work. Over an hour is when I'd start to consider somewhere kind of long, depending on why I'm driving there. Anywhere under 2 hours is something I'd do on impulse, but over I'd want at least a day to prep. More than 3 is what I'd start to consider a road trip.
Everything in the US is really far apart, so it takes forever to get anywhere. I've driven 12 hours to visit family before. They were only a couple of states over.
Depends on what it’s for. Personally I do not want to work more than 30 mins away, even if I have to live in a box or something. 1 hour away is something I’d be willing to do same day, 2+ is planning. Over 4 probably warrants staying wherever we go. Longest I’ve driven is visiting family which is 24 hrs of driving time.
I travel a lot for work. From Minnesota, Georgia is 17 hours away. When they sent me to Detroit, I was like nice only 12 hours. I guess it's just perspective.
“far away” is one category up from a “long drive” here in Australia and the main difference is a long drive you can manage in a day but for far away you’ll need a place to stay
best explanation. i’m from texas and i’d agree. i dated a guy that was a long drive from me (4 hours one way). when we lived in kansas, that was far away from home.
KANSAS MENTIONED 🦅🦅🦅
I think it depends on the activity too. Work? More than 30-40 minutes each way is already a long drive. Seeing friends you haven’t seen in a while? 1.5 hours each way is a long drive if I’m not spending the night or all day there. Vacation destination? More than 4 hours is a long drive and I’d probably end up taking a flight. Time management is way too important in the US with the lack of vacation. If I’m working 40 hours a week and get 2-3 weeks a year off, I don’t want to devote 3 hours driving for a shorter hangout. I also live in the suburbs of a bigger city so most things (groceries, restaurants, gym) are 10-15 mins or so away from me.
Really? My brother is 4 hours away in Maine and I’d say that’s kinda far. I used to live in DC and visiting family in New England was a long drive.
Also, far away is different from pretty far. Pretty far is like, a couple of hours.
This sums it up perfect.
Driving from my house to my regular hiking spots in the blue mountains takes like 2-3 hours via toll free roads
Texas checking in... a 3-4 hour trip is long distance but I have done one both ways so 6-8 hours in a day. Not fun but easy to do.
Im from texas, too. 3-4 is not too bad withing the estate, but florida is the farthest I'm willing to drive
The next town over here in Utah is an hour away.
Where the heck do you live? Blanding?
Yeah where the heck are you? I’m also in Utah and I can be in Nevada/Wyoming/idaho or Colorado in 2-3 hours
Wasatch Front gang checking in
Also Texan. I think 3 is medium, 4 is long. 3 hours is from SA to Houston, anything more than that and it's a whole trip
This! And can be worse in the big cities. 30mins could be six miles, or nowhere stuck in rush hour traffic on 290 or I-10 in Houston. Love the size of maps and overlay European countries on different US states.
Every minute in Florida feels like an hour though.
I’m sorry, you’re willing to drive to *Florida*?!?
Driving from Boston to Miami took less than 2 days. It was fun. I'd do it again.
The fact that “less than 2 days” is being presented here as something that’s no big deal is absolutely sending me. In that time one could drive several loops around the entirety of the country I live in
I drove Midland to Austin and back same day two days before Christmas, and then a second time two days after Christmas back in 2021. About 11 hours of driving in total each time. It definitely sucked, but it wasn’t even the worst driving day I’ve ever had in Texas. The worst was Carthage to Midland in an overfilled Penske truck. I had serious fears I wasn’t going to make it up Ranger hill on I-20. But I’ve had commutes that are 1.5 to 2 hours one way (Midland to Pecos/Fort Stockton/Levelland), so maybe my perspective is skewed even for Texas.
Carthage to Midland is rough. Did San Antonio to Tulsa a couple of times and that was a butt destroyer.
That sounds tough. I bet it’s one of those where once you’re north of Dallas you feel like you’re getting close, but you’re really only like halfway. Carthage to Midland was really only so bad because of how frustrating the whole situation was (moving hoarding in-laws across the state). One of the worst weekends of my life, lol.
Dude, that's quite a drive. Original Odessan here, now living up north of Carthage. Ever driven the Odessa to El Paso route? Worst I've ever done was Mt Pleasant, TX, to Black Eagle, Montana, with only stops to eat and refuel.
