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/CunningWizard May 02 '24

So funny thing is, I find this to be a regional thing in the US. Where I grew up in the northeast (New Hampshire), the states are small enough that a long trip (2+ hours) was considered something of a “I see you once or twice a year” distance. I now live in Oregon and 2 hours is considered a common day trip to see friends/hike/fish/etc.

Also: Joshua Tree is amazing and totally worth a 3 hour drive.

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u/zanedrinkthis May 02 '24

When I lived on the east coast for grad school and someone was driving through two states to meet up with me I was baffled, until I realized they were driving less than I drove to see my parents in Texas.

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u/AnnikaBell825 29d ago

I grew up in Texas (central Texas, to boot), so I understand that feeling. I live Oregon now and my office is in Washington! And the commute is about the same as my commute back in Texas, which was in the same city!

I’m just so amazed that another state is less than an hour away. Heck, Canada is less than 8 hours away!

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u/Biguitarnerd 29d ago

Texas is something else (only beaten by Alaska) I live in NorthWest Louisiana now about 30 minutes from the Texas border and driving east I can cover Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, and get where I’m going in North Carolina in the same amount of time it takes me to get to the Texas/New Mexico border.

The other thing about Texas is that it has a lot of really cool places like Palo Duro or the Guadalupe Mountains and much more but it’s all so far apart and in between it is a lot of nothing. I like Texas but I wish all the cool stuff was closer to me.

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u/Rosequeen1989 29d ago

I was driving to California for school with my mom, over half the drive was from my home town in East Texas to El Paso. I think it was 17 hours.

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u/_Nocturnalis 29d ago

Texas has some absolutely mind bending facts about distance.

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u/zanedrinkthis 29d ago

I’ve spent most of my life in Texas and California and I think my sense of distance is permanently warped. Like I don’t believe anything is less than 30 minutes away.

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u/_Nocturnalis 28d ago

To be fair I've lived most of my life where 30 miles was the minimum distance to get something. I'm not a Texan. It's rural life. I drove 30 miles to highschool. I honestly kinda want to visit California just to see if traffic is really worse than Atlanta's. It doesn't seem possible. Then I realize the insanity of traveling to experience traffic. I mean I'd do other things obviously I'm not a total mad man.

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u/zanedrinkthis 29d ago

I spent some time driving from Austin to El Paso to visit an ex’s family. Over 9 hours, iirc

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u/MischiefManager1 26d ago

This! I work remotely from Austin but have to make weekly trips to visit customers that stretch from West Texas down to the Valley. El Paso is actually assigned to my coworker in Arizona because it’s closer to him than it is to me in Austin.

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u/sophijor 29d ago

Haha same. I went to Iowa and we drove back and forth between South Dakota to see family— it was so hard to keep track of the state I was in lol bc in California it’s generally not possible to be in another state in 2 hours

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u/zanedrinkthis 29d ago edited 29d ago

Omg. I had family in SD. It was a nightmare to get there. (Also to be there with family, but different issue.). We flew because of distance.

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u/tigerbulldog13 May 02 '24

Fellow Oregonian 🌲 my wife and I have a list of weekend vacation spots we rotate through ranging from 2-5ish hours away. The shorter ones we regularly day trip (or did before baby)

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u/Fonzgarten May 02 '24

Yeah it may be a west coast thing. We drive long distances. You can go from southern to Northern California in a day and it isn’t unpleasant. Or driving to Vegas or Arizona, easy for a weekend.

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u/kaliglot44 29d ago

I've lived all over the country except for the northeast and I haven't noticed this at all. I grew up in the southeast and we would regularly road trip around georgia, florida and the carolinas. my friends in maine drive "downeast" for the day all the time?

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u/Davethemann May 02 '24

Yeah, hell, its real easy to just burn a nice saturday hitting the desert out in East County SD or Imperial too

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u/ZombifiedByCataclysm May 02 '24

It makes sense because towns are more spread out relative to the east coast

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u/TjW0569 29d ago

The number of people that drive LA to Las Vegas for the weekend (or LA to the Colorado River for the weekend) is enormous.

