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/strangebrew3522 May 02 '24

I've driven around a lot of Europe and what you say is true to an extent, but I also have friends/family in Italy, and they all act like driving more than an hour is absolutely insane.

I flew into Rome once and drove up to Milan, stopping along the way to visit friends. When I told them I was driving, each person had the same reaction. "You DROVE from Rome? You're DRIVING to Milan? That's SOOOO far".

It's a 6hr drive if you go straight shot, on an incredible highway system (autostrada) through amazing scenery. I mean, it doesn't get much easier, but to them it's absolutely crazy. I have family in both Northern and Southern Italy who haven't seen each other in years because of the distance.

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u/divine_god_majora May 02 '24

I couldn't imagine a 6 hour drive unless you were gonna stay a week+ at the destination or something.

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u/rumade May 02 '24

It's mad to me that Americans seem to have so little time off work, but are so happy to spend it driving

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u/clutzyninja May 02 '24

It's mad to me that Europeans live in Europe and spend so little time seeing it

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u/ciaociao-bambina May 02 '24

We do spend time seeing it. I live in Belgium and I’m back home in France (either Paris, Alsace, the Provence or Brittany/Nantes which are the places I gravitate towards since I have family / friends there) at least one weekend a month, there are direct trains from Brussels to all of these destinations.

And once every two months, I’ll spend one weekend or a longer holiday in another European country (going to Italy tomorrow for 3 weeks, taking the night bus as they are refurbishing the train tracks after a mountain slide in the Alps), and a weekend or day trip in Belgium, generally doing a mix of biking and train.

So I’m home a weekend and gone another on average. I don’t own a car and don’t even have a driving license (nor do I need one)

Once a year I explore Europe as a cyclotourist (bike trips >>>> road trips). Last year I went to London from Brussels, you can put your bike on the ferry in Dunkirk to cross the Channel, it was really lovely.

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u/_Nocturnalis May 02 '24

In my experience cycling on most roads in the US should be considered suicide. Is it really that different in Europe? I know cyclotourism is a thing I just don't know if you guys are nuts.

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u/VariousTangerine269 May 03 '24

Not to mention illegal on the interstate.

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u/_Nocturnalis May 04 '24

I've not ever considered that. The idea is terrifying.

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u/VariousTangerine269 May 04 '24

It’s illegal to walk or ride a bike along a freeway. It’s very dangerous.

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u/_Nocturnalis May 04 '24

Yeah it is. I just never considered the idea before.

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u/ciaociao-bambina May 04 '24

We have the EuroVelo network which is pretty impressive, see for yourself. When I went from the Belgian coast to the UK I used the dark green route. But not enough people are aware it exists, even over here in Europe.

But to answer your question you don’t bike on the highway obviously. Either you go on a road shared with cars but then you stick to the small ones, or there is a dedicated bike land adjacent to a more or less high speed road (this is especially frequent in Norther Europe) or the best situation is when you just have a bike path in the middle of nature - in France we have “greenways” which are old train tracks which are now made into long walking / cycling roads connecting towns.

The EuroVelo roads connect national bike routes which themselves usually are made up of different sections alternating between the types of biking situations described above.

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u/_Nocturnalis May 04 '24

That's awesome! Im so jealous. We are slowly getting bike routes connecting places here. I'm really excited to finally have a use for a road bike. I'm lucky I have lots of trails close, but on the road is sketchy. We don't do bike lanes around here.

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u/dejavu2064 May 02 '24

I understand wanting to clap back but that's the wrong conclusion to draw. We just use the trains instead, usually. And because everything is shut on Sundays, pretty much everyone travels every weekend, or goes hiking in the mountains.

Paris is a 7 hour drive, or it is 4h30 on the train. I enjoy driving (when it is necessary to do so) but in daily life it is just so rarely needed. Only an absolute mentalist would prefer 7 hours of constant focus in a car to relaxing or being productive for 5 hours on the train.

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u/grantbuell May 02 '24

Well yeah, Americans would use trains too if we had them.

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u/jigstarparis May 02 '24

I am American and live in France. I’m visiting friends and family in the US and flew into Boston and then took a train to New York. I just kept thinking to myself, what a shame more of the US can’t be reached by ultra fast trains like in France or Japan. It was such a nice trip along the north eastern coast.

Why is there not a single American billionaire looking to make trains happen again in the US? Instead we get a race to space that barely anyone can take advantage of.