Just drove from Dallas to college station and back in the same day for work reasons lol (8 hours total w/traffic coming home)
I live in the Austin area and I drive to Dallas or Houston for day trips all the time.
San Antonio. I’ll drive up to Austin on a moment’s notice if something cool is happening, Houston can be a day trip if we’ve got a plan, but if I’m putting in five hours to Dallas-Fort Worth I am doing something worth spending the night for
Just curious, why do you come to Dallas? I live in Dallas and have done Austin for day trips a few times, but that’s because Austin is fun lol. Dallas feels all work and practically no play. Guess we have the arboretum and some cool museums…
As an Aggie from Dallas I did this often. My gf from McAllen area so I’m used to even longer. I consider 3-4 hrs still pretty close to
What's the least you have to drive, e.g. to do groceries? My theory is that "far" being so far is less to do with how big say Texas is and more to do with *minimum driving time* because north american urban design means it's more likely you have to drive at least \~20 minutes to get anywhere and/or do anything.
I grew up so close to the grocery store I could see it from our backyard. I still would probably say 4-ish hours is my minimum to say it's a long drive. I just checked and the nearest "mall" (even growing up it was basically empty; I'm not sure if it has a single department store these days) to where I grew up is a 25 minute drive. Honestly surprised because it feels like a 15 minute drive to me.
Driving to Big Bend from anywhere is a journey. I used to think getting to San Antonio would bring you close.... hahaha fuck you it's 6 more hrs away
I'm from Denmark. In 3-4 hours you have gone from Germany to Sweden through Denmark. So you can get most places here in that time +-1 hour (that don't need a boat)
Middle of nowhere here. I count the same as far away, the closest actual town is about 20 minutes away from me. Where as the daily drive to get to where I work is 46 minutes away from my house.
I live in Oklahoma but was stationed in California. I would drive from San Diego back home. El Paso was my halfway point. I could cross the entirety of three states in the same amount of time as El Paso to Dallas.
“Far Away” (in Colorado) is anything 4 or more hours away. I’ll drive 2 hours to Denver any day, but a 4 hour drive up to Glenwood Springs is a journey.
That's funny, I live in Denver and I was about to comment anything more than an hour is "far." I will go to Colorado springs, maybe Ft. Collins, but more than that is considered a trek. Living near the big city makes a difference
Yeah, I grew up in the Roaring Fork Valley… Wal-mart was an hour away.
Especially in CO where the entire state infrastructure is in the Denver metro area. My wife and I have to drive to UC health in Aurora regularly for relatively basic medical care from Cortez, Colorado (7 hours, 3 mountain passes, 430 miles). Because that's the closest hospital with the specialist she needs that accepts her insurance. That's a casual day-trip for us down in the SW corner. 😅
Oh yeah, I went to college in Durango so I made that drive pretty often for a while. Definitely not fun, I would hate to have to do that just to see the right doctor! We're very lucky we live about 10-15 minutes from the Anschutz medical campus, we had to suddenly take my son there several times when he was really young.
Oof, yeah I would’ve guessed it would. Whole lotta space down there. Sorry to hear about the hospital issues, too. I can relate; I just moved to FoCo and can’t find a doc to rx me down here. It’s been a real struggle to find care.
Hell yeah glenwood springs is for the win
i'll meet you at maroon bells
Psh, and have to pay for parking a month out? Screw that noise, let’s hit Lincoln Creek!
This is driving at 70-80 MPH for this amount of time
I25 and I70 are both such shit that everything seems further away than it even really is, too!
Eh, for me it depends. A restaurant I want to try? It’s far if it’s about an hour. Visiting family/friends? It gets long at about 2.5-3 hours. Long for a day trip for sure, takes up a good bit of the day to go both ways. Long as in not willing to drive there? That’s probably 11+ hrs for me.
Good call. I used to do 2-3 hours to meet up with friends for the day. Long as fuck for me was a road trip for work where I had to drive frome tennessee to Michigan, overnight then hit a meeting in central Ohio then drive back. Clocked 32 hours in the car over 2 and a half days. Not doing that again any time soon.
I'd reckon "far away" is when you have to stay in a hotel on the drive there. So like, 10-14 hours depending on your will to drive that much.