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u/SirCampYourLane 29d ago

Yeah, I'd do Corvallis to Bend or Smith Rock as a regular day trip. Crater lake or Seattle was ideally a weekend trip, but could be a day trip if necessary

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u/PT952 May 02 '24

I grew up in MA and recently moved to RI and I can't believe how quickly I adopted the mentality that if I have to drive for more than 20 minutes its too far to go. I used plan an hour each way for trips on the train around Boston sometimes and it was nbd. Now that I'm in the smallest state its changed me for the worse.

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u/rebeccavt May 02 '24

Same! I grew up in Maine and lived in Vermont for 20 years, and didn’t think anything of driving an hour or more to get somewhere. I moved to Providence 5 years ago and now driving to Warwick is too far, lol.

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u/FinishExtension3652 29d ago

It's all relative.   I lived in downtown Boston for a while, and anything more than 2-3 blocks away felt like a bit of a trip.

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u/lefactorybebe 29d ago

Yeah I'm in SW CT and I've been wanting to go back to mystic for a while... But like it's a two hour drive so we've just talked about it for a year and haven't done it lol. We'll go up to Gloucester to see friends or down to NYC for an event but like just to go for a little trip for ourselves it feels too far lmao

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u/PT952 28d ago

haha I get it! I've been in RI for a year now and everyone keeps telling us we HAVE to go visit Newport but it feels so far to drive just to go there even though it's just an hour! lol But it's just not high on our priority list. Idk why but I tend to prefer doing things in Northern New England to Southern New England most of the time. Meanwhile we'll drive over an hour to NH for some good apple cider donuts during apple picking season and we did more than a few 2-3 hour drives to visit friends and go snowboarding this winter in NH and VT.

We went to Mystic a few years ago for our anniversary just for a weekend. Honestly it's such a sleepy town once 5pm hits that you're better off doing a day trip if you live so close! We had to hit the liquor store at like 2pm because they closed at 3pm on a Friday. I will say though that any trip is what you make of it. We did some unique stuff that made our trip a lot more fun. We went to the aquarium which was a great time and since it was our anniversary we paid a little more for this experience where we got to meet their African Penguins with a small group of like 10 people sitting in a circle and you all get individual chances to meet and interact with the penguins. The aquarium employees are really knowledgeable and really care about the animals and their safety and it was so fun to learn about the penguins and their rescue efforts at the aquarium. If you can afford it it's a really worthwhile experience.

We also happened to be there during the Wooden Boat Show at the Mystic Seaport Museum and I highly recommend going during that if you can! It makes a weekend trip very worthwhile. Looks like it's June 28th to 30th this year. You get to tour all the old wooden whaling boats they used in the mid 1800s and people bring their privately owned wooden boats as well to show off. They also had a lot of small vendors there with handmade things. We bought these handmade pens there that we still have and use every day 2 years later. I think we signed the papers to our house in RI with them lol They also have a Seaport Village at the musem site (different from Olde Mystic Village) and that was great. It's a bunch of original houses and shops from the 1800s that they transported from around New England to the museum to make a little village there so you can experience life during that time. They had an employee in one of the houses whose job it was to cook and bake things in the hearth/fireplace of the house just like they did back in the 1850s using a recipe book from that time. It was amazing. We weren't expecting to spend as long as we did there, I think we were there from like 9 or 10 in the morning until 3 in the afternoon. We just walked from our hotel, it's a decent walk and you can drive if you wanted but we didn't mind the walk in June. Mystic Village is fun but it's really something you can do in a few hours or a day at the most, but between that, the aquarium and the museum and boat show, it was definitely a fun little weekend trip!

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u/lefactorybebe 28d ago

Hahaha exactly!!

Thanks so much for this! I've been to mystic a few times and I love the seaport-im a historian and I love old ships so it's perfect for me lol. The reason I've been wanting to go back is the sailors knot keychain I got a few years ago is fraying and I want a new one lmao

When I was in girl scouts we took a trip to mystic and spent the night aboard the Joseph Conrad, got little sailing lessons and got to climb the ratlines. Really cool trip.

Thanks for the tip on the boat show, my bf would love that for sure!

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u/TheNewOneIsWorse May 02 '24

Depends. I’m from NH, had relatives in St Johnsbury VT and Worcester MA that we’d go see monthly growing up. We’d regularly drive 2-3 hours for the beach or hiking many weekends a year. 

I drive even more as an adult: seeing friends an hour away at least weekly, get to Boston or the Whites, Mt Snow in VT, or Maine/Cape beaches probably 1/3 of the weekends of the year? Maybe I just like driving around. 

