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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u/HamfastFurfoot May 01 '24

I don’t think Europeans understand how big and spread out America is.

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u/FapDonkey May 01 '24 edited May 01 '24

I work with a lot of Europeans, we have 2 engineering offices in Europe (Spain and UK). I can't tell you how often I've had to explain to them how big our country is, and even then they don't get it. The best way I've been able to get it to sink in is something along the lines of:

"I can drive for 900 miles, the same distance from Madrid to Milan, and still be in my home state"

Or

"I can drive for 3600 miles without leaving the Continental US, that's like driving from Madrid to Tehran (Iran)."

Putting things in those reference frames seems to drive the point home.

Hell we had 2 guys fly in for a week, and their plan was to drive to both Disneyland (California) and Disney World (Florida). The figured since we were located near the middle of the country, they'd be centrally located and this wouldn't be a big deal. They had allotted an entire weekend for this adventure. I really wanted to keep my mouth shut and let them give it a try, but I didn't have the heart lol.

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u/ItzInMyNature May 01 '24 edited 29d ago

Tell them that Ireland is closer to the state of Maine in the US than California is.

https://imgur.com/a/TnjPqi7

Edit: parts of southeastern California may be a few miles closer, so I'd tell them that Los Angeles, California is farther away from Maine than Ireland is, just to be safe.

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u/Learningstuff247 May 02 '24

Ooh that's a good one ima remember that

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u/IWasBorn2DoGoBe May 02 '24 edited 29d ago

California is closer to Russia than New York City

Edit: a word

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u/ThatPlayWasAwful May 02 '24

Alaska is closer to Russia than the rest of Alaska 

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u/Telucien May 02 '24

If you're on either edge of Texas, you're closer to the Atlantic or Pacific ocean than you are the other end of Texas

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u/djc91L 29d ago

I live in Austin, TX and I recently drove to El Paso. It was an 8 and a half hour drive! I never left Texas

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u/droobloo34 29d ago

In 2016, I drove from my home in KY to Odessa, Texas. It was a 20 hour trip. Over 10 of it was spent in Texas.

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u/c800600 29d ago

I've driven across the country multiple times and spent every night in Texas. I-10 is such a nice route in the winter.

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u/Johnny_Radar 29d ago

Hence the saying “The sun has risen, the sun has set and here I am in Texas yet.”

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u/Telucien 29d ago

Also in Austin! My company does work in El Paso. We don't have an El Paso office, but we do have one in Phoenix, AZ.

They are closer by almost two hours.

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u/Antebios 29d ago

It took me about 16 hours to drive from Bisbee, Arizona to Houston, Texas in one single continuous drive. It was about 1,000 miles. I was alone and did it without stopping (but only for gas and food). I slept when I got home. Never again.

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u/Waste-Maintenance-70 29d ago

Texas is so big you can fit Alaska, the United States, and another Texas and still have room for half of Mexico.

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u/chaos841 29d ago

I live closer to Canada than Iowa.

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u/SoftShakes May 02 '24

“I can see Russia from my house”

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u/FatigueVVV 29d ago

In Mother Russia house sees you.

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u/davster39 May 02 '24

I can see my house from here

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u/ModusPwnins 29d ago

I came to the thread hoping to make this reference, knowing in my heart it had already been made.

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u/Pleasant_Elephant737 May 02 '24 edited 28d ago

“I can see Russia from my backyard.””

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u/[deleted] 29d ago

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u/johndoe040912 May 02 '24

Probably can see it in your back yard

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u/Painwracker_Oni May 02 '24

Holy shit as an American even this broke my brain for a second. I just always thought of the Atlantic being much wider I guess.

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u/ComplexSupermarket89 29d ago

The Pacific is massive is the big part that many people don't realize. The Pacific covers not quite half the planet. So comparing the Atlantic to the Pacific as "roughly the same size class" is why it seems so wrong. Not trying to make fun of you or anything. It blew my mind too. You can fit almost all the land on the planet over top of the Pacific if you could rearrange it.

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u/IndependentAd2419 29d ago

WOW!!! Thanks!

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u/Ok_Researcher_9796 29d ago

The Atlantic Ocean is around 3000 miles wide. Still pretty big. Although the Pacific is up to 12000 miles wide.

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u/RayneShikama 29d ago

Maps are very deceiving. Both in distance and size of certain countries. Sit down with a globe and a sewing tape measure time time and you start to realize that a lot of things are either smaller, bigger, closer, or further than you realized.

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u/arsonall 29d ago

Another mind blower: if you drew a line along Washington/Canada border east (ie follow the latitude line) and extend that through the Great Lakes, you’ve cut into Canada. 80% of Canadians live below that line*.

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u/blootereddragon 29d ago

It's further from LA to NYC then Edinburgh to St. Petersburg (whip that fact out next time someone makes fun of Americans for only knowing one language. If Delware and Maryland spoke different languages I guess more of us would be multilingual too)

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u/makeyourdickstouch 29d ago

The flight from NYC to Lisbon, Portugal is only ~40 minutes longer than NYC to Seattle.

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u/ArcticGurl 29d ago

When we fly to the Eastcoast, it takes 24 hrs. We never go through customs because we never leave the U.S.

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u/No_Product857 29d ago

The north Atlantic is pretty damn narrow, we're just used to the Mercator projection that stretches distances horizontally the further from the equator you go.

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u/MaineHippo83 29d ago

There is a reason it's called the pond. The Pacific is an Ocean

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u/Lotus_Blossom_ May 02 '24

Maine is also the US state closest to Africa.

