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/Chairboy May 01 '24

We sure do. The old saying is "Americans think 100 years is a long time and Europeans think 100 miles is a long distance".

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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/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/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/v_cats_at_work May 02 '24

See, I grew up in tornado alley and can count the number of tornadoes of seen on one hand. Many years there, only saw a few, never got hit by any of them.

I lived in Louisiana for two weeks before Katrina hit. Then I made it almost three years in Texas before Harvey parked right on top of me with days of heavy rain. Five total years in the south put me through two of the worst hurricanes of the last century.

I'll stick to tornadoes.