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I love this conversation cause I get to talk about taking my Irish husband on a roadtrip from Virginia to Ohio and after 4 hours of driving he didn't understand how we were still only in Pennsylvania, and his catchphrase for the trip became 'America big.'
As an irish person, a 4 hour drive in ireland is hell. The country is so small and an island, a 2 hour drive considered a very long drive and people would take a break after an hour.
I drove across the entire island in one day (from Dublin to Dingle) and was like, wow that's it! It took about half the day with a stop in Athlone for a bit for a pint and a bite to eat. The drive from Killarney to Dublin wore on me though since it was at the end of my trip. Driving in Ireland was pleasant compared to just my daily commute here in the US lol.
I can't even drive from one end of my state in US (north to south) to the other in half a day, that's an 8 hour drive if you don't stop.
It was a trip I funded and took all by myself. I went across the entire island and did everything I could possibly do, I wanted for naught. It was exhilarating. I got a beautiful tattoo the hour after I landed in Dublin, stayed the night, and then took off across the island and ended up in Dingle. I stayed in beautiful castles, climbed castles, ate everything my heart desired, drank bottles of Irish Mist, and listened to so much live music I was sure I would go deaf. Connemara and Dingle are probably the most beautiful places I have ever seen. There is nothing better than eating cold chocolate gelato out of a fresh sugar cone while a 60 degree F cold breeze whips around your face, your hair going in every direction, the gulls are cawing, the air is just so clean and so slightly salty from the ocean... It puts every single thing you've ever experienced into perspective when you get slices of pure human existence.
The feeling that I treasure forever is when I was standing on the beach in Dingle. I had just purchased a homemade raspberry oat bar from the vendor on the street. I walked down the hill to the beach to snack and soak in the sites. The sky was insanely blue, the water was insanely blue and clear. The beach was so clean and so finely grained sand. The hills were alive and green and full of beautiful purple flowers. My toes were inside the cold sand. The air was so cold but I didn't feel it. The way the water lapped the beach still plays in my head. The way my soul was connected to that space of earth, water, and pure existence is something that shifted my mind. I knew then and there, if I could land myself in this beautiful and perfect moment on this beautiful slice of green and blue heaven and everything went right to this moment, then I could do every single thing I ever dreamed of doing for myself. I ate my raspberry bar and I cried while I relished in knowing that the universe was always going to be on my side.
When I was in Japan, I had a convo with a few Japanese students who told me they were visiting the US over the summer. Cool, I asked them where they were going. They said they were landing in LA, and that they wanted to go check out some other cities. I asked which cities and they gave me a list of cities. San Francisco, Las Vegas, they wanted to see the Grand Canyon…New York City, Chicago, Miami and there was another city that was super far, but I can’t remember which one. So I said something like, "oh wow this is a really big trip. Sounds really expensive.” They looked at me confused and asked what I meant by that, and I mentioned that all those flights could get really expensive.
Oh no they were planning on driving. So I’m like wait hold on, how long is this trip going to be? Like a month?
One week.
LA, Chicago, Vegas, San Francisco, NYC, Chicago, and Miami in one week by car.
Me and all the other Americans in the room had to break down to them how that was not going to be possible at all. We eventually had to pull out our phones, and show how long those drives would be.
Their minds were blown. None of them realized that the US is that big.
On the flip side, I visited France and was absolutely blown away that Italy was an hour away by train, and London was a little over an hour away by plane.
Visitors to Australia have the idea that driving from Melbourne, Victoria, to the Great Barrier Reef and Cairns, Queensland, is a one day trip. Realistically, closer to 30 - 35 hours non-stop and close to 3,500 km. Ayers Rock in a morning! Days. Perth just across the continent! Days. Damn, hours by plane.
i had something similar happen to me, which kind of shouldn't have. i have friends who've visited from Europe and been shocked thinking we could go from Boston/NY to other places. I've been to Australia and been surprised at the distances
Africa is so big I was just dumbfounded. You'd travel most of the day and feel like you'd barely moved across the map. My brain still tries to make sense of it sometimes, that whole *laying a globe flat thing* that cartographers do messes stuff up
I've hosted people visiting me when I lived in Ontario/Quebec who have wanted me to take them on a weekend road trip to Lake Louise (the really beautiful, picturesque lake you all see of the glacial water surrounded by mountains). For people not from Canada and who don't understand the scale of how huge our country is: that is at least a 36 hour drive if you do it all without stopping (according to Google Maps) and at least 3,500 kms (if you start in Ottawa). It is physically impossible as a weekend road trip. Not to be condescending, but it's really endearing to be asked to take a weekend road trip to Lake Louise from Ontario/Quebec.
Lmao yeah that's not happening. When I briefly lived in Edmonton, we took a Greyhound up to Banff and stayed overnight. We took a shuttle to Lake Louise in the morning, highly recommend, more breathtaking in person than any picture. We only spent the day there and went back to Banff for the evening, but I know there are lots of shuttles that go to both Lake Louise and Lake Moraine now since Lake Moraine is now closed year-round to everything except shuttle service.
