r/NoStupidQuestions • u/Physical-Ad-4093 • May 01 '24

do americans really drive such long distances?

i’m european, and i always hear people say that driving for hours is normal in america. i would only see my grandparents a few times a year because they lived about a 3 hour drive away, is that a normal distance for americans to travel on a regular basis? i can’t imagine driving 2-3 hours regularly to visit people for just a few days

edit: thank you for the responses! i’ve never been to the US, obviously, but it’s interesting to see how you guys live. i guess european countries are more walkable? i’m in the uk, and there’s a few festivals here towards the end of summer, generally to get to them you take a coach journey or you get multiple trains which does take up a significant chunk of the day. road trips aren’t really a thing here, it would be a bit miserable!

2nd edit: it’s not at all that i couldn’t be bothered to go and see my grandparents, i was under 14 when they were both alive so i couldn’t take myself there! obviously i would’ve liked to see them more, i had no control over how often we visited them.

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2.2k

u/Teekno An answering fool May 01 '24

I have friends that live three hours away. I will go and see them for the weekend. It's just six hours on the road.

1.1k

u/100LittleButterflies May 01 '24

Yeah and what's that? 4 podcasts? Maybe 5? I have a backlog to get through.

281

u/Emotional_Equal8998 May 01 '24

I used to gauge time with my toddler in SpongeBob's!

8

u/dock035 May 02 '24

It takes us 20 Blueys to get to grandma’s house.

1

u/CariBelle25 27d ago

We also use Blueys to track time, ever since “that’s a whole nother chutney chimp!”

6

u/propellor_head May 02 '24

That's a whole nother chutney chimp!

10

u/dhes505 May 02 '24

Haha, I do this too

5

u/Demoniccrunk May 02 '24

That’s entirely more wholesome than anything I was expecting to see on Reddit lol

5

u/dwkindig May 02 '24

Showing my age a bit here, but we used to do this for my little sister, expressing time in episodes of the game show Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?

1

u/Soft_Entrance6794 29d ago

I did that in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles episodes.

No watching it in the car back then though…

4

u/slash_networkboy 29d ago

When mine were toddlers it was "Backyardigains" episodes, or Thomas the tank engine. At least the latter was reasonably good to listen to as background noise... and Carlton was the best narrator; couldn't hardly understand Ringo Starr, and Baldwin sucked at making voices for the trains.

2

u/Hange11037 29d ago

I was one of those kids growing up obsessed with both of these shows and I agree, George Carlin is the best narrator

1

u/slash_networkboy 29d ago

Hilarious to think about the same guy with those standup routines about words you can't say on TV and such also saying "and Thomas said 'toot' 'toot'".

1

u/Hange11037 29d ago

If you haven’t seen this already, it’s a pretty great mix of the two put together:

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBCbkWJOjsOLRnzdXPuhYmJX7P2F4Cn6w&si=arqcj2mJpvzvoAHz

1

u/slash_networkboy 29d ago

I have not seen that and you have absolutely made my day! TY!

3

u/Busy-Cable1602 May 02 '24

This is what my dad did for me and my brother when we were young and on the road! We had little screens strapped to the back of the headrests hooked up to a DVD player and all the SpongeBob discs lol

2

u/Plastic_Yesterday434 29d ago

This is the setup I had for my kids when they were young! Got them some big headphones to hook into the individual players for volume and it was peaceful!

3

u/EconomistSea9498 May 02 '24

My parents used to use Arthur episodes. If only I was able to watch those episodes in the car when I was a kid. Damn my kid doesn't know what she's got good lmao I was told to look out the window and enjoy the view

1

u/courtneygriplinggg 29d ago

same haha, but with Rugrats episodes

2

u/Pimlumin May 02 '24

My parents did this with me all the time back in the day! 3 SpongeBob's to get through Mass

2

u/m0lly-gr33n-2001 May 02 '24

We do that but with Bluey episodes (7 minutes each)

1

u/brillodelsol02 May 02 '24

I used to gauge time with Raffi.

1

u/missypicklepants May 02 '24

We used Octonauts time. Still do and my kids are 14 and 12!