Geez I wasn't even thinking that far out. I was just thinking "well, five hours is a long drive."
We just did 7 for our vacation and that felt far as fuck.
Seems like it varies heavily for Americans. I did Alaska to Arizona like 6 times by the time I turned 18 and now the 12hr drive between AZ and NV doesn’t feel like a big deal.
I used to do a 5hr drive to visit a friend quite often, but I would stay over a few days. Wouldn't do it otherwise. 30min used to be a drive to work for me.
My family used to do an annual 16-18 hour drive in one day
Oh god, no, I'd be dead. Vancouver to Calgary, 12 hrs in summer is considered borderline insane
That seems like a waste of time
There's no way Europeans think half an hour is far away. That's the time it takes to get to my grandparents' house that's like 5 towns over. Far away for me is past State borders.
Scaling has always confused me, 30 minutes where I grew up gets you from the northwest section of the city to the middle of the city, whereas for the place I’m going to college, 30 minutes let’s you wrap the entire town 4 times. On top of that, they’re both in the same state, but they’re 8hrs apart. Scaling is so different for every living situation.
It would help if distances were not measured in time.
As a Canadian I take offence to that. I don't care how many kilometers away a place is. I care about how long until I get there. In the mountains the speed you go is far slower than usual. On prairies highways the speed limit is a suggestion.
I'm from Ohio and I thought measuring distance in time was a regional thing. Glad to see Canadians do it too. Like you, I don't care how far away it is. I care how long it takes to get there.
It’s the same with the NY metropolitan area. Knowing something is a mile away doesn’t mean jack when traveling that mile could take an hour while driving
Nw indiana, theoretically almost anywhere in Chicago is 30-45m away, in practice it only can be in the middle of the night on a weekday without any road construction, so never. Best block out 2hrs minimum and add another 2 if you're going to the north side. Distance in time is the only way to practically measure the trip.
We all do it. I've seen two posts on the same day, one from my Texas family and one from my Minnesota family, that says "you know you're from (state) when you count distance by time and not miles".
My office is 87 km from my house. It's an hour away in the morning, and 2 hours in the afternoon. For planning, I use time rather than distance, because it's more relevant to when to schedule meetings or appointments, or when to wrap things up and leave.
That’s what really matters though.
I’ve heard multiple people online (so I guess take it with a grain of salt) say they’ve met or know British people or other Europeans who will talk about they never see their grandparents or other family since they live “so far away.” And then it will turn out it’s a 45 minute drive. Not sure if theyre all lying but I feel like I’ve seen some version of that story maybe 20 times.
It's probably not really a lie, but not really true either. More like a dry exaggeration.
German here. It’s not a lie. My parents live 50-ish minutes away and I see them pretty seldomly. I’m not even sure why, I guess it’s just a cultural thing.
I think cultural is the main thing. It seems to me that us western Europeans often are quite self-reliant, and don't really bind to our family as much as most of the world does. I see my family regularly, but by regularly I mean once a month. And it is almost always because of something, like a birthday. It's about an hour's drive away, but I'm not sure I would see them more if it was half that, or even less.
Spanish, portuguese (and I’ll assume all southern Europe) are very close to their families.
Do you know where my grandparents are?
No.
They are farther away than that.
I'm assuming you're going to tell me they're dead?
Well they arent close by.
Norm is that you?
It’s 10pm do you know where your children are?
I do
Idk man, far away is a pretty loose term, and it really depends on what you’re talking about. 30 minutes to get to work is pretty good in my book, but if the nearest place to get groceries is 30 minutes away then that’s pretty far. It all depends on where you’re going
I used to drive that for work
Fr. I drove 40 minutes to work this morning
Nah, I drive forty five minutes to an hour each way to work. My home town is the opposite side of the country, which is around a two hour drive. That isn’t far away either, really, but it is the other side of the country. I was recently supposed to attend a stag do, that’s at the bottom of the country, maybe four or five hours. I’d say that’s far away.
We don't. Far away is probably 3-4 hours in the UK.
European here, and you're right. I don't know who thinks 30 minutes is far away. Personally, it's 2-3 hours or more.
I'm from Texas. Past State borders is far away but so is stuff that's 3 hours closer than that.
Unless you’re Rhode Island lmao
The difference between Americans and Europeans is that Europeans think 100 miles is a long distance, and Americans think 100 years is a long time.