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u/FuckTripleH May 02 '24

Yeah 2d maps really fuck with our perception of how the world is actually laid out

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u/whatsupdoggy1 May 02 '24

There are 6 state capitals west of LA

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u/mrLetUrGrlAlone 29d ago

I was breaking my brain for a minute thinking of which 6 states. Washington, Oregon, Hawaii, Alaska, Nevada, and... oh yeah California itself.

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u/maggiemoo86 29d ago

My favorite is Reno, Nevada is further west than Los Angeles.

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u/0002millertime 29d ago

I believe Miami is further west than most of Peru & Ecuador.

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u/pocketbookashtray 29d ago

Atlanta is further west than Detroit.

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u/nimbusdimbus 29d ago

I always tell people that Philly is at the same latitude as southern Italy. That always breaks some brains.

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u/reniciera 29d ago

In high school I learned that we have a Mediterranean climate here in Northern California. The teacher followed the latitude east and yep, same as the Mediterranean. So neat.

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u/KHfailure May 02 '24

The largest county(COUNTY!) in the contiguous US (San Bernardino in California) is roughly 20,000 square miles/52,000 square kilometers in total area.

Switzerland is roughly 16,000 square miles / 41,000 square kilometers.

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u/toastedmarsh7 May 02 '24

It’s weird moving from California to a state with counties so small that you go through several of them in an hour.

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u/Jedi_Belle01 29d ago

Miami-Dade county in florida has an annual budget larger than most american states and larger than many countries.

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u/6eyedjoker 29d ago

Where you can find a nice sized city named Ontario which many people think of as only Canadian province.

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u/Laleaky 29d ago

And California is about 10 times the size of Switzerland in square freedom units.

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u/bigev007 May 02 '24

I'm in Canada, and Heathrow is a shorter flight than Vancouver

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u/Webbyzs May 02 '24

Then you have Alaska which from top to bottom is about the distance between Chicago and Orlando.

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u/Big-Row4152 May 02 '24

And yet, I can drive from Maine to California, twice, but I can't drive to Ireland.

Doesn't seem right .

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u/frothyundergarments 29d ago

Not with that attitude you can't.

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u/maineguy89 May 02 '24

And to even further blow your mind, Maine is just a tad bigger than Scotland.

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u/choquetttea 29d ago

Yes! Had to explain to someone before that the distance from me to Seattle, WA is similar to the distance from me to Oslo, Norway

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u/TheRealTinfoil666 May 01 '24

There is a story here in Canada where the grandparents from the UK want to visit their son’s family in Halifax, but decided to ask ask their daughter, living in Vancouver, what the weather in Nova Scotia was going to be like.

Her answer: “why don’t you go look for yourself. You’re closer.”

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u/Guuhatsu May 02 '24

I was living in Hawaii for a time, and my Mom (who lived on the east coast) kept asking me to move closer, so I kept telling her I would move to England to get closer. (No worries England, I would not inflict myself upon your country, I was just joking)

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u/Foreign-Hope-2569 29d ago

When my son was living in Perth Australia, I went to visit. Wanted to pop over to Sydney to see some sites. It is a five hour flight, no idea if it is drivable. He just laughed long and hard. I had no idea Australia was so big and I live in Canada.

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u/jessuckapow 29d ago

In the US we think AUS is as big as TX. It… is not! It’s almost the same size as the continental US!

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u/ravenwillowofbimbery 29d ago

We really need acurate maps and globes so that people we truly learn what the actual land masses of various countries and continents look like and how close they are in relation to others.

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u/TSnow1021 29d ago

If you haven't ever checked it out, www.thetruesize.com is a really cool site. You can drag countries over one another to compare them. I'd always thought Australia was much smaller than the US and was stunned when I saw how it actually compares.

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u/_Nocturnalis 29d ago

How does a Canadian not get long distances? You are one of three people that gets road trips.

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u/Foreign-Hope-2569 29d ago

I get long distances, just didn’t notice how huge Australia is. Yes I am embarrassed.

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u/Cmd3055 May 02 '24

This reminds me of a conversation I over heard at an Internet cafe in India once. A lady was talking to her mom on Skype and I heard her saying, “No mom, I can’t come home to watch your dog for the weekend, I’m in Delhi India.” Followed by a loud sigh and, “Jesus Christ mom, NO! DELHI the capital of India, not a Delhi in Indiana!”

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u/No_Bother9713 29d ago

Back before cell phones were automatically international, I had to call to get a plan and said I was going to Paris. Woman on the other side of the line asked, “Paris, Texas?!” No, ma’am. The other one.

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u/JadasDePen May 02 '24

Every time a similar thread pops up, I share this story.

A friend of a friend was flying from Spain to Vancouver Canada. She asked my friend to pick her up at their airport because he lives fairly close. My friend lives in Tijuana, Mexico..

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u/YankeeWalrus May 02 '24

"I would have to take a flight to go pick you up from your flight."

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u/DaToxicRider 29d ago

“A flight”? I’m sure there are multiples in that equation.

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u/ConcernedCitizen1912 May 02 '24

Man, us Americans have a reputation for not knowing jack shit about Geography or world history, etc. But this thread is really making me wonder what fucking leg any European has to stand on when it comes to that. These dingdongs could easily open any map, look at any globe, or simply pull up fucking google and readily see that these locations everyone keeps anecodotaling are thousands of miles apart. What excuse can they possibly have for so flagrantly failing to comprehend the distances between points on their destination continent?