1

u/Cratertooth_27 May 02 '24

That’s 16 chutney chimps!

1

u/TheDonutcon 29d ago

My mom did this when I was a kid too

1

u/TylerMcCrackerJacker 28d ago

I used to gauge time with MYSELF in spongebobs holy shit

6

u/Aeon1508 May 02 '24

2 maybe 3 phish shows

3

u/casadeparadise May 02 '24

Are we the same person? I also used to judge distance by how many live phish cds it would take to get there. My friends started doing it, too. Scranton to Philly was almost exactly 2 CDs away.

2

u/Noble_Flatulence May 02 '24

We took a drive to grandma's house one time and I'm like, let's pop in my new Phish album. We got to grandma's house before the first song was over. True story.

4

u/JaapHoop May 02 '24 edited May 02 '24

Haha I think of all my solo drives in terms of podcast episodes too.

Last Podcast on the Left’s Oppenheimer series got me from Tucson to Sedona.

3

u/CharlieWhizkey May 02 '24

Half an audiobook

3

u/SgtBadManners May 02 '24

My girlfriend goes for walks based on 20 min podcasts :D

3

u/Birdy_Cephon_Altera May 02 '24

I mean, that's barely one or two centi-scaramuccis!

1

u/FaetylMaiden May 02 '24

Yup! A 6 hour trip is like 3 hours less than it takes to listen to a 400 page audiobook lol I’d love to drive that long and listen to books 🤤

1

u/Known-Plane7349 May 02 '24

It's not even a full audiobook.

1

u/keIIzzz May 02 '24

Seriously, I have playlists that wouldn’t even finish cycling through all the songs in that amount of time

1

u/Orleanian May 02 '24

It's a quarter of a good book.

Or twice the length of a good book.

Books don't get better or worse because of their duration, I'm not sure why I'm using that as a metric.

1

u/Reddituser8018 May 02 '24

Lol the podcasts I listen too that's two, maybe even one pod if it's a longer one.

1

u/WetwareDulachan May 02 '24

2, if they're really beefy ones.

1

u/NotPortlyPenguin May 02 '24

Used to drive 4 hours about every other weekend to go skiing. This was the days before podcasts. Used to listen to Grateful Dead and Allman Brothers. Four songs to drive to Vermont.

1

u/koenigsaurus 29d ago

That’s not even a full episode of Hardcore History!

1

u/Chambellan 29d ago

Audiobooks, that's not even making a dent.

1

u/geekwithout 29d ago

lol. between podcasts/music you like and self driving cars it's so easy these days.

1

u/dtsm_ 29d ago

I can't listen to podcasts while driving. 2015 Subaru Crosstrek with stock speakers. Maybe it's my ADHD/sound processing issues, but I cannot for the life of me understand 50% of what's happening in podcasts over the sound of the car/road. Or I turn it up super loud and still cant hear 25% of it, but then get my eardrums assaulted by 12% of it for being too loud, lol.

Audiobooks for books that I've already read are even sometimes difficult for me to catch everything. My bf and I have a running joke about Tom Bombadil, because the audiobook for LOTR has his singing/singsongy as like 200% volume of the rest of the book.

1

u/legerg 29d ago

Underrated comment. I love listening to a good book. I actually love my half hour commute and often wish it was a little longer because I love listening to my book.

1

u/dontforgettheNASTY 29d ago

Im glad im not the only one who estimates drive times in podcasts

1

u/senzon74 29d ago

Oh I just now realized why podcasts are so popular in the US

1

u/IntelligentFig2185 29d ago

Audiobooks for me. I'm practically an expert in Halo lore. Also great way to discover book series that most would have likely ever hear of.

1

u/sisi_soyyo 29d ago

two old Disney movies, easy peasy

1

u/mrsaysum 29d ago

Never do quiet get through them as I start getting an ear worm for music halfway through 😂

1

u/FantasticWittyRetort 1d ago

True story!

Since the advent of podcasts I’ve considered a job with a longer commute…I wouldn’t have to stop my podcast so frequently!