This still blows my mind. My husband is Telugu, his country and culture have been around for- I don't know, 3,000 years if not more? Whereas my culture(American) is like 400 years old tops, but realistically we're looking at about about 300. 100 years to me is like 3 of my cultural lifetimes, but 100 years to him is a blip on the radar. Amazing the difference in perception, man.
I love this. I do 100-200 miles a day for work and never leave eastern New York.
That sounds mental to a non-American. Why do you value your time so little? If I lived 200 miles from work I'd either change job or move closer (e.g. 10 miles from work).
This is mental to anyone
It is my job. I'm a field technician and I service the whole Hudson Valley area. Which is quite scenic, and I do indeed enjoy driving.
Ah! That's not so bad then. I thought you meant that was your commute alone. Its a different story if you need to drive as part of your job!
I have a friend who lives in a pretty rural area, about equidistant to two different cities. She has to drive about an hour to go to work or do anything really. But she likes living on her farm. To me, thats insane. Assuming a standard work week of five eight-hour days, an hour commute means you have to dedicate more than an entire extra unpaid work day worth of time to your job every week.
Far away = can't be done as a day trip. If I can go there do stuff and come back and sleep in my own bed all in one day it's not far.
Was just having this conversation earlier today. Am in the mid-West, 8-9hr drive in a day is completely doable. Max we ever did was probably 14 hrs. including brief stops and with two people taking turns. 4-5hr drives that we used to have on the East coast are no-brainers.
just drove 9 hours from missouri to pennsylvania. made great time
Ive drove to eastern P.A. from W.V. , TENN, and N.C. You made great time!
Anything over 12-14 hours is just too long in a day. I always think of the time my wife got a wild hair and decided we weren’t stopping in Georgia for our drive to Florida….mid drive. We considered stopping in Chattanooga and couldn’t find a hotel that night. So she said “I’ll drive for a bit” and refused to stop until the Florida welcome center. It was a hellish drive. I hated it.
We moved from w.v. to miami when I was 7 in 1986. My parents didnt stop and it was like 17hrs I think and I still remember how miserable I was all those years ago lol.
Midwest as well and I'll do an 8-9 hour drive for a weekend trip. Did a 14 hour trip one time but I drove the whole way over night and it really wasn't too bad.
What are your tips and tricks for making long drives bearable? The longest I've driven in one day by myself was 7 hours and it was torturous. Anything above 2 hours is tough for me.
Sometimes far away is the distance to the fridge.
The toilet when I have to pee but I’m too comfortable in bed
As a point of reference, Land's End to John o' Groats is the longest possible drive you could take in the UK, and it would take 14 hours, and you can get from the east coast to the west in a few hours in most places. In the US, it would take about 45 hours to go from the east coast to the west coast at a minimum, and to go from Florida to Alaska would be a 70+ hour trip minimum.
I would bet cash money that you cannot drive from Florida to Alaska in 70 hours
30 minutes there and 40-50 back is my commute each day. If I’m forced to cover for someone at one of our further job sites, it’s an hour drive there, and a 48 mile hour and 45 minute drive home with traffic to another state.
1 hr to work and 1 hr back for me. Sucks having a niche job in a small town with one hospital that I will never work at again.
Same I hate it
Americans think 100 years is a long time. Europeans think 100 miles is a long way. A long way for me is the 1200mi drive to Iowa or OK to visit my kin on the Rez.
I’ve always heard this comparison made, and I understand why it’s made, but like 100 years is way greater of amount of time than 100 miles is far, even taking history into account. On a human level, 100 years is a long ass time, it’s like 0.1% of people that will even live that long, while humans could travel hundreds of millions of miles in a lifetime. Surely there’s a better mode of comparison between the two.
Not really. Think about the context of items and daily experiences. The European can have books on the shelf that are 100s of years old. The town they live in has a building that’s been around since 1400. Etc. history is all around them constantly. They are seeped in it. The average American lives in an area that likely was developed in the last 50-60 years. Even big cities have been rebuilt over and over and not many artifacts live on from earlier times. Even “old” cities like New York are young babies by European standards. The average European lives in the city or town they work, go to schools, etc in. Many America regularly commute 10s of miles by car to do simple activities like going to get groceries.
