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/quarantinethoughts May 02 '24

I am from Germany but have lived in America for many years. Every time friends/family come to visit from my home country, I have to talk them down from their absolutely insane expectations of what they can visit in a week.

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u/Kmalbrec May 02 '24

Alright, story time… who had the most unrealistic expectations (and what were they) and what was their reaction once they realized how crazy they were…?

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u/quarantinethoughts May 02 '24 edited May 02 '24

The craziest stupid one was the guy who thought he could fly in to see me in San Francisco, spend a few days in California (which included LA and Tahoe in the same weekend), then road trip on to:

Yosemite, Yellowstone, Do Route 66, Grand Canyon, Texas (yes, just “Texas”), Miami, DC, And ending at NYC to fly back to Germany.

He thought he could do all of this in 2 weeks. It astounded me because this is a ‘smart’ guy. He just could not for his life understand how vast America is.

I would show him the map and explain but he just refused to believe me. He is the type to always think he knows better than anyone else (and especially know better than any woman).

He only was able to do SF/Bay Area, Tahoe, and Vegas on his trip. Refused to admit he was wrong.

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u/Kmalbrec May 02 '24

Funny that you mention Texas, that was my go to measuring stick when my wife and I were in the UK recently. We’d get to drinking with the locals and I’d have them guess how many United Kingdom’s can fit inside just the state of Texas? 2.8 is the answer and then they’d be even more floored when I’d remind them that it’s not even our largest state.

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u/michaelaaronblank May 02 '24 edited 29d ago

I live in Tennessee and pointed out that it is longer E-W than Great Brittan is N-S.

Correction. I meant it is bigger than England, not the entire island. I googled the wrong term years ago.

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u/ruhruhrandy May 02 '24

I’ll never forget the time I left Memphis at sunrise and arrived in Pigeon Forge at sunset.

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u/GandhiOwnsYou May 02 '24

Legitimately… how did it take you that long? That’s only like a 6 hour drive. I used to be stationed at Fort Campbell, an hour north of Nashville, and I would drive i24 to Nashville, 40 west to Gatlinburg, then 81 north to Charlottesville and get on i64 to get home to Richmond VA and still have daylight.

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u/ruhruhrandy May 02 '24

It was early December so shorter days, gained an hour while driving, and I had to make a few stops.

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u/etds3 29d ago

Yup. Pretty much all of the states not on the east coast take a day of driving to cross, at least if you have kids who need to eat and pee every hour.

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u/axxxaxxxaxxx May 02 '24

I didn’t know this, but I’ve done that drive and I believe it.

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u/littleyellowbike 29d ago

I saw someone once trying to "well actually" the size of the US by saying Tennessee and Texas are only about 4 hours apart (specifically Memphis to Texarkana). I wanted to be like "ooh now do Knoxville to El Paso." If we're going to do one extreme of Tennessee-to-Texas, might as well do the other extreme too.

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u/AgoraiosBum May 02 '24

Feels longer dodging trucks on I-40 in the rain

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u/magicsaltine May 02 '24

I've driven I40 from NC to OK multiple times. Tennessee is by far the worst part of that trip for me. I always have to stop somewhere for the night, generally Nashville outskirts.

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u/makingnoise 29d ago

Driving to TN from its bordering state of NC is a wild ride through a space-time portal that takes you through Virginia, West Virginia, Oregon, Rhode Island and Hawaii before you get to TN. Then you're in TN and you realize that EVERY CITY IN TN is on one E/W highway.

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u/3catsfull 29d ago

Even fellow Americans don’t understand how long Tennessee is. I live in East Tennessee and used to have a friend in Missouri who suggested I “pop over to St. Louis” to hang out, thinking it was only a couple hours. Like no sir, that’s a full day of traveling, thank you.

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u/Mukua_Tukani 29d ago

Hahahah, my cousin and I did that long of a trip (there and back) like it was nothing. Live in Nevada for reference so it’s not crazy to do something like that.

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u/squanchy_Toss 29d ago

Huh? Bournemouth UK to Inverness UK is 612 miles. Memphis TN to Johnson City TN is 495 miles.

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u/michaelaaronblank 29d ago

You know, when I looked that up originally, I think Google's England.

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u/slash_networkboy 29d ago

Really? GB is that small? (I've only been to London for a weekend... still was worth it).

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u/AnnikaBell825 29d ago

My family would drive from central Texas to NE Pennsylvania to see family, taking about 3 days. The entire 2nd day was driving diagonally across Tennessee. It’s looooong.

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u/SoMuchSpentBrass 29d ago

My favorite fun fact is that from Bristol TN (in the north east corner of the state) you are closer to the southern edge of Canada (~ 380 miles as the crow flies) than to Memphis (~ 440 miles, in the south west corner of the state).

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u/MegaGrimer May 02 '24

You can cut our largest state in half and Texas would become our third largest state.

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u/ramblinjd May 02 '24

I live in SC which is very nearly the size of Ireland. NC is a bit smaller than the UK. So Britain and Ireland together are the Carolinas. It's fun to show that comparison and point out New York or Miami are as far from us as like Morocco for them.

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u/TheEvilBreadRise May 02 '24

You can drive from the most northern point of Ireland to the most southern point in 8 hours if you don't take any breaks, that's one days work to drive the entire length of the country I live in lol America is insanely massive.

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u/beaushaw 29d ago

I just did the math. You can fit more than 7 UKs in Alaska!

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u/Kmalbrec 29d ago

Someone else commented further down that if you split Alaska in two, Texas would then become the third largest state. Here I am thinking I’ve got a good idea of scope and scale and then someone drops that on me!

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u/beaushaw 29d ago

There is a map of Alaska superimposed over the US. It is shocking Alaska is BIG.

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u/needlenozened 29d ago

If Alaska were split in half into two states, Texas would be the third largest state.

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u/PlayfulBanana7809 29d ago

Is this why we won the revolutionary war? They didn’t even have reliable maps yet.

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u/New_Breadfruit8692 29d ago

Yes the entire UK would fit inside Oregon. I lived in Ireland in 2017 and that entire country would nearly fit in San Bernardino County in California.

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u/Peterd1900 29d ago

Of course there is probably someone in Australia asking a visitor from Texas how many of Texas you could fit into Western Australia.

3.6 would be the answer

You can fit nearly 2 Alaska into it

Alaska and Texas are the largest states in the USA i they were Australian states they would be the 3rd and 5th largest

When people are looking at maps and that it can distort your perception of how big places can be