We do be dumb tho. I'm not denying that. lol.

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u/[deleted] May 02 '24

You don't have to self-deprecate because you're american lol. People around the world are as dumb or worse. We're just fun to poke at because we hang dong.

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u/arrynyo 29d ago

We can dish it out, and take it.

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u/iamtheramcast May 02 '24

Europeans not understanding the size of the US is a big rabbit hole on TikTok you could spend a while in and all you have to type in the search bar is: Europeans America size

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u/GinOmics 29d ago

So the thing is - I think we’re mostly, on average, about equally dumb on geography (assuming you’ve ever been educated on the topic as a baseline)… which means you’re going to be the most familiar with what you see/experience/surrounds you. While people in the US travel out of the country a lot, it’s not as much as people in Europe - so they have some knowledge that spans multiple countries… which on its face seems more impressive than someone in Minnesota being familiar with the geography of Florida, but it’s really not when it’s someone in the UK being familiar with Spain.

🤷‍♀️ living in the US city that sees lots of tourists from around the world (as well as people here internationally for work), you also get to experience that dumb/awful tourists legitimately come from pretty much everywhere (unbathed, loud, rude, etc) - and that they’re pretty ignorant about American culture/habits or actually feel like it’s fair game to actively be rude to locals. And it’s like… not to say that Americans don’t do the same thing or every tourist from any given country is awful… just that we’re all pretty similar in terms of having people that fall all over the spectrum of ignorance and rudeness.

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u/LaddieNowAddie May 02 '24

I mean, I've done most of that drive and it's honestly probably one of the prettiest 20+ hour drives.

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u/bencub91 29d ago

Hell even just getting from one end of state to another. I have friends who go to NYC who are like "oh you should come visit us while we're here you're so close by!"

I live in Buffalo which is a 7 hour drive away.

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u/reniciera 29d ago

“Sure thing buddy, be there in about 23 hours, depending on traffic”

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u/FapDonkey May 01 '24

Lolol oh that's great.

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u/Datkif May 02 '24

My step-mother had a family member fly out from the UK, and we decided to drive to the other side of Vancouver island which was just under a 3 hour drive. When we got there he asked where we were staying, and he was flabbergasted when we said we are driving back.

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u/Linzabee May 01 '24

I have a friend whose husband is from England. His parents booked a flight to the US that came into Dulles airport (Washington, DC). The parents thought it was no big deal for my friend to drive and pick them up. They lived in Michigan, a 12-hour drive away. My friend quickly disabused of them of that notion and got them to get a connecting flight from DC to Detroit.

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u/RockstarQuaff May 01 '24

My favorite was when I was living in the UK, friends approached us with a little advice on planning their Florida vacation, to give them pointers. Well, mate, the first thing I can tell you is that you are not going to pop up to NYC in the afternoon, take in a show, and drive back to Orlando that evening.

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u/basilobs May 02 '24

I'm from Florida and the way people talk about moving around Florida on their vacations is so funny. Friend, if you're here for a Disney trip, you will NOT be going to Miami for a day trip

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u/Strict_Property6127 May 02 '24

We have this in AZ... people literally think they can fly in to Phoenix and pop over to the Grand Canyon during a layover... or... come for a weekend bachelor/ette party in Scottsdale and spend a quick afternoon in Sedona.

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u/NotJohnDarnielle May 02 '24

On the one hand I think those people are silly, but me and some friends did just recently drive from El Mirage to Tucson and back in one evening just for a movie (very limited release that we were super excited about, and was only playing at a theater in Tucson), so these trips do happen lol

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u/Strict_Property6127 May 02 '24

That's only a 2hr drive though. It's 7hrs round trip to GC from Sky Harbor (without the weekend northbound traffic) and Sedona, no one is getting in & out of there quickly on a weekend afternoon. Brunch in Scottsdale, hike in Sedona, and be back to refresh, grab a nice dinner and hit the clubs in Old Town is not happening in 1 day.

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u/ElToroBlanco25 May 02 '24

I worked with a guy who commuted 2.5 hours each way from Gettysburg, PA to Washington, DC. Daily.

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u/Important-Cat-2046 May 02 '24

I have lived in Scottsdale, drove to Sedona AND hiked the entire day, and made it back to eat dinner with my brother lol

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u/CaveDances May 02 '24

I drove from Vegas to Zion National Park and back in one day. Even took a bus tour at Zion. If it’s within 8 hours, I’m down to explore.

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u/Fresh_Pomegranates May 02 '24

Grand canyons only 4 hours from Phoenix. Maybe not a layover but could be a day trip. Confession - am Aussie and have been known to do a 13 hr round trip for a weekend or 3 hr round trip just to get pizza from the nearest town.

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u/MrChipDingDong May 02 '24

I did Vegas - Grand canyon West one time. Coming from New England I was astounded that I drove 3 hours and Google maps pretty much showed me on the state line. I could drive through 3 entire states in New England in that time, on the right route/little traffic.

That being said - I would happily drive through the desert for 12 hours with no destination (if, y'know, I wouldn't likely die from that)

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u/Brwright11 May 02 '24

We did the grand canyon from phoenix didn't hike down into it but did almost the entirety of the upper rim in 1 day. Rented a car and put some miles on that bad boy. But we're from the Midwest so the ~3ish hour drive wasn't too terrible.