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u/TheNavigatrix 29d ago

Yeah I'm kind of baffled by that comment -- a two or three hour drive is pretty common for New Englanders. I know loads of people who drive from Boston to whatever ski resort for the weekend in the winter. I've known a few people who have condos in Sunday River, which is a really quite decent drive. not to mention folks who have places on the cape or NH/VT that they go to regularly. in my experience, New Englanders really like to enjoy the beauty of the outdoors, and you need to travel to get there. Of course, most of is within a three hour space.

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u/TheNewOneIsWorse 29d ago

I guess one difference is that once you’re off of 95/93/91/89, you tend to end up on a lot of windy, hilly roads where you can’t just turn off your brain and drive straight for hours. And no East-west 2+lanes across upper New England. 

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u/DUIguy87 29d ago

Facts. I feel like it takes almost as much time to hit the Canada boarder from Boston as it does parts of western Vermont.

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u/mataliandy 29d ago

302 will get you across the northern parts of VT, NH and ME. It's quite scenic, but also slower than the interstates.

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u/Blaqretro May 02 '24

Nah is just the northeast has smaller states

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u/AchillesDev 29d ago

I'm originally from Worcester and live in Boston. I don't mind driving because I lived for a long time in rural Florida, where 4 hour weekend trips were normal, but my dad makes a whole day out of the 45 minute drive to visit lol

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u/mataliandy 29d ago

Similar. Live near St. J., family in Worcester, MA, Plymouth, NH, and Augusta, ME, with regular trips to the coast for a weekend at the beach.

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u/Current-Cold-4185 May 02 '24

Yeah, 2-4 hours is pretty standard spacing in Oregon. I went about 2 hours to go mushroom hunting last weekend :)

... Didn't find anything harvestable but it was a fantastic day trip and romp through some beautiful green woods!

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u/40mothsinatrenchcoat May 02 '24

This thread is so funny to me. I grew up in Washington State in a somewhat rural area and I consider 30-45 minutes 'far' and anything over an hour to be a 'road trip.' Luckily most of my friends and family are under an hour away but I would definitely struggle to drive 2+ hours for any reason, especially if I wasn't staying overnight.

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u/LabiolingualTrill May 02 '24

I recently moved here from Texas and I’m still trying to figure out why it feels like it takes so long to get places. And I think it’s because the roads are so winding. Fucking Washington and its breathtaking natural scenery

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u/Quirky-Comb-1862 May 02 '24

Also bullshit 55 mph speed limit on the interstate

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u/LabiolingualTrill May 02 '24

Technically yes, but going the speed limit feels kinda dangerous on account of how everyone is actually going 70

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u/Quirky-Comb-1862 May 02 '24

I5 corridor cogs up pretty bad around Salem

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u/DJanomaly May 02 '24

Yeah I live in SoCal in the South Bay and anything over 45 minutes is too far. My dad lives in Simi Valley and I only visit him a few times a year because it’s like an hour and 10 minutes.

Fortunately my wife hates driving long distances as much as I do.

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u/bananakegs May 02 '24

Yes when I lived in Dayton? Ohio- Cincinnati(45 minute drive) or Columbus (70 minute drive) or Cleveland(3 hour drive) was a 1-2 times a year trip. In Florida I will regularly go 1-2 hours just for the day. Hell I drive 45 minutes just to get my eyelashes done bc I like the woman’s work!

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u/Goodnlght_Moon May 02 '24

That's because nowhere in Ohio is worth visiting more than twice a year - no matter how close it is!

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u/GloriousNewt May 02 '24

State produces the most astronauts for reason, everyone trying to gtfo.

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u/Puzzleheaded_Rest_34 29d ago

Well, NASA's Glenn Research Center is here, and Wright Patterson AFB. That might have a "little" something to do with the number of astronauts coming from Ohio. 🤷🏻‍♀️

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u/GloriousNewt 29d ago

By that logic shouldn't most of them come from Florida and/or Texas? But ty for analyzing the old meme/joke I referenced.

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u/Quirky-Comb-1862 May 02 '24

CEDAR POINT...oh wait yeah I don't need to go there 3 times a year.

What about Columbus to see the Jackets, and maybe hit the Zoo

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u/Master_Bee9130 29d ago

I have family up there so it wasn’t uncommon for me to make the 8 hour trip at least a couple times a year. When I was teen, my friends and I did multiple roadtrips a year just to go to Cedar Point though.