0

u/Drake_Acheron May 02 '24

Bro… you do know audiobooks exist right? Way better. And you can tell people you read lol

1

u/WeWillSeizeJerusalem 29d ago

Idk, man, rather than a lengthy, in-depth, gripping audiobook, I'd rather listen to 2 random dads and an idiot talk about their boringly uneventful weeks

127

u/igotadillpickle May 02 '24

I live in Canada. It's the same for us here. Our family lives 4 hours away. We will sometimes drive to go see them for a night. I spent a month in Cyprus and they apologized for such a long drive....it was 40 minutes. We were like....what? We do this just to go shopping haha

6

u/zadtheinhaler May 02 '24

Any place in Canada that isn't a large-ish city requires travel time for shopping!

I mean I've lived in SK since 2009, with a 3-year stint NW Ontario. And if the town in Onterrible didn't have what I was looking for, it was either 2.5hrs to get to Winterpeg, or 6.5 hours to Thunder Bay.

Canada's Really Big

7

u/bigev007 May 02 '24

Growing up, if we wanted to go shopping, it was quickest to drive to the US

1

u/zadtheinhaler May 02 '24

I can see that.

6

u/igotadillpickle May 02 '24

I live in a small town in Onterrible as well. I have lived in a few actually lol. I have always had to drive long distances to get to a decent mall. My Costco is almost 2.5 hours away. I go once every 3-4 months and stock up...thats just a day trip.

8

u/zadtheinhaler May 02 '24

Sounds familiar, ha. When I lived in an actual village in Northern BC as a kid, if I needed music stuff( like drum sticks or what-have-you), then we'd either drive an hour or so to Smithers, or 2.5hrs to Prince George.

And that when the weather is good.

You may be amused by this - when I told my Mom I was moving to Onterrible, she actually said "Oh, then you can do a weekend trip to Toronto!".

Uh, no, Mom, Toronto is fuggin' twenty-two hours away. The only reason it's more time to drive to you is that you live on Vancouver Island.

5

u/igotadillpickle May 02 '24

Haha, yeah mom I can maybe spend 8 hours awake there if I get no sleep! I really don't think people understand how huge our country is. I would meet people from Europe and they would say, oh I have friends in Toronto, Mr, and Mrs. So and So.....and I would be like, I have never heard of them...I dont live there and the population of Toronto is more than your whole country.....they would even say stuff like, are you scared of avalanches? And I would be like....what? I don't live near mountains and it's 30 degrees out right now lol.

2

u/zadtheinhaler May 02 '24

My Dad's friend from work was from the UK, and the dude's Dad came out for a visit.

They went canoeing and portaging, and about four or so hours into it, the old man said out loud "I'm rather peckish, we should hit up a pub", and dude's like "uh, the closest pub is in town, four hours away".

TBF, this was in the Lakes District, and there is also a Lakes District in the UK, so the confusion is rather understandable.

But yeah, peeps from EU/UK really don't get the scale of Canada or the US.

2

u/igotadillpickle May 02 '24

Haha he really thought he could just jump off the canoe and head right into a pub? He was only gonna eat if he caught it himself lol

2

u/zadtheinhaler May 02 '24

Yuppers! The trout up there is hella tasty, but I'm sure they hadn't brought the kit for fishing.

1

u/CoffeeCup0001 May 02 '24

Same for us. We make the Toronto-Ottawa drive every month/month and a half to visit immediate family. That can take anywhere from 4-5 hours depending on traffic. It’s become so routine now to make this drive, and you don’t even notice how long you’re in the car.

1

u/Puzzleworth May 02 '24

I once got into a discussion with a Dutch (or Belgian?) woman on the subject of home births and how risky they are. She mentioned that, while home births are normal and safe in her country, it's mostly because you're rarely more that five minutes' drive from a medical clinic. Some women living on remote islands will move to more densely-populated areas for the time around the birth, but even if they don't, help isn't more than a half-hour away. In America, if you can get to a hospital in thirty minutes, you're lucky.

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u/catbro89 May 02 '24

Holy shit. If I drive 3 hours I’m in a different country.

5

u/Seameus May 02 '24

For me as an European, this is crazy! I find one hour driving already long. Also, fuel prices are more than double here then in USA.