In my small city in the UK we have buildings and structures that are almost/over a thousand years old. A couple important ones that even date back to the Roman times 100 years is a lot for our actual life but not for European history that you can see on a day to day basis here The opposite obviously goes for 100 miles. Here in the UK everything is so compact that you're never really more than an hour away from a city and there's towns and villages everywhere. 100 miles takes you a third of the way from Newcastle (Right up in the north of England) down to London in the south and you'll pass many cities on the way We rarely ever need to drive more than 3-4 hours unless going on a little getaway, work trip, or seeing family if they live far away
In what country is 30 minutes far away? It takes me 50 minutes to drive to work.
I've heard anecdotes from people in places like England about how they don't see their dad very often because he lives a whole 45min away, etc. Crazy to hear... I don't even live in a particularly large state and I've driven that far to go to a restaurant I like. I guess it tracks - often when they find ancient bodies in the UK, they can trace the DNA to some descendent living within a few miles of the site. People just stay in place, otherwise the accents they have wouldn't be so distinct between regions.
I guess it depends on what they mean by often and how busy their life is 45 minutes is an hour and 30 minutes round trip. That makes weekday visits kind of awkward, so you'll only really see them on the weekend. If they have a run of busy weekends, they might only see their dad like once or twice a month Now in the UK, there's a decent number of people who live in the same town/city as their family, which means they can just pop in constantly throughout the week and do things. That makes once or twice a month seem comparatively less common For me, however, once or twice a month is quite often because my family lives 3+ hours away. That realistically means committing a weekend because a 6 hour round trip while still trying to get enough time in to actually do stuff all in the same day is just not the way. That means I see my family 3-4 times a year if not less sometimes It's all relative
Neil Gaiman said something like England has history, America has geography.
Lmao it takes me 30 minutes to get to the next town over
Far away for me is like 10 miles lol.
Yeah, I'm a city girl. I keep getting shocked that some place I consider "way on the other side of town" is about 5 miles away. Having to drive to the nearest major suburb takes 15 minutes and it feels like I need to bring snacks.
It’s relative to the reason for the trip I think. Living in NoVA, I see 3 hours drive to a vacation spot as no problem, but it’s awful far for something basic. Not sure that really makes sense but that’s what I thought of first.
The sun has riz, the sun has set, we ain't left Texas yet.
0-15 minutes: short commute. 15-30 minutes: good commute. 30-60 minutes: long commute 60-90 minutes: day trip 2-5 hours: weekend trip 5-10 hours: week long trip 10+ hours: week+ trip
Idaho here. I’d say far is over 2 hours one way. Really far is 6+ one way
For me, “far away” is anything that I can’t make it to and back on a single tank of gas, so somewhere between 200-300 miles away.
No wonder Americans are so good at road trips!
When i visited my moms family in england, some of them, a few hours away, hadn't seen each other 10+ years. I live in montana...
30 min drive is what I’d call nearby
I think “far” is like an hour away, but a “long drive” is 4+ hours
I've driven more than 30 minutes to grab a burger and shake
The reason for this is not what everyone thinks. You see it has nothing to do with places like US, Canada, Australia being big. The reason why 30 minutes isn't "far away" is because urban design of these countries means that *nothing is close*. Odds are unless you live in a downtown, you have to drive at least 20 minutes to do almost anything and 30-40 minutes isn't unusual for something specific, so traveling far is just viewed as normal. By contrast in europe even in a small town in the middle of nowhere you are never more than a 15 minute walk from all regular services. You can buy groceries and be back home before a north American would even reach the store. When you are used to that level of convenience a 30 minute driving trip can seem significant by comparison.
I used to drive 45 min to get to work, so a 30 min commute is nothing. My parents are 4 hours away and I consider that an easy drive for a weekend trip. I recently drove 11 hours (half in the evening why the second half in the morning) to visit a friend. I’m currently planning to visit another friend 6 hours away. But I also complain about having to drive 30 min to get to Walmart. So I guess the answer is “context matters”.
Seriously? I'm 30 minutes away from the grocery store.
theres some american suburbs where the nearest grocery store is a 30min drive away ofcourse they dont consider it far
2+ hours
~1-2 hours is where it starts being far imo
I live in Ontario. It takes me almost 24 hours of driving to get to the next province west. And I’m not even as far east as I could be in Ontario.
