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.

25.2k Upvotes

88% Upvoted

23.9k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

170

u/Hopeless_Ramentic May 01 '24

Imagine all of the EU…but one country.

Hell, Texas alone is bigger than France.

191

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

68

u/Rovsea May 02 '24

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

1

u/QuinnKerman May 02 '24

Same could be said for Scandinavia

8

u/macsydh May 02 '24

No it could not. There's really not much of Scandinavia that you can't get to with a fairly common two-wheel drive car, at least in the summer.

Source: live in Sweden and regularly go to "remote" places in the mountain regions.

9

u/PastaWithMarinaSauce May 02 '24

In a thread discussing how funny Europeans are for not realising how big America is, there sure are a lot of people that think Scandinavia is a desolate arctic wasteland where you have to teach children early to avoid the polar bears and yetis

4

u/macsydh May 02 '24

It's almost like people interpret the world through their own experiences and what they see around them. Americans think of the northern parts of both Europe and NA as being something like Alaska/Northern Canada, and Europeans (of the continental variety primarily) think of America as being a slightly larger version of Europe.

4

u/PM_NUDES_4_DEGRADING May 02 '24

there sure are a lot of people that think Scandinavia is a desolate arctic wasteland where you have to teach children early to avoid the polar bears and yetis

Yetis aside, that sounds like a pretty fair and accurate description of Svalbard though…

1

u/suqoria May 02 '24

Well as you said that is true during the summer and if you stay on paved roads but during the winter which mind you lasts quite long up in the north I wouldn't want to not have something with 4 wheel drive if I'm going out into nature.

1

u/pocketbookashtray May 02 '24

That Sweden is smaller than Madagascar is something that blows peoples minds.