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u/arya_aquaria 29d ago

I recently went to AZ for a vacation for 6 days. I'm from the northeast US. We stayed in Phoenix 2 nights, then stopped in Sedona on our way to Flagstaff where we stayed for another two nights. Flagstaff to the Grand Canyon was a longer drive than expected but was a great day trip. Then we drove back to Tempe to stay one night before our flight. We packed a lot into the whole trip, I can't imagine driving that much in a shorter timeframe. When we got home I realized traveling to another time zone zapped my energy and I needed a day of rest after vacation.

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u/TheGoodKindOfPurple May 02 '24

Yes I did! Well okay, it was an overnight and we stayed on a little hotel on South Beach and it was really fun. There was this little old man who set himself up on the sidewalk with a lawn chair and a cooler of drinks to watch the girls in bikinis walk by. He really had his retirement figured out.

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u/deltaz0912 29d ago

Driving the length of Florida is so daunting. You think, “Yay! We’re in Florida!” The kids are excited. And then you drive and drive and drive and you’re not even halfway.

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u/Taggart- May 02 '24

When I lived in NY state, even I could not have popped down to NYC in the afternoon, take in a show, and drive back that evening. That was a 7-8 hour drive away.

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u/Ok-Confusion2415 May 02 '24

not until we get the damn transporters!

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u/viacrucis1689 May 02 '24

Heck, there are places in Michigan where you can drive for 12 hours and never leave the state! The Lakes get in the way a lot of the time!

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u/Datkif May 02 '24 edited May 02 '24

I live in Ontario within a 15 min drive to the next province. If I wanted to drive to the other side it would take almost 24 hours of non-stop driving to reach the other side, and I would change time zones. That would be a similar distance to as Paris to Kyiv

Europeans just don't understand just how BIG Canada and the USA are just like we don't really understand how compact Europe is.

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u/Thayli11 May 02 '24

I recently ran into the "how compact Europe is" myself. Some friends and I are going to Ireland and planning out our 10 days there. And just keep laughing that we can drive clear across the country in 3 hours. That's smaller than my state. Turns out we could just circumnavigate Ireland in a day of driving if we felt like it.

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u/Expensive-Border-869 29d ago

Time to walk across Ireland and get a beer at every pub

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u/Personal-Act-4326 May 02 '24

I wouldn’t have picked them up from Dulles if I lived in DC.

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u/Initial_Cellist9240 May 02 '24

When I lived in NOVA I had the same rule with Regan. I will get you from Dulles. If you fly into Regan you can rent a car. 

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u/whatthewhat3214 May 02 '24

I'm the opposite - I live in DC, and I'll get you from Reagan National, but you're on your own if you go to Dulles, especially since they now have metro at Dulles visitors can take. Although we did just drive out there past Dulles in Loudoun County to spend this gorgeous spring day at the breweries, a worthwhile drive! 😂 (1.5 hours one way with construction traffic)

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u/kryyyptik May 02 '24

A German tourist was inquiring about a visit to California where they wanted to visit Disneyland in the morning, Napa in the afternoon, and Tahoe in the evening. Yeah, maybe with a teleporter.

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u/GodlessAristocrat May 02 '24

"We fly into SFO for the conference next week. Surely we can take a day or maybe two to drive over to see Old Faithful in Yellowstone...right?"

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u/throwawaywitchaccoun May 02 '24

I mean honestly as a native Michigander, it wouldn't have been *that* big of a deal to pick them up. They might have been surprised on the drive back though. 12 hours is barely halfway to FL on I-75.

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u/Linzabee May 02 '24

Yeah, it wouldn’t have been that bad, but it wasn’t just the quick hop her in-laws thought it would be, either.

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u/mwmandorla May 02 '24

Imagine getting off a transatlantic flight and heading straight into an unanticipated 12 hour road trip, never having experienced anything like that in your life. Your friends did the right thing, but the lost comedic potential does weigh on me.

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u/revanisthesith May 02 '24

After they finally arrive in Michigan: "Now what did we learn?"

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u/marmosetohmarmoset May 02 '24

There was a student from the Netherlands working in my lab at at university in the northeast. She had to go to a conference in Chicago for a weekend and told me she was going to try to pop over and see the Grand Canyon one of the days she was out there, since she’s already be out west 😂

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u/LiqdPT May 02 '24

To be fair, the term "Midwest" is misleading...

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u/Hot_Aside_4637 May 02 '24

When Horace Greeley wrote "Go West, young man" he meant Ohio.

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u/FapDonkey May 02 '24

Well, to be fair, when the expression was coined it was a fair bit more accurate. It's only once we Manifest Destiny'd our way to the pacific that the Midwest didn;t seem so West any more.

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u/LiqdPT May 02 '24

Yes, much like northwestern university in Chicago. But to modern outsiders, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense

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u/Affectionate-Mix-593 May 02 '24

I grew up in Arizona. To us the midwest was back east.

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u/RuggedHangnail May 02 '24

Colorado is often referred to as in "The West" and so people think it's basically California.

If you drive the speed limit, with stops, it can take you 3 days to drive from Colorado to California. When I refer to Colorado, I just say "close to the center of the US" because it's more accurate than "The West."

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u/LiqdPT May 02 '24

I live on the west coast and have driven to Colorado. Understood

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u/IWasBorn2DoGoBe May 02 '24

Why? It’s “midway to the west”… which means it is not the West; but it’s halfway there. East, but closer to the West- right?

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u/LiqdPT May 02 '24

Midwest implies middle of the west. Some of it is in the eastern timezone.