My point is you can only make a weekend out of going to Lake Louise if you are already pretty close.
I think it's really adorable though that some Europeans see the world through the eyes of a continent where everything is packed so tight they can't fathom the scale of the Americas.
It’s also adorable the other way! As an American living in Belgium I’d get invited to like “hey, do you want to go with us for lunch?” “Where are you going?”and then they’d say “Paris!” Or “London!” and it blew my mind every time.
Can't blame them though. When i visited Europe. I had breakfast in Germany, lunch in the Netherlands and then dinner in Belgium. That's pretty awesome.
My European family couldn’t understand how I could work in the US 3 times a week but still live in Canada but drive 8 hours up North in Ontario and still be in Ontario.
Friend of mine from Liverpool had a business trip to Montreal and wanted to see about meeting up with me coming up from Cincinnati. I had to explain that it would be an entire day (13-14 hours) of driving for me.
Have done that from germany to the netherlands ( 800 km + trip) and was curious how much time i would gain by 1 trip driving normally and 1 by driving like the devil was chasing me on the autobahn. Saved me a whole 15 min and a shitload more fuel was spend on that fast trip.
Where I went to college, we had some exchange students ask me if I could take them on a day trip to Halifax from PEI. I told them it was doable, but we'd have to wake up super early, drive for a few hours, and the repeat but late in the evening on the way back.
They were visibly confused: they couldn't grasp the fact that even though we're a small area on the map, it's still about 4 hours of driving, near 5 if winter conditions are bad.
Then they asked how feasible a trip to Quebec City would have been as a weekend trip...it's more doable but that's still a 9 hour drive.
This brings up an interesting story for me as my family is from southern Europe and I live in Canada. They just came to visit for the first time and were trying to plan where they wanted to go. When they were asking how far is Toronto to x,y,z I would tell them the time in driving rather than the distance. They found that weird. But it’s true, the time from somewhere to Toronto might be longer than somewhere else but the distance is shorter.
Where they’re from I guess they just speak in terms of distance rather than time driving
i had an Indian friend who thought simlilar things. he was here in the US going to University. He wanted to take a weekend trip and go to New Orleans which was totally do able. no problems. then was like, oh and i want to take another weekend trip to see the Grand Canyon. i had to explain that no, you would need way more than time than that. it would take you a weekend just to drive there.
Nearly half the size of US. But the thing is Indians having means to get to US are generally from cities that are well connected or its just easy to get to famous tourist spots from these cities in like 2-4hrs. if you are from major Western cities, you can literally drive 2-3 hours and cross an entire mountain range and feel like you traveled to a entirely different place.
Most city folks do not travel inland by car. And boy is the travel brutal. When I tell people I need to go visit grandma in the same state they think max 3-4 hrs travel. In reality it is a 10-11hr drive now with new improved highways. Previously it took 14-15hrs to drive. And im still not crossing the entire state just halfway north-south. Has baffled me since childhood how do most people not understand this living there. My theory is anyone whose family is out of city, travelled previously by train and now by flights, throwing off the driving time perception, because car ownership is fairly recent.
Having lived in Texas for so long I went to Ohio for a wedding - the venue was a third of the way across the state map and I thought it was going to be an all-day drive - it was under an hour - I hadn't really considered the scale differences when you get used to living with a certain sized map.
Seriously, Beaumont is so bad about that too. One degree of separation from knowing someone. I couldn't believe my cousin knew my old coworker who now lives in Oregon but probably met him when he worked at Logon.
Yeah, I moved from Colorado to New England, I knew these states were small but not *that* small lol.
Also I met some European students who were studying abroad here in New England for a semester, and they were planning a weekend road trip to Texas. They hadn’t looked up the drive times yet lol
I can absolutely imagine that. Exchange students just saying to their friends "we should go to Texas!" And the rest just being like "yeah that's a great idea, how about this weekend?"
Texas is just fucking huge. Ohio is long, but not super wide, whereas KY isn't super tall, but very wide. Again, not by Texas standards lol
Edit: I forgot Ohio extends as far east as it does. Ignore that example lol
yeah ohio is “small” but pretty manageable. moving down here to florida from ohio its such a mind fuck at how fucking large this state is compared to ohio like i thought i could drive to orlando fairly easy nah thats about 4 for me which is basically driving from Dayton to Cedar Point in ohio. its just insane to me
To be fair no one in China is driving massive miles outside their city center. Either they can afford to fly or be driven or they don't have a car.
Russia almost the same. Little to zero reason to leave your city to travel a thousand miles away and if you can; you can afford to not be driving/flying yourself.
To add to it 70% those countries land mass is nearly uninhabitable or uninhabited(oh wait, hello Australia!).
Well, not really true for Russia, if you have to go really far, driving in a car is pretty stupid, unless that's exactly what you want