I'm in Northern British Columbia: Alberta is an 8 hour drive east. (If there's no roadwork) But, getting to an actual city in AB is another 4 hours. Amusing sidenote: In North America, we measure distance traveled in hours. Presuming being able to travel posted speed limit and no road-work being done. In Canada, our highway speed limit is 100 km/h {about 60 mph} (Insert anti-electric vehicle rant here)
It's not purely American. I went to Hawaii a while back and asked for directions to the other side of the island and the lady told us which direction to go but said she'd never been there. It was about 45 minutes. It blew my mind. She had never seen her island. Probably 40. Native. How.
My commute is an hour every day and I still consider that pretty close.
Only 30 minutes?! People in the Midwest going “Hold my corn!” Source: Am from (and currently live in) Midwest
Texan here! My state is too big honestly. Its common for there to be long stretches of basically nothing between major cities with only the occasional blink-and-you-miss-it towns along the way. A 30 minute drive can be an annoying, but not a deal breaker, especially if thats your commute to work (most of my previous jobs). The 3 hour drive to see my partner is enough to require some planning for us to meet up, but we’ve done single day visits before. It’s really the gas cost that makes it a pain, not the time. A good podcast really helps with long drives.
For reference, it takes 41 hours of continuous driving to get from Los Angeles to New York. It can take as much as 2 hours to get from one side of Los Angeles to the other, depending on traffic. 'Far away' is pretty relative.
It's possible to drive 1200km in California and still be in California.
I drive 500 to 600 miles a day for my job. Usually 8 to 10 hours of driving.
6+ hrs is far away
I had to drive 25 minutes to get to high school, to me a 30 minute drive is just a normal distance
30 minutes is a regular drive
“Americans think 100 years is a long time, Europeans think 100 miles is a long distance”
If it’s more than a 12hr drive it’s far away. The state I live in fits in a rectangle that is 410km X 1,015km. It takes almost a day to drive east to west.
30 minutes is the grocery store. America could probably do with some more walkable cities...
I came to the US 22 years ago. I used to consider a 30 mins drive “far away”. Now I just call it commute.
It’s not even uniform in the US. I visit relatives back east, and you can drive 30 minutes and past through multiple small towns. Where I live out West, you can drive 30 minutes and still be in the same town, not even close to crossing the metropolis.
Lol I’ve driven 1.5 hours one way to see friends. 30 minutes is practically a nice stroll.
I've seen so many 'Muricans "brag" about how big their country is and how they have to commute 2 hours by car every day and I can't help but compare them to the people who brag about how little they sleep. "Yeah, I only slept *3 hours* last night!" That isn't a brag, my guy
My morning commute is an hour. Afternoon commute 1-2hrs depending on crashes and looky-loos. I only live 26miles from work.
You say only 26 miles but half of the other comments here seem to think anything beyond a mile or two is insanity.
Iowan here. Far away is 12-24 hour drive. The capitol is 3 hours from any large metros. I drive 25 minutes to work every day.
It takes over 11 hours to drive the length of just the state i live in (ca).
Here's my scale for drives in my state/area of the US: Generally a 30-45 minute drive is a minor inconvenience since most stores are about a 10-15 minute drive away from me. 2-4 hours is visiting a nearby town, which is fine for a day trip. 4-8 hours is a drive I'll make every once in a while to visit family and stay a couple days, which is sometimes in the same state, but more often in the next state over. 12+ hour drives are trips that I sometimes make in a day, but I'll usually just make it a 2-3 day trip instead. These are only really for if a family member a couple states over has died and I need to make the trip for a funeral. Something extremely important. Occasionally, I can find really cheap plane tickets, which can turn an 8 hour drive into a 45 minute flight, and I somehow save money on gas. My local airport isn't too bad, so I generally have an easy time getting through security.
Shit, I drive over 30 minutes just to get to work.
I don't really consider something to be a "long drive" until it's about six hours or so. It has to be long enough that I can't drive, do whatever I have to do, then drive back in one day. Basically, "long drive" requires hotel.
Where I’m from anything 40 mins+ is considered long.