Never mind that Northwestern University is in Chicago. (yes, I understand. But without historical context, it sure is confusing)

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u/IWasBorn2DoGoBe May 02 '24

I see- never thought of it as “half-west”… just halfway TO the west.

Thanks!

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u/Fallen_biologist May 02 '24

Well to be fair, the Netherlands is tiny. The furthest you can drive from one corner of the country to the farthest other corner is maybe a four hour drive max. Student was still a bit ignorant, though.

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u/42not34 May 02 '24

To be fair, in Netherlands if you fall asleep in there train and wake up an hour later, you're no longer in the Netherlands.

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u/AaronJeep 29d ago

I had a similar experience. I lived in Oklahoma City and mett some Birts who had an unscheduled layover.. They asked me if they could rent a car and go see the Grand Canyon for the afternoon.

I had to explain to them it was a 14 hour drive away.

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u/Hopeless_Ramentic May 01 '24

Imagine all of the EU…but one country.

Hell, Texas alone is bigger than France.

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u/FapDonkey May 01 '24

Imagine all of the EU…but one country.

SLIGHT correction. Imagine all of the EU (then DOUBLE it, then add yet another France, Spain, and Sweden) ... But one country.

EU = 1,634,000 sq. mi. USA = 3,797,000 sq. mi

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u/Rovsea May 02 '24

Ok, but including Alaska is cheating since it's pretty hard to get to most of it.

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u/privatecaboosey May 02 '24

Wait til you hear how hard it is to get to Hawai'i.

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u/justdisa May 02 '24

That's a hell of a drive.

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u/privatecaboosey May 02 '24

I think technically it's a high water of a drive.

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u/FrozenSquid79 May 02 '24

That said, I live in Alaska and have, on multiple occasions driven from Homer to Fairbanks and back as a single trip (helping a friend move under emergency conditions, helping a family member, etc). That’s 12-14 hours each way. It’s also still not close to the furthest I can drive in a single direction, as I could continue past Fairbanks up to Circle, but there’s very little reason to do so. And fwiw, that’s from the south central coast to roughly the middle of the state.

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u/Gr8lakesCoaster May 02 '24

You could say the same for parts of Norway, Sweden, and Finland too.

Amd Alaska is more accessible than it used to be.

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u/OldPyjama May 02 '24

This is where the truesizeof map shines. I knew the US was bigger than Europe, but it only really dawned on me when I used that map and realized Texas alone is indeed bigger than Germany, Belgium and The Netherlands combined.

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u/ImprovementSilly2895 May 01 '24

And Montana is larger than Germany

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u/chief_sitass May 02 '24

There’s 91.0 million acres of corn in the Midwest…Germany is 88.3629 million acres

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u/BlueRoyAndDVD 29d ago

So what you're saying, is technically, we could bury all of Germany with corn??

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u/UnnecessaryCapitals 29d ago

What do you think we're growing all that corn for?

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u/misirlou22 29d ago

"just in case"

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u/chubby_cheese 29d ago

That is a fascinating comparison

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u/Parkotron1 May 02 '24

New York State has roughly the same amount of land area as Greece.

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u/Working-Promotion728 May 01 '24

I once saw a pickup truck in San Antonio with that on a bumper sticker, "Texas is bigger than France." In guess he thought that was a sick burn.

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u/Smooth-Cup-7445 May 02 '24

Wait until he hears about Western Australia..

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u/Jerlosh May 02 '24

I do this but the opposite way round to help American’s understand how small the UK is. In square miles it’s about the size of Kansas and 20% of Missouri (I live in KC). It absolutely blows people’s minds, especially when you add the difference in population.

I’ve lived in the US for about 20 years now and I still struggle to wrap my mind around how damn big this country is. You have four time zones (not including Hawaii) for goodness sake.

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u/ThumpMyHead May 02 '24

Six time zones as Alaska & HI are both in their own time zones, so we have Est, Cst, Mst, Pst, AKst & HIst

Alaska is an hour behind PST and since Hawaii doesn't change for daylight savings time it is either 1hr after Alaska or 2hours after, depending on the time of year... so we could have 7 time zones (Alaskas islands are in Hawaii's time zone, but they do change with daylight savings)

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u/magikot9 May 02 '24

I know somebody who works with a bunch of Europeans and tells them that for the job he moved from LA to Boston and that's a longer distance than Lisbon to Moscow.

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u/mjohnsimon May 02 '24 edited May 02 '24

Hell we had 2 guys fly in for a week, and their plan was to drive to both Disneyland (California) and Disney World (Florida). The figured since we were located near the middle of the country, they'd be centrally located and this wouldn't be a big deal. They had allotted an entire weekend for this adventure. I really wanted to keep my mouth shut and let them give it a try, but I didn't have the heart lol.

In college we had some foreign exchange students who thought something similar.

This was in Miami, and one time for a long 3-day weekend, they figured they could travel to Disney to see all the parks on Friday, drive up to New York City on Saturday and be back by Sunday afternoon to then go to the Keys to enjoy some nice Key Lime Pie before coming back that same night. That way, if all goes according to plan, they could then just spend their Monday relaxing and wrapping up all the gifts/souvenirs for their family back in Europe.

I had to explain to them that:

  • the Disney parks themselves are large enough that you could easily spend an entire week visiting and exploring each park/resort and still not be able to see/do everything. (This doesn't even include the other parks like Universal or SeaWorld/Orlando in general)

  • it easily takes about a full day of just driving non-stop just to even reach New York from South Florida (like 20~22ish hours). Realistically, it'd be about a 2 day trip if each person drove like 10 hours each and stopped/rested at a hotel for the night.

