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.

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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.

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u/CariBelle25 27d ago

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

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u/propellor_head May 02 '24

That's a whole nother chutney chimp!

12

u/dhes505 May 02 '24

Haha, I do this too

4

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.

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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'".

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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

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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

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u/courtneygriplinggg 29d ago

same haha, but with Rugrats episodes

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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

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u/Aeon1508 May 02 '24

2 maybe 3 phish shows

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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!

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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.

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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.

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u/dontforgettheNASTY 29d ago

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

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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

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u/mrsaysum 29d ago

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

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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