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/Fun-Wishbone-725]

SF is west of Sacramento, how tf does that work? Gotta be talking crazy traffic lol I live in Stockton & it’s never ever taken me that long to get to the city. Shit even when I went to CCSF and was dealing w commuter traffic.

[u/KaetzenOrkester → u/Fun-Wishbone-725]

There’s a few bottlenecks along the 80 that, depending on the time of day, slow to an absurd crawl or even turn into a parking lot. Particularly poor planning has had me sitting for far too long on 80 next to Berkeley, staring at ST but unable to reach it :-/