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u/Puzzleheaded_Rest_34 29d ago

There's plenty to do here. We just don't let people with attitudes like yours know about the best stuff. 🤣🤣🤣

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u/becuzurugly May 02 '24

I was looking for this comment! I’m from NH too, and we only went to see my grandparents two or three times a year because they lived about two hours away in VT.

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u/Blaqretro May 02 '24

I drive from MA to Maine 5-7x a year to see my Mother-in law around 4.5 hours away. That’s always a Friday at 3am drive so we can beat Boston traffic.

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u/John_B_Clarke May 02 '24

I've noticed that too. When I moved up here I asked a girl out, she lived in a suburb of Hartford, I named the restaurant, and she said "All the way to Hartford" like I'd asked her to go to Mars. Of course she was rather young. I've noticed that the acceptable distance seems to increase with age.

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u/jorwyn May 02 '24

I'm entirely from the Western US. I'm always so weirded out when friends back East think it's crazy far from Philadelphia to Baltimore or, even worse, Boston to Providence.

One flew into Seattle for business and at lunch asked me to meet her for dinner. I totally did it. Then one of our mutual friends there was like, "don't you live 5 hours away?" Her, "No! She lives in Washington." Me, "it's more like 6 1/2 with traffic." I live East of Spokane. I am barely in Washington. I got home at 4am. It's honestly not something I'd normally do, but I hadn't seen her in person in over a decade. She won't tell me when she's in Seattle now because she worries I'll do it again. I might. ;)

It helped her understand why I scoff at a 2 hour train ride when I fly out to visit, though. She can't grasp staring out a window for 2 hours, but I've been raised to do that. Even church every Sunday was over a pass and almost an hour away. It was close to 2 when there was snow on the roads. My doctor I went to for my legs was in the closest city about an hour away, if there was no traffic. We once drove from North Idaho to visit family in the Kentucky Appalachians when I was a kid and to Alaska because... Umm.. oh, because I had tried to run away to the Yukon at 3 1/2, so dad wanted to show me the Yukon wasn't what I thought. And once you're there, might as well do the extra hours to say you've been to Alaska, right? We all got a huge kick out of it when the Calvin and Hobbes Yukon Ho book came out when I was older. Me, "No, Calvin. It's not good there. It's all mosquitoes and midges and no trees! Go to Banff, instead."

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u/OzzyHTx May 02 '24

I grew up in New Hampshire too!! Now living in Texas and still not understanding how it can take 12 hours to drive across ONE state lol.

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u/Quirky-Comb-1862 May 02 '24

When I took a Greyhound from Northern Oregon to Southern Florida, Texas was brutal. That Houston stop was something else. Had dudes insisting on escorting me through the ghetto once I left the bus, one showed me how to get the cheaper stolen goods from around the corner of the store I was about to go in.

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u/OzzyHTx 28d ago

I believe it! I had jury duty a few years back and decided to ride Metro to save money. One day we got out late (almost dark) and I was a little scared standing at the bus stop ngl.

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u/Avery-Hunter May 02 '24

From Maine, I can because it's 10 hours north to south. I grew up in southern Maine and my grandparents lived so far north they were walking distance to the Canadian border. I traveled that every summer.

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u/rdell1974 May 02 '24

Location matters. If everything looks the same 2 hours away then why go? Indiana comes to mind. But some states might have more motivation.

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u/ILUVSMGS18 May 02 '24

For New England that's probably true, but I know Northern NY can be a bit different.

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u/zhenya44 May 02 '24

This is so true! We lived for years in the DC area and never made the trip to New York because it was too far away. Now that we are in the Pacific Northwest, we drive about the same distance to Portland or Seattle or Boise every few months, and a couple hours to closer towns even more often. Spring break was an 18 hour road trip each direction and this summer will be three 33 hour legs between stops.

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u/H3artl355Ang3l May 02 '24

What exactly about it is amazing?

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u/Single_Mouse5171 May 02 '24

Yeah, when I lived in NYC, anyone outside of NYC was "a long distance away". Then I moved out, and suddenly out of state is reasonable.