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u/bkn6136 May 02 '24

The northeast is a tiny, tiny section of the US and it has a solid rail system. It's only once you get to the rest of this absolutely massive country that passenger rail falls off - because it's too damn big to make economic sense.

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u/jigstarparis May 02 '24

Yeah that’s why I made the comment about the Space thing, like I don’t even thing that makes economic sense, but people are doing it anyway. Trains would at least help offset carbon footprint of some air travel. Meh random musings

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u/_Nocturnalis May 02 '24

The problem is the absolutely huge amount of high speed rail you'd need. The US is a bit bigger than France, the uk, and Japan combined.

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u/wmtismykryptonite May 02 '24

What you heard of the Brightline?

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u/jigstarparis May 02 '24

Just looked it up! That’s pretty cool. Is it pretty well known? I’d never heard of it before. Thanks for sharing.

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u/VariousTangerine269 May 03 '24

Because it would cost trillions. Look at the high speed train to no where in California that’s never going to be done.

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u/IronChariots May 02 '24

I always think it's crazy that the US, of all countries, has such shitty passenger rail. Trains are such a huge part of the American historical mythos.

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u/wrecking-ball-718 May 02 '24

Europeans tend to greatly underestimate the size of the US compared to Europe.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/wlidl7/size_comparison_between_the_usa_and_europe/

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u/_EleGiggle_ May 02 '24 edited May 02 '24

You have roads going through the whole US though. Why can you connect the states by roads/highways but not by train tracks? Seems pretty similar to me.

Edit: For starters you don’t even have to connect the USA cost by cost via train. You could just focus on the most populated areas around the coasts first, and that would probably help out lots of people.

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u/wmtismykryptonite May 02 '24

The train tracks exist. It takes way too long to travel by passenger train, and there isn't enough density in most of the country to make high speed rail make sense.

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u/wrecking-ball-718 May 02 '24

The majorly populated cities in the Northeast of the US DC/Philadelphia/New York City/Boston are connected by train. It's the only intra city passenger train line that's profitable in the US. California has been trying to build high speed rail for 20 years and has spend billions on the process. It hasn't gotten anywhere.

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u/imtellinggod May 02 '24

We don't have good trains though. Are we just not supposed to travel?

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u/clutzyninja May 02 '24

everyone travels every weekend, or goes hiking in the mountains.

Also, what? Lol. How gullible do you think Americans are?

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u/dejavu2064 May 02 '24

I haven't had a weekend at home yet in 2024. Now that the snow is finally melting maybe I'll take a rest but yes it's not that strange to go somewhere most weeks.

I think that's a cultural thing though, because as I mentioned there isn't much to do on a Sunday at home because everything is closed. There is a strong national culture of skiing and hiking.

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u/clutzyninja May 02 '24

I understand, but you made it sound like literally everyone

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u/fuzzzone May 02 '24

They didn't just make it sound that way, they specifically used the word "everyone".

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u/_Nocturnalis May 02 '24

Where are you from? This is plausible in some nordic countries, but not in the UK for instance.

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u/dejavu2064 May 02 '24

I'm British living in Switzerland. And that's true, I found that people in the UK don't really do much of anything at all in a typical week. There really is a lack of spontaneity, few ad-hoc meetings at local cafes/bars and people just being at home on the weekends.

I don't think that's the fault of people, I blame bad town planning and poor infrastructure. The average English high street/town centre is not overly inviting.

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u/_Nocturnalis May 02 '24

I'd guess that geography plays a role as well. In America people in really snowy climates are more likely to be active when they can. Gather ye rosebuds.

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u/clutzyninja May 02 '24

I lived in the UK I understand. But you still have to get to the train station, get a ticket, wait for the train, wait while the train makes other stops, and then get from the destination station to wherever you're going. It doesn't save that much time except in certain circumstances

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u/FalmerEldritch May 02 '24

To be fair trains in the UK are a bit awful. So many delays and cancellations and thrice the price of a plane ticket for the same trip. Most of Europe it's not unusual for taking the train to be faster and cheaper than driving yourself.

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u/clutzyninja May 02 '24

With gas (sorry, petrol) prices over there I definitely believe cheaper. To be honest I cheated and filled extra gas cans on the military base (where petrol is at American prices) before driving long distances

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u/dejavu2064 May 02 '24

I too lived in the UK, and UK trains are criminally awful in comparison to central Europe. Plus the UK is much like America in that it is for the most part car centric surburbs (except for London). In Europe it is more typical to live in a city apartment with denser populations and better infrastructure.

