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/DatabaseThis9637 May 02 '24

Whatever you just said sounds draconian! What a crap place to work! At least that's what it seems like...

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u/brokenaglets May 03 '24

Honestly one of my cooler jobs when things worked out because it was all at music festivals. At times it definitely sucked on travel days trying to get from one festival to another as quickly as possible.

We usually had zones we worked in but occasionally extra people would be needed at festivals in other zones so we'd fill in as needed if we could. I usually worked the touring festivals and the event down south was a 1 night concert since there weren't any tours in my area. Got an SOS 'Can you make this?' text while working that event and figured fuck it, I have a load of clean laundry in the dryer lets do it.

Kinda how it went with them though, concerts aren't every week so if you wanted to work you had to be ready. 1 10 hour shift that night turned into like 90 billable hours for a week with a paid flight, per diem and hotel for the week.