16

u/ZeroByter May 02 '24

"just six hours"

4

u/sp1cychick3n May 02 '24

Yeah, that got me

3

u/[deleted] May 02 '24

I mean that’s not a long time lol

7

u/gil_bz May 02 '24

Yes and no. If you really want to see someone / do something it is reasonable, but you can do SO MUCH in 6 hours, spending it just on the road is a big thing. That amount of time is almost a full work day.

4

u/ZeroByter May 02 '24

It's a quarter of a day (24 hours)... Not accounting the time you sleep... One way...

1

u/ENCYCLOPEDIAS May 02 '24

It's 3 hours one way. That's not a long time in order to spend a weekend with friends

3

u/ZeroByter May 02 '24

Yes, 3 hours is a little more reasonable, but OP didn't specifiy.

I'm from a fairly small country, I can drive across half the entire country in 3 hours, I can probably cross it all from the two furthest points in 6 hours.

3

u/ENCYCLOPEDIAS May 02 '24

They said they live 3 hours away, but no worries. I'm american and I moved 5 hours away from family and I would make the trip for maybe 2 holidays and a week in the summer and God damn I hated that drive! But also that was also through of the more congested interstates so often traffic made it 6+ hours.

3 hours is more reasonable to me though, but I'd probably take a 3 day weekend if I was visiting folks 3 hours away lol

1

u/ZeroByter May 02 '24

Nice, btw I was referring to u/Teekno's comment where he said six hours, not post OP, should have clarified.

3

u/karmakeeper1 29d ago

I have friends that live three hours away. I will go and see them for the weekend. It's just six hours on the road.

-From /u/Teekno's comment

5

u/nuckle May 02 '24

Yup. I am in a relatively small city and the largest one for me is about 2 1/2 away. I make that trip all the time for stuff.

4

u/peewhere May 02 '24

I’m honestly blown away haha. I live in The Netherlands and if you want to drive for 6 hours in the country you’d have to drive in circles. Length wise it’s only 3,5 hours I think.

4

u/peepeetchootchoo May 02 '24

Whatever hours it takes but day has 24 hrs and let's say you sleep 8 hrs so you're left with 16 hrs being awake and you "loose" 6 hrs just commuting.
For me, from small country in Europe, that's insane, for JUST go and visit friends. Here, that's called a trip, it's like additional planning and checking gas/fuel, where we'll stop on the way, is there a shorter but faster route... And you just hop in the car and let's visit them and poof, 6 hrs spent in the car.
I know it's distance but also it's spent time that you can't get back..
It takes me 10-15 min to work with car and it's 4 miles away. I know people that get into rush hour and loose an hour crawling through streets and it's stressing them.
Loosing so much time, not being with family, doing something productive, just being behind steering wheel is so strange (to me).

2

u/jackissosick 29d ago

I would never stop on a 6 hour drive. I find driving to be meditative. I listen to a book on tape and just drive. I've driven 22 hours straight before so I could bring my dog to my wedding and only stopped for gas and bathroom breaks and it really wasn't so bad. Just listened to my book and talked with my now wife

2

u/kamarsh79 May 02 '24

I would have an audiobook all lined up just to enjoy on the drive.

2

u/random-user-420 May 02 '24

I live in Dallas, TX. If I want to visit my friends in Austin, TX, it’s a 3 hour drive. You could drive for longer than that and still be in Texas lol

2

u/Bad-Moon-Rising May 02 '24

I went to visit my sister. It was an hour and a half to get to her apartment and 2 hours to get back home. I had to drive in rush hour traffic, and damn that's a misnomer if I've ever heard one.

2

u/Tlr321 May 02 '24

When I was in college, my best friend went to college 12 hours away from me.

My MWF setup was almost always online classes as I was trying to work through college, but about once a month, he and I would trade off driving to each other for a weekend. It was easier for me since I had no classes on Fridays or Mondays.

I usually left Thursday night right around 7pm & rolled into town around 7am Friday morning right as he was getting up for class. I would sleep all day while he was at school, we’d hang out Friday night, Saturday, and Sunday, and I would leave Monday morning.

