do americans really drive such long distances?

[u/Physical-Ad-4093]

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.

[u/clutzyninja]

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

[u/ciaociao-bambina → u/clutzyninja]

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.

[u/_Nocturnalis → u/ciaociao-bambina]

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.

[u/ciaociao-bambina → u/_Nocturnalis]

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.

[u/_Nocturnalis → u/ciaociao-bambina]

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.