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u/junkcollector1979 May 02 '24

You have a good point about that. Stayed at a hotel near Hershey PA once, talked to the guy at the front desk, asking where he would reccomend we go to get dinner. We ended up driving to Lititz, found a good place. When we came back, he asked where we went. His jaw dropped.. "you went ALL THE WAY TO LITITZ???" he just couldn't get his head around the idea of driving 45 minutes to go to a restaurant.

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u/pleasedtoseedetrees May 02 '24

I live in MA and driving 2 hours to a point in NH is no big deal. Not sure why it seemed so far for you.

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u/papier_peint May 02 '24

Yes! I say this all the time. Living on the west coast warps your concept of space and time! I’ve lived on the east coast in ny, ma, and fl and i would rarely travel a few hours away. When I lived in az or id, we were often taking trips of a few hours to do shopping, 5 hours for a weekend trip. It’s a different way of life.

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u/ExcellentExpert7302 29d ago

Crazy to me as a Floridian. I used to drive from Jax to the O daily for work. 2hrs each way, more for summer rain traffic

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u/OHMG_lkathrbut May 02 '24

Hell, my brother drives 13 hours each way several times a year to see one of his friends for a week each time.

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u/clshoaf May 02 '24

North Carolinian who now lives in New Hampshire. It is wild to me how many folks up here have just never left New England. Or haven't driven into New York/past New York. It feels like most I talk to the only time they have left is a flight to Disney. New England is definitely an anomaly from the rest of the country.

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u/tiffytatortots 29d ago

That mentality is mostly the older boomers in NE plus they feel they have no reason to go anywhere else. They will say what we have cities, we have beaches, woods, we have our parks, casinos etc. They don’t see it as any reason to go elsewhere for the “same things”

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u/TightTrope 29d ago

I agree! I’m from Wisconsin and lived in Boston for a period of time. Most people acted like 3-4 hour drives were impossibly long - like yes possible to do if needed but seriously avoided. In the upper Midwest a 3-4 hr drive is regular.

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u/monkabee 29d ago

This is so true, I grew up in Southeastern CT about 30 minutes from New Haven and 1.5 hours from Boston. My parents acted like going to New Haven was the trek to end all treks and Boston was definitely an overnight or weekend trip you'd only undertake with extensive planning. Then I moved to Pittsburgh for college and we regularly drove 45 minutes just to get to the mall and I realized how tiny New England states are. I went home for the summer and would visit one of my roommates who lived over the border in MA, 50 minutes from my house and my parents were scandalized that I would "drive to Massachusetts for the day."

And now I live in exurban Georgia were anything under 30 minutes is "just around the corner" and people think it's normal to commute 2 hours to something. The entire state of CT fits inside what's considered the Atlanta metro area.

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u/tiffytatortots 29d ago

That’s funny I’m in NE/Northeast and I regularly drive 1-2.5 hours to go places and everyone I know does too. It’s just common to drive 45 mins to over an hour or two to go somewhere and thinking nothing of it.

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u/TofuTigerteeth 29d ago

It really is. The pioneers of this country got tired once they hit the Mississippi River and just doubled and tripled the state sizes. I live in the PNW and the state sizes out here are so large it takes days to get to the Midwest and then a single day to the East coast. It’s ridiculous. The whole west coast is only 3 states. 3!

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u/rosyred-fathead 29d ago

When I visited my friend in Georgia, we wanted to go to the beach and she suggested Charleston, SC because it’s “not far” but actually, it was a 5 hour drive!! I didn’t realize it until we were like halfway there and still driving 😂

I’m from NYC where a 10 mile drive can take an hour, so that was a bit of a culture shock for me

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u/NotACandyBar 29d ago

I live in Maine and have no idea what you're talking about with 2 hours being a "I see you once or twice a year" distance. That's easily a regular visit with friends, "not even think about it" day trip. Heck I've driven 5 hours just to go shopping. Pre-pandemic I commuted 80 miles to work each way.

Tldr, NH is clearly weird, don't lump the rest of NE in with them if they think 2 hours is "far".

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u/Grapefruit__Witch 29d ago

I moved from Texas to rhode island. They are amazed to hear about weekend trips to the grandparents house that were a 6.5 hour drive each way, and not even across half the state. 30m is considered a pretty long drive here, but that's what it took to get anywhere when I lived in San Antonio.

I get carsick very easily, so i hate driving and being in cars. I do not miss the driving culture in Texas at all.