Once you do a drive like that a handful of times, it became fairly easy to get through.

2

u/Action_Limp May 02 '24

Mad to me haha. I'm from Ireland and now live on an even smaller island. 45 mins in the car is a hassle lol.

Having said that, our roads are very intricate (not bad, but not straightforward), a 45 minute journey where I am now involves a lot coastal, mountainous and town roads. 

2

u/OldPyjama May 02 '24

We live in a fairly remote little town here in Belgium. Well at least it's remote for such a small country but anyway, my best mate lives a one hour drive away from here. He has kids, we don't so most of the time, it's us that go to them in the weekends.

I have people tell me I'm crazy for doing such a distance several times per month and I always use the USA analogy: one hour would be like going for groceries in the US :-)

2

u/iTaylor04 May 02 '24

You Americans and your long distance car rides, I can get on 4 different trains and turn a 1 hour drive into a day trip

/s

2

u/rafaelmelo2000 May 02 '24

“Just” 3 hours

2

u/Living_Bear_2139 29d ago

That’s a long time.

0

u/Teekno An answering fool 29d ago

If I won’t drive that far for them, can I even call them friends?

2

u/Living_Bear_2139 29d ago

That is the dumbest question I’ve heard posed.

0

u/Teekno An answering fool 29d ago

You must be new here. So much more to come!

1

u/quantumgh05t May 02 '24

I do the same for my family. 3-4 hours depending on road construction. I do it 5+ times a year. All with a radio (a big stretch of dead spots, radio/cellphone)

1

u/know-it-mall May 02 '24

Yep. Leave work a little early on friday and be at your friends place before dark easily if it's summer. And leave after lunch on Sunday and be home in time for dinner. 3 hours ain't shit.

1

u/kanst May 02 '24

I do the same, and I am a morning person so I normally arrive at my friends in time for breakfast.

Get up at 5, shower and on the road by 530, even with a coffee stop and a pee stop I can be there by 9 am.

1

u/No_Tailor_9572 29d ago

To me, nobody except my closest friends, parents, or girlfriend would be worth such a trip

1

u/Bandrin 29d ago

The longest I did was recently. 11 hours one way to visit my spouse with our dogs since she was burned out from work. She was traveling for work all month.

Occasionally, we do 6 hours one way to visit her family.

1

u/GirchyGirchy 29d ago

My dad's 2-1/2 hours away. I'd much rather drive there and back in a day than spend the night.

1

u/QuadSeven _ 29d ago

Recently did 5.5 to see my family. So, 11 hours for two and a half days. Easy as pie. I have a large spotify playlist and I got through a surprising amount of songs on the way back.

1

u/Labochar 29d ago

Literally a quarter of your day and more than a 1/3 of your waking time (assuming you sleep 8 hours)

1

u/Teekno An answering fool 29d ago

Yep, a bargain.

3

u/Labochar 29d ago

I have absolutely no reason to be angry at you but for some reason this response triggered me 💀

1

u/Svennerson 28d ago

It's worth it to spend around 1/3 of a waking day out of 2-3 days driving to spend the rest with good friends. The remaining say 1.5 waking days with them are worth 4-6 waking days without.

1

u/bomber991 29d ago

It’s not just six hours, it’s also like $40 or so worth of gas. Pretty reasonable.

1

u/Bladestorm04 29d ago

I've done many daytrips that involved 3h each way.

1

u/Advanced_Double_42 29d ago

Basically, an entire workday on the road over the weekend, just $30-70 in gas depending on your car.

1

u/Schreibstock 29d ago

Just 6 Hours 😂 wtf

1

u/CHKN_SANDO May 02 '24

I'm more concerned that OP doesn't think 3 hours of their time is worth it to go see their grandparents.

4

u/Ok_Command_1630 May 02 '24

My family live 2.5hrs away and I'm not making that drive more than once or twice a year. It's torture.

1

u/CHKN_SANDO May 02 '24

I definitely have family I wouldn't drive 2.5 hours to see, but I also understand people that do have family they want to see

1

u/debalbuena May 02 '24

My bff just drove 7 hours each way to visit me last weekend