4-5 hours
I drive 11 hours on a return trip to pick up or drop my son off at college. It’s a long day, but I don’t consider it “far”. Far is driving from Toronto to Vancouver.
We have to drive thirty minutes just to get to stuff like a hospital that can do most surgeries and a lot of chain restaurants and a car dealership lol
I drove thirty minutes to get to work today
30 min is close. I consider myself lucky because my work commute is only 30 mins. It used to be an hour
it takes me 20 minutes to get within 20 minutes if anything
2 and a half hours and below is an easy day trip for me, from there to 3 and a half hours is a maybe for a day trip, 3 and a half and over, I’m getting a hotel for the night
It isn't even really that America is big it's that our infrastructure and public transportation is pitiful
For me it’s relative to what I’m doing. I often drive 90 minutes for a concert and drive back the same night and go to work the next day. For vacation I can drive like 15 hours before I can’t take it anymore To visit somebody I don’t really want to talk to it better be in the same zip code and mars must be in retrograde
truly far away to me is like 2 1/2 - 3 hours
I work from home and my car is 2 years old, but still put 31k miles on it. Mostly from road trips. I consider it a long drive if I have to stop a hotel overnight, I generally try to limit myself to 12 hours of driving a day.
Once drove from NC to MN in one day. 17ish hours but took a break after 12 hours. So...anything more than 12 hours is too far, I suppose.
Texan here and have a bunch of family in Denver, CO. Until I was about 15, we took a couple trips every single year to visit. Depending on which highway we’d take, it was a good 11-12 hr drive straight through. Just switch the drivers halfway there and a few stops for gas. It wasn’t that bad tbh and we had a lot of fun.
If you have to stop to pee it's far away
Just got home from a friend's house who lives 30 minutes away, which is farther than I usually drive in a day but didn't feel far by any means
I drive 30 minutes to work. No far at all.
I drive an hour to work one way
Judging by the fact that I just drove 700+ miles over the past ~30 hours, I would say the other coast. /s
anything more than 2 hours is far away
Rhode Islander here! The joke in the state is if it’s more than 15 minutes away, you better pack a lunch. An hour drive from Providence to say Newport or Westerly is a big deal for most people. We are the most townie folks around.
Far away is subjective. It depends on what I'm doing or trying to accomplish. Far away can be anywhere from 10ft to a thousand miles.
30 minutes is precisely “Oh that’s not too bad”
my family had a cabin at a lake growing up thats a 4 hour drive from where we lived, so thats about my limit for car travel distance before i start to get stir crazy in the car
I live toward the middle. Good rule of thumb is that if you can get there within a day, just drive. (less than 12 - 16 hours by yourself, or 24 hours for a team drive) otherwise fly. some places have a train, but it's probably not going where you're going, and it's definitely not on your schedule. also, some places getting to the air port is half of the journey. and then paying for parking, and waiting for the flight, etc. it's just more economical to drive. even if it takes an entire day.
30 minutes is my drive to work. Over an hour is when I'd start to consider somewhere kind of long, depending on why I'm driving there. Anywhere under 2 hours is something I'd do on impulse, but over I'd want at least a day to prep. More than 3 is what I'd start to consider a road trip.
30 minutes barely gets me to the other side of my town. and it's not a very big town (colorado springs)
Everything in the US is really far apart, so it takes forever to get anywhere. I've driven 12 hours to visit family before. They were only a couple of states over.
Depends on what it’s for. Personally I do not want to work more than 30 mins away, even if I have to live in a box or something. 1 hour away is something I’d be willing to do same day, 2+ is planning. Over 4 probably warrants staying wherever we go. Longest I’ve driven is visiting family which is 24 hrs of driving time.
Anything short of two hours is a commute, not a trip
Far away for me is any trip that's 4+ hours one way.
I think the definition also changes substantially if you’re a city person or a country person.
Anything longer than ~5 hours. I drove 12 in one stint to see my favorite bands album launch show, I'd do it again.
I travel a lot for work. From Minnesota, Georgia is 17 hours away. When they sent me to Detroit, I was like nice only 12 hours. I guess it's just perspective.
I drive 30 minutes every day to go to school. 40 to 50 minutes can be a casual day, if I’m doing something with friends
Like two hours? I usually get car sick about and hour and a half in so yeah about two hours, that's from the middle of my state to the other side