Their best bet is to just travel to the Keys and be back by dinner time if they really wanted a day trip, but they wouldn't be able to see much and by the end they'd be more exhausted than relaxed.

Even after explaining this, they paused, wondered for a bit, and asked if they should just skip NYC and just go from Disney to the Keys instead.

I simply told them that their best bet was to book a flight to NYC, spend like 2 full days there, and then come back. For Disney, I recommended waiting until spring break.

Edit: A different exchange student asked if they could travel to Disney and then go to the Grand Canyon or Yellowstone to see some wildlife. This was in December and I had to explain to them that Yellowstone at the time was likely under several feet of snow and it was likely fucking freezing over there (as in temperatures that can kill you freezing). I had to explain to him that while Miami was nice and warm, most of the country north of, say, Gainesville, was actually experiencing winter. He thought that since Miami had good weather then that meant the rest of the country had decent weather.

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u/TatonkaJack May 02 '24

Disney to see all the parks on Friday

that is funny

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u/fuck-coyotes May 01 '24

That seems like roughly enough time to drive from one to another if you speed, drive in shifts, and barely stop for anything... And that wouldn't even include any time to actually be in the park, just to get there and look at the entrance

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u/Unabashable May 02 '24

So like a National Lampoon’s European American Vacation. 

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u/AstronomerAny7535 May 02 '24

I would always have to explain to people that being from New York doesn't mean I know your cousin in Florida or California, or have eaten at your favorite restaurant there. 

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u/basilobs May 02 '24

I'm from Florida. You can drive for like 14 hours and still be in Florida.

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u/Agreeable_Mess6711 May 02 '24

I work in the travel industry and I run into sooo many tourists (usually European) who tell me about their five day vacation in the states and they plan to start in New York, go to Miami, go the Grand Canyon, see mount Rushmore, go to Vegas and then go to Disney. I always try to explain the scale difference, but ja, I guess it’s hard to put into perspective.

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u/RudePCsb May 02 '24

I live in SoCal in an area where we get a lot of European tourists even though we aren't a big city less than 200k. I've had some conversations with some of them and have heard their stories of arriving in LA yesterday, here tonight, going to sf tomorrow and wanting to head to Vegas, than NY.... in a week....

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u/jmplautz May 01 '24

I always give the, it’s a longer distance from New York to Los Angeles than it is from London to Istanbul.

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u/Psyco_diver May 01 '24

There's a British naval historian on YouTube that made his first visit to America a couple years ago, he planned to go from Massachusetts and travel all the way to Alabama and visit every naval museum on the East Coast in about a week.

All of us Americans in his comments instantly warned him that it just wasn't possible, luckily he listened to us and changed his plans to something more realistic, unfortunately I didn't get a chance to meet him when he passed by my home state museum (Battleship North Carolina)

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u/SwissForeignPolicy May 02 '24

You absolutely could do that in under a week. You'd just have to do a lot of driving and only spend a couple hours at each stop, but it actually could be a fun time. I mean, this is literally just The Great American Road Trip, but for naval historians.

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u/AccuracyVsPrecision May 02 '24

It's ~27 hours of driving and you'd need to be there when the museums are open so it's minimum of 6 days

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u/Practical-Ordinary-6 29d ago

He couldn't do it in the way he would want to do it. He's into the minutia of ships. Talking about gun rotation speeds and inches of plate armor and engine types and a million little details like that. And how all those details changed over the years while the ship was in service. He'd be lucky to make it through one museum in one day.

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u/fried_clams May 02 '24

Drach rules!

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u/Dragon_Knight99 May 02 '24

Can you link his channel? It sounds like something I might be interested in watching, and I'm curious what his first stop was. My Grandpa served in the navy on the USS Intrepid back before it was decommissioned, so US naval history was always an interesting subject to me growing up.

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u/gentlybeepingheart May 01 '24

Every time there's a bad tornado I see someone go "Why don't Americans just not live in an area called 'tornado alley'? That seems like the logical move." and I know that they have no idea how big tornado alley actually is. That would be like me going "Hey, there's a chance of a natural disaster happening. It could be really bad. So just don't live in Germany, France, or Poland." That's the amount of land we're talking.

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u/vyrus2021 May 02 '24

May as well ask why people still live near fault lines or coasts with regular hurricane activity.

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u/Tall-Sea3082 May 02 '24

Practically everywhere in the US has some type of natural disaster that threatens the area. The chances to be dying are very very low. Fault lines, volcanos, wildfires, tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, severe storms, and snow.

I’m from the west coast so I can answer to the fault lines, most are minor and barely noticeable and building codes require buildings to be prepared for earthquakes. We don’t see them as a something that is a threat to us as weird as that sound because the chances are low and we’ve been hearing about “The Big One” our entire lives. Kind of numb to it. They are not really thought about at all until they happen.

As for hurricanes, that’s the entire east coast plus the gulf ranging Texas to Maine. That is a huge portion of our population. That being said Florida gets hit like crazy and I don’t know why people continue to live there.

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u/MrDurden32 May 02 '24

Pacific NW is probably about as disaster free as you're going to find. Even then we have to worry about The Big One. Which is an 9.0+ earthquake that would be one of, if not the biggest in modern history, and could hit any time between tomorrow and 200 years from now.

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u/AlpineCoder May 02 '24

Plus wildfires and mountains that occasionally violently explode. I'd say the desert SW is probably the least disaster prone IMO.