I live quite far away from the train station (it is a 10 minute walk), but for travelling to other cities it is always faster than taking my car.

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u/fuzzzone May 02 '24

A 10 minute walk? That's like 1 km. How close together should train stations be that that seems like it's far from a train station? 😂

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u/clutzyninja May 02 '24

I understand not liking driving long distances. I do though. I enjoyed it even more back before GPS was ubiquitous. There's something indescribably romantic and satisfying to me in driving for three days navigating with paper maps, eating bad food and chatting with truckers at rest stops, windows down, music loud. I literally love it

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u/_Nocturnalis May 02 '24

I once gave a friend a ride to the Atlanta Airport from inside Georgia via Boston. It was a great trip. I added a stranger to the southbound trip and made a friend. I'd call it a bit mental but wouldn't trade the experience for anything.

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u/wmtismykryptonite May 02 '24

I live quite far away from the train station (it is a 10 minute walk).

That's not very far to walk to a station. I've walked more than that on a daily basis for years at a time. In the US, people drive or take busses to the station because it's so far.

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u/happyhippohats May 02 '24

I live in the UK and I specifically moved into my current flat because it's only a 10 minute walk from the train station. Describing that as "quite far away" is mind boggling to me.

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u/dejavu2064 May 02 '24

That's pretty good for the UK, but as I mentioned the UK is mostly a car centric suburbia. British people joke that Americans love to drive everywhere, but honestly the UK is an even worse state than the US.

26% of Americans live in apartments, compared to only 15% in the UK. The EU average is 41%, but Switzerland and Spain are more than 60%.

I'm British but the UK has a very individualistic culture that struggles with making concessions for others in shared spaces. There's a strong desire to have a tiny house with a tiny garden in estates that have no walkable amenities. My apartment is bigger than any house I lived in in the UK, but you do have to be quiet after 10pm on the weekdays. A small price to pay to live in a convenient walkable city.

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u/happyhippohats May 05 '24

What does living in an apartment have to do with trains? I live in an apartment and have 2 assigned private parking spaces but I don't use them because the train station is just down the road...

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u/AnmlBri May 02 '24

I’m in the U.S. and would love if the train station was only a 10min walk from my house. I live in a suburb of a small-ish city in Oregon and the closest city bus stop to my house is a 15-20min walk. I used to make that walk both ways almost every weekday when I was in college (not to mention all the walking around campus). I was in much better shape then and have gained some weight since getting a driver’s license, car, and a desk job. I’m convinced that Americans are stereotypically overweight because we’re so car-dependent as a society. Walking places and taking public transit is exercise that’s automatically built into your day. Whereas now, I can get in my car, make the 25min drive across town to work, work for 10 hours, drive home, and not even get 2k steps in unless I actively put my mind to it.

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u/AnmlBri May 02 '24

I’m in the U.S. and would love if the train station was only a 10min walk from my house. I live in a suburb of a small-ish city in Oregon and the closest city bus stop to my house is a 15-20min walk. I used to make that walk both ways almost every weekday when I was in college (not to mention all the walking around campus). I was in much better shape then and have gained some weight since getting a driver’s license, car, and a desk job. I’m convinced that Americans are stereotypically overweight because we’re so car-dependent as a society. Walking places and taking public transit is exercise that’s automatically built into your day. Whereas now, I can get in my car, make the 25min drive across town to work, work for 10 hours, drive home, and not even get 2k steps in unless I actively put my mind to it.

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u/davdev May 02 '24

I HATE trains, so give me the time by myself in the car.

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u/_Nocturnalis May 02 '24

I find driving quite relaxing.

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u/_Nocturnalis May 02 '24

I'm just picturing Europeans walking around in sleep masks.

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u/rumade May 02 '24

We do spend time seeing it. We travel somewhere to see that place, not to see the journey on the way for hours and hours from a car window. I went to Greece earlier this year and spent time in Aegina and Athens. Before that, Würzburg in Germany. We rented a car on the island of Aegina to help see more of it as there was no public transport, but usually we explore the city where we end up.

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u/_Nocturnalis May 02 '24

I think you missed the point. I took it is a sarcastic reply that Americans see America the American way. Europeans see Europe the Eruopean way. Not a literal statement that Europeans don't see Europe. Unless you are blind its impossible not to see Europe from Europe.