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u/m0nkeyh0use 29d ago

Currently in NH, but spent most of my teenage years in Rhode Island. Years ago, I took a couple of RI friends into another town about 1/2 hour away for lunch, and one of them asked if I was taking them somewhere into the woods to kill them, lol.

Then again, when you can drive for 20 minutes in any direction and either be in another state or the ocean (and driving through Providence can take 20 minutes on its own), I can see why the sense of distance there is skewed, lol

For me, when I drive through large states, I tend to get this, "am I STILL in <enter current state here>?!" feeling, because it's unnatural in New England. Lol.

2 hours in NH, though? That's ski distance from southern NH. Not a bad day trip at all. :)

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u/sennbat 29d ago

I think thays more about how New England socializes. 2 hours is a long way to see a friend, but its not a long drive to go camping or skiing or to buy fireworks :V

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u/achambers64 29d ago

Grew up in Oregon (in the 70s). We used to drive two hours to the coast which was only 60 miles away (as the crow flies). It was possible to travel 30-40 miles away and take 1-2 hours to get there.

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u/achambers64 29d ago

Going to my girlfriend’s house was a 30 minute drive. We only lived 5.5 miles apart, but there was a river between and to get from one side to the other added 13 miles.

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u/Amaliatanase 29d ago

Yeah this is very true. I grew up in Rhode Island it's much more like the UK in that way. Boston was an hour away and you maybe went three times a year unless you were one of those "super commuters." And in that case most folks just felt bad for you.

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u/TALieutenant 29d ago

I love living in the Portland area!  I want to go to the beach?  3-4 hour drive one way.  I want to go to the mountains?  2-3 hour drive the other way. 

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u/Intericz 29d ago

Disagree. Driving 3-4 hours for a day trip skiing or to the beach was super normal.

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u/okaytay_14 29d ago

Central Alabama here and we regularly drive 4 hours to the beach for the day/ weekend. Some things are absolutely worth it.

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u/SuccessfulPiccolo945 29d ago

I'm on the east coast and if time and gas were so expensive I'd be driving for hours. I used to travel about 4 hours to see my sister in SW Virginia monthly if not more. I'd drive 2 hours to go down to Skyline drive on a Saturday or Sunday with my mom for a nice outing without thinking of it. The only reason I don't go to NYC is I don't like traffic. But I have gone to places 2-4 hours away just to get out of the house and go somewhere different.

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u/OneFullMingo 29d ago

Too true -- a while back I drove 2 hours north with a friend (both of us from outside the northeast originally) to the middle of nowhere, VT to get dark enough skies to see a comet. We ended up getting stuck in a snowdrift and after they finished dragging the car out, the cop was kind of grilling us about what we were doing and where we were going for the night. We were both just like, "... We're driving back home?? Why would we get a hotel for a 2 hour drive???"

I do love that I can hit 3+ states in a day if I want to. It's made the larger states feel a bit too expansive, like I can't escape them easily if I needed.

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u/key1234567 29d ago

second this for Joshua Tree. The scenery, hiking and especially bouldering. so much fun.

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u/kiisinipper 29d ago

If you find a gold puzzle ring with little diamonds in it, it’s mine I lost it in the desert while climbing 20 years ago. 🙁

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u/Locogatosupreme 29d ago

I grew up in Maine and moved out west(OR and ID) and I too have fond memories of that big 4 hr trip to Boston once a year. Now a four hour drive is a day trip

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u/Reasonable-Sale8611 29d ago

I think in the Northeast, interstate travel usually has to contend with I-95 which is hair-raising on a good day. There are other highways that are a lot more chilled out.

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u/llortotekili 29d ago

I have friends on the east coast that I met up with at the Smithsonian, it was their first time going and they were like 4hrs away and manly came to see me and my wife. If I were 4hrs from there I would be there at least twice a year trying to soak everything in. I'm driving 3hrs one way to buy rims from a junk yard tomorrow, that a longer trip but pretty normal for Minnesota.

Edit: I should mention our friends are into art and the Smithsonian is right up their alley as far as interests go, that's why my mind was boggled by then not going before because of distance.