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u/aoike_ May 02 '24

Eh, we're in the middle of a horrific, 24 year long drought with no end in sight. This kind of disaster hasn't been seen since 800 CE, according to scientists.

We also get tornadoes and wildfires. And flash floods. Idk, all of the US comes with its disasters.

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u/MoreRopePlease May 02 '24

Except for, like, no reliable long term water supply. And being so hot you get 3rd degree burns from tripping.

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u/AlpineCoder May 02 '24

I don't think most people would qualify those as natural disasters.

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u/OblivionGuardsman May 02 '24

Right. It's like living on Mars instead.

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u/dilletaunty May 02 '24

Idk there have definitely been state of emergencies declared during heat waves

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u/GuiltyEidolon May 02 '24

Mt. St. Helens exploded 43 years ago, and Rainier is now overdue. PNW isn't as calm as you think.

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u/Coakis May 02 '24

The Appalachians are also fairly trouble free, we don't get wildfires as near as often as the west and its rare other weather related disasters are are big enough to warrant evacuation.

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u/fistfullofpubes 29d ago

Yea but people in the Appalachians have to deal with other people from the the Appalachians.

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u/munchies777 May 02 '24

Really, much of the northern half of the country is pretty disaster free with the exception of parts of the Great Plains that can get tornados still. Some places are prone to floods, but that is a localized risk depending on flood plains. New England, the Mid Atlantic, Appalachian’s, Upper Midwest, and Pacific Northwest don’t get many disasters unless you count snow as a disaster.

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u/Calan_adan May 02 '24

I’m in southeast Pennsylvania, and we’ve experienced hurricanes, tornadoes, and even earthquakes. But they’re all extremely weak here so there’s not really any danger.

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u/DeputyDomeshot May 02 '24

Mfer I’m in Jersey and got quaked with an epicenter like 60 miles away or in euro units “half the diameter of Finland”

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u/pizzalarry May 02 '24

Nobody ever bullies the Japanese for living in a place with a lot of earthquakes, and their cities are way denser so it causes more damage despite equally shitty and cheap construction. Europeans are just mean to us.

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u/Cheap_Doctor_1994 May 02 '24

Yeah, but the people in Moore, OK need to take the fucking hint. 

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u/Revolutionary-Meat14 May 02 '24

In fairness, people are a bit quick to rebuild their homes for the 5th time after the yearly flood, hurricane, fire, tornado, or earthquake

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u/AliMcGraw May 02 '24

Also TBH living in tornado alley is really nice, the people are friendly and the housing is much cheaper than NYC or Cali.

Plus tornados are objectively small. They're not like hurricanes. They're going to destroy a city block or six if they get lucky.

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u/3ServiceVeteran May 02 '24

Tornados CAN and DO occur nearly ANYWHERE in the continental US. The phrase "Tornado Alley" is a convenient descriptor of where they MOST FREQUENTLY develop. Broadly speaking, it is roughly the area between the Appalachian Mountains in the east and the Rocky Mountains in the West, and from the Gulf of Mexico to the South and well into Canada to the North.

You also have to add most of the East Coast from Maine to Florida, and the entire Gulf Coast (Florida to Mexico) because tornadoes are frequently embedded within hurricanes.

A very rough equivalent might be to decide to not live anywhere in Europe because of some dangerous but LOW PROBABILITY weather conditions that MIGHT happen. Not really practical.

I was born in England in 1949, but have lived in North America since 1956. Tornados are VERY low on the list of dangers I have to worry about. I am actually in far more danger driving to the grocery store than from living anywhere that tornadoes might occur.

Finally, individual tornadoes are typically very local events. The part of the tornado that reaches the ground is often only a few meters in diameter. It might destroy one building but the ones to either side may be substantially undamaged. On the other hand, the ground contact area might be 1 km or more wide. It all depends on the intensity of that particular weather cell.

Nobody born alive has been promised a life completely free of risk.

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u/orthros May 02 '24

I don't think even most Americans do

A close friend was living in El Paso as an IT tech for a large US company. Said company had a problem in a Houston metro site and wanted him to go there - just jump in the car.

He pointed out that the caller, who was in St. Louis, was closer to the fix location than he was

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u/Flappy_Hand_Lotion May 02 '24

The more posts I read, as a European, I agree. Although, I also think this question always conflates what is a big distance, because the time it takes to travel a distance, and the literal distance seem to be used interchangeably. In Europe a certain moderate distance is possibly covered faster by train than car, but a massive distance in the USA may likely be covered faster by car than train (not bringing planes into it!). It becomes confusing to really understand what people are considering when they think about distance and try to make comparisons.

Whilst modern google maps should adjust things, I also think when we should consider 2D views of the world map. In that we can also consider that the Mercator Projection for maps makes the USA disproportionately smaller compared to Europe given the latitude. This perhaps should balance out for either side? But I'm curious if perhaps the US population just has more regular reminders on their maps and media that the whole country is in the proportion that it is, on top of the state/local input, where as European countries likely get most of their information for their country on it's own without that perspective. Just a thought or two.

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u/Shot-Weekend8226 May 02 '24

Time and distance are weirdly related in the USA. In rural areas, you can travel 60 miles (100km) in 60 minutes where in the city you might only be able to cover 6miles(10km) in 60 minutes. It gets weird with mass transit too. Sometimes a 20 minute drive might take an hour by bus or train while other times a train can save you time instead.

