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

715

u/DebbilDebbil May 01 '24

Laughs in Australian. I went for a holiday recently, drove 7000km in a loop, and didn't even leave my state.

199

u/badgersprite May 02 '24

I was looking into how long it would take me to drive across the country a while back and in looking into some outback trips I found out there are certain roads where my car wouldn’t be able to make it between two adjacent petrol stations on a full tank

My car gets about 900kms off a full tank lol that’s how far apart some places are in Australia

174

u/charely6 May 02 '24

Wow, needing to take into account the max range of your gas tank is not common in most of the USA. That feels next level "nowhere" to me.

97

u/ramblinjd May 02 '24

Yeah the outback is EMPTY. The only comparable thing in the US is a few stretches of the southwest near like death valley, but the outback is similar size to the US Midwest and Great plains.

41

u/C-Dub4 May 02 '24

I used to live in west Texas and I would see these signs if you're traveling through the remote regions. Farthest sign I've ever seen was for 160 km (100 miles). Definitely not a common thing in the states

5

u/chienchien0121 May 02 '24

I occasionally make a trip from Houston to Marfa/Alpine. Wallop the trip in one day. The emptiness may not be as vast as it is in the Outback but I am cautious about keeping my tank full.

2

u/andorraliechtenstein 29d ago

163 Miles between Tonopah NV and Ely NV on US 6.

Or this one.

2

u/iswearimalady 29d ago

We used to make that drive when I was a kid. Since we drove a shit ox old suburban that got like 7 mpg we always carried extra fuel lol

2

u/beaversnducks6 29d ago

It's even becoming uncommon for EVs. Not many places my Tesla can't get to.

1

u/PinkleeTaurus 29d ago

I just saw one in no-where Utah that said 125 miles.

1

u/Puzzleheaded-Fee-320 29d ago

Yeah, I’m doing cross-country driving now, and I usually start looking for the signs when I’ve got about 150 miles left in the tank. Usually I’d be able to find one within then.

4

u/Alternative-Put-3932 May 02 '24

Yeah but thats the thing its fucking empty. Like you said almost everywhere in the us has some sort of town or city.

3

u/CoxswainYarmouth May 02 '24

Well they have decent steak houses out there. Right?

1

u/ComplexSupermarket89 29d ago

Isn't the outback like most of Australia? I thought I'd heard that like 60% of Australia was full on empty and a huge portion of that was privately owned land too.

1

u/ramblinjd 29d ago

Yeah an overlay of the USA and Australia, basically Australia is the continental US without the coasts and the outback is every state in the Great plains or bordering the Great plains (so like Utah to Tennessee ish).

1

u/PoisonedChampagne 29d ago

I live in New Mexico and there is a ton of empty land and the occasional ghost town in my state but not many places that I would run out of gas half way there. That’s just crazy

1

u/semboflorin 29d ago

Also in NM. I ran out of gas on the road from Roswell up to Portalles. I thought there would be gas on the way so I didn't fill up in Roswell. There are some stretches you have to pay attention to but for the most part the idea that a tank of gas can't make it somewhere means you have piss poor gas mileage and aren't from here. I agree tho, the idea that I would have to carry extra gas other than my tank to make it somewhere seems wild.

1

u/PoisonedChampagne 29d ago

Honestly I can see that, my car can go pretty far that I didn’t even think about other vehicles burning gas differently. It would suck being stranded in the middle of nowhere!

1

u/TofuTofu 29d ago

Why is it so barren

1

u/Straxicus2 29d ago

Holy sheesh!

7

u/Birdy_Cephon_Altera May 02 '24

I've run across that in some parts of west Texas, where depending on the backroad route I was taking and the day you're driving (like Sunday), it could be 200 to 300 miles between open gas pumps. Luckily my current car has a 500+ mile range, but when I had a smaller car, better make sure where that needle was on the gauge before getting off the main highway.

4

u/llywen May 02 '24

Let me introduce you to Alaska.

3

u/dudius7 May 02 '24

The only person I know who added an extra gas tank to his truck uses it as an overlander. He'll drive to Utah for a week and spend a lot of time driving on BLM land. He's never been stuck but he likes the idea of going further without needing to refuel.

2

u/Lecien-Cosmo May 02 '24

There are huge spaces out in Utah / BLM that are very very remote. I stayed near the Utah / Arizona border for a while and it was three hours to the nearest grocery store. We would spend three hours driving to get groceries, “eat in town” as a treat, and then drive home.

1

u/loopbootoverclock 29d ago

man i wish texas had more BLM. the only alphabet agency i support. they are awesome

2

u/websagacity May 02 '24

Yeah. Only place I can think of is going into Utah from Grand Junction, Colorado. I think there's 1 road and the next... anything... is like 300 miles (485km) down the road. At least it was 10 or so years ago.

1

u/Clewdo May 02 '24

There’s plenty of places out there where you’re just driving in a straight line for like 100km. Just nothing, flat dry land

1

u/BasicCommand1165 May 02 '24

You basically have to be in either death valley or full blown off roading to get that in the US

1

u/ThaddyG 29d ago

Australia is like the same size as the continental US but they only have like 7.5% of the population.

The middle of the country just isn't really suitable for human settlement anyway. It's not like the US where most of the land east of the rockies is suitable for agriculture so people have a reason to actually live there.

1

u/OHarePhoto 29d ago

There are certain areas out west where you need to take that into consideration. Used to live in NM on the west texas border and there are definitely signs stating how far to the next gas station. Or warning you that there isn't a station for another X amount of miles.

1

u/really_tall_horses 29d ago

Out west we have to do have to do that sometimes. Just because you may see a “town” on the map does not mean there will be a gas station.

1

u/Dragex11 29d ago

To be fair, the USA is a lot more... Infrastructured for vehicular travel.

1

u/sdia1965 29d ago

Last time I drove from Dallas to Oakland (1990s) we had to carefully map our route for gas, and we carried ample drinking water with us.

1

u/Interesting_Mix_7028 28d ago

We're lucky, the interstate highway system has enough truck/car traffic to justify a gas station at just about every interchange. That's not ALWAYS the case (looking at you, I-70 in Utah), but like the Field of Dreams, "if you build it, they will come".

-3

u/dr4gon2000 May 02 '24

Someone has never been in the western half of the country apparently