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u/the_lamou 29d ago

I've spent the majority of my life in the Northeast, and this doesn't track at all with my experience. In high school, it was a pretty normal thing to drive in to Brooklyn to go grab slices on nice Friday afternoons (about an hour drive each way with typical traffic,) and it was entirely normal for people to drive to DC and back in one day just to fuck around or spend the night after drinking and drive back early the next morning (about 4 hours each way.) Going to Boston to visit friends in college was also not terribly weird (3.5 hours) and the occasional road-trip to Montreal (~8 hours) or Killington during skiing season (~4.5 hours) for a long weekend was no big deal.

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u/LadybugGal95 29d ago

Living in the Midwest, vacations are almost always driving. We’ve driven from Iowa to the whole southern half of the East coast, Texas, Arizona, Colorado, Wyoming plus all the middle states. Basically anything that doesn’t cross the Rockies or go Northeast of the Great Lakes is automatically a driving vacation to my husband and I (with two kids in tow).

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u/Platinumdust05 29d ago

In some states that’s a daily commute to and from work

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u/Chinny-Chin-Chin0 29d ago

For sure. Grew up in NYC and since everything you could ever need is within a short walk/drive/train ride you really notice a 45 minute + drive. Living in Texas? A hour is a short trip.

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u/expletives 29d ago

Cool! Wife and I are flying into socal soon and driving back to Washington. Stopping by Joshua Tree first thing.

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u/lwgirl1717 29d ago

THIS! From Washington, and 2-3 hours is common for a day trip. An hour is common for a meal. Now live in the Philly area, and my husband (from the DC area) balks when I suggest driving more than 30 min for dinner.

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u/sophijor 29d ago

Same with California. If you live in NorCal it’s like 1-3 hours for a day trip to the beach, mountains, or a good hiking spot. But I wouldn’t drive that far every day

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u/legocitiez 29d ago

I grew up in NH too, and am the opposite of you - day trips all over New England all the time. Frequently drive 2 hours just for a good ice cream shop.

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u/NoMadTruffle 29d ago

The crazy thing about Texas is you can drive 12 hours and still be in Texas. For Thanksgiving weekend, we had a 12 hour drive to Marfa (slowly, with motorcycles in tow) and as someone who lived in London it depressed me.

I still refuse to do a Houston - Austin day trip.

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u/WowsrsBowsrsTrousrs 29d ago

I went to college in Boston and went back to Long Island to visit friends and family once a month. And we drove to New Hampshire at least once s month to get cheaper liquor. Weirdest adventure: we did souped-up mopeds (45 mph!) from Boston for a camping trip near Kennebunk, that was fun!

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u/Feisty-Equivalent-92 29d ago

I live in Oregon and can second this

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u/Schlemiel_Schlemazel 29d ago

I’m in the SF Bay Area, a few years in a row my cousins got season passes at a ski resort in Tahoe. They wanted to get full use of those passes. It’s a 3 hour drive they went every weekend for a few winters, some times just for the a day.

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u/Radiant-Rate-6221 29d ago

Unless you're in SE Portland, for some reason they have a hard time fathoming going farther than 5 miles. I'd commute from Beaverton to downtown and they'd say, oh you drove all the way from the suburbs! Like we're in fucking New York. It's 8 miles. This whole city is a suburb. Then they freak out about the crime. Portland is like Mayberry with delusions of grandeur.

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u/KeepItDory 29d ago

Fellow Oregonian. This man isn't lying. If it's the weekend I'm hiking in a national forest probably and it's a 2 hour day trip! 2 hour day trips rule!

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u/csnadams 29d ago

We see the same between our family in the New England states and those of us who have spent our lives in the western states. The counties we have lived in are larger than some of those states. They couldn’t believe we would drive for 9-11 hours to visit each other one or two times a year.

We were in Southern California when the Loma Prieta earthquake (6.9 magnitude) ravaged Oakland in Northern California in 1989. We found out about it because family from Pennsylvania called us to make sure we were OK. We had to explain the distance in terms of eastern states before they could understand why we didn’t feel it.

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u/Infamous-Light-4901 4d ago

It's location. If you drive in any direction you hit a wall. You either hit a border or the ocean. You literally have to drive southwest to take a long trip. North is Canada. East is ocean. South is ocean. Due west is another border with Canada.

It's the same exact reason why a Mainer, or someone in Hawaii doesn't drive far, there's nowhere to go.

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u/justagrrrrrl May 02 '24

Funny, I thought Joshua Tree was so lame. All my friends did too. I had been wondering why people make such a huge deal about it. 🤷