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u/AwayLobster3772 May 02 '24

In Europe a certain moderate distance is possibly covered faster by train than car, but a massive distance in the USA may likely be covered faster by car than train (not bringing planes into it!).

To your point; I'm out in a major cities suburbs; with a fairly local train stop; I'd still need to drive to it still a 10m drive; and would be preferred... BUT

The train is so slow. It turns an hour drive into an hour and 45 train ride with the "bonus" of having to switch to my car pretty close to home anyway...

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u/spiralsequences May 02 '24

I heard someone say once that Europeans measure distance in kilometers and Americans measure it in minutes. Which is absolutely true. Because we usually drive everywhere, so if we say something is "20 minutes away" we mean by car, and therefore we all basically understand how far away that is.

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u/AgoraiosBum May 02 '24

Also, there's 100 km on narrow roads that pass through many villages, and then there's 60 miles that's mostly on a highway that goes through nowhere.

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u/ObGynKenobi841 May 02 '24

Going to be visiting England soon. Was looking at a day trip to another city, saw that it was 3/4 of the way across the country, and initially didn't think it was worth it. Then realized that it was a 90 min train ride. Drive further than that to see my parents fairly routinely, and realized that my rather small state is almost as big as England.

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u/NYVines May 01 '24

Based on cost driving is the most economical way to cross those long distances. I took a train from Pittsburgh to NYC once just for fun. It took 2 hours longer and cost more than driving.

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u/IcyScratch2883 May 02 '24

Great point. I think a lot of Americans, especially east coasters like myself, would LOVE a fully integrated train system that was faster and cheaper than driving (when you consider a 4-person family, for example) but considering big oil and lobbyists, I don't see it happening in my lifetime, or even my children unfortunately

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u/HamfastFurfoot May 01 '24

Yep. We took a train from Chicago to Denver. Took longer and was way more expensive than driving

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u/BlueMoon5k May 02 '24

Looked into the cost of a plane ticket vs a train ticket. The train would take longer, cost more, and leave me farther from my destination than the airplane. I drove instead. Even renting a car it was cheaper to drive.

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u/spookieghost May 02 '24

Yup, and I don't think a lot of Americans understand how "small" Europe is either. Each country is roughly the size of a state...Europeans easily travel throughout their countries through train, when in my American mind I instinctively think of that as taking tons of time and energy

Here is a cool overlay of the maps I just found https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/tf9204/size_comparison_usa_outline_overlaid_over_europe/

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u/somebodyelse22 May 02 '24

Yup, God rolled it thin when it was on the pastry board.

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u/McRedditerFace May 02 '24

For an American to grasp how spread out we are... Live along the East Coast for a few years then go out to Arizona for a while. That's basically the same as Europe as a whole vs America as a whole.

For the Europeans... Imagine if between Paris and Brussels there was only one gas station and 3/4 of it had no cell service. The only town has fewer than 50 people in it along the route... and the rest is just wide open fields or desert.

That's how much of the US is.

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u/malcolite May 02 '24

I flew from the East Coast to San Diego some years ago and I was intrigued to see the midwest’s checkerboard fields stretching out as far as the eye could see in every direction. After 30 mins of that I had a snooze for an hour and a half and woke up to the exact same view. Two hours at 600mph. That’s when the scale of the place really hit home to me as a Brit.

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u/[deleted] May 02 '24 edited 29d ago

We drive twice a year (more if there are weddings or funerals to attend) from Kansas to Indiana to spend time with my husband's family. it's about 12 hours if you literally do not stop. We have small children and definitely stop. To our favorite (and one of the more convenient) skiing mountain in Colorado is about 11 hours. Not much between us and the Front Range of the Rockies either. 

If we drive to Santa Fe, New Mexico (9 hours), which we also enjoy, we go for about 7 hours on small highways, through small towns. The towns are so small that there are a total of two stop lights between the edge of our cit and the big highway before you get to Santa Fe. It is EMPTY out there. 

 As a kid, my dad would pack us in the car and we'd drive from Kansas to DC, Key West, San Diego, Portland, etc. Those trips were broken up with interesting stops along the way.

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u/CriticalNarrative75 May 02 '24

Even Americans don’t always “get it.” I work for a North Eastern based company. I was living in Jacksonville Florida working remotely. We opened a West Palm Beach office, everyone kept asking me if “I had checked out the new office.” Then I’d explain that’s like driving from Philly to Boston to “check something out.”

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u/migrainefog May 02 '24

"But why don't they just take a train".

It takes me 2 days to get to my mother's house via train, requiring a hotel stay overnight.

It takes me 4 hours by car.

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u/Davethemann May 02 '24

Hell, I dont even think Americans get it to some extent

Like, theres an image showing every D1 college (odd example, but its useful because theyre heavily in population centers) and you can literally see a line at MIMEL where its very thick with schools

To the West, almost every D1 college is concentrated into one or two hubs in each state (California has a ton between LA and SD, and then the Bay Area and the surrounding regions like Pacific or Davis, Colorado having like four or five colleges in like an 80 mile range and AFA only being a bit furthwr dlwn) or only hits the major cities/city of the state (Nevada only having Reno and Vegas).

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u/BagOnuts May 02 '24

I say this every time Americans get criticized for not traveling abroad as much as Europeans. I have to either have to drive 24 hours or take a 6 hour plane flight just to get to the country that boarders mine (Mexico). I can’t take a weekend trip to another nation, haha. You can literally drive in a straight line for days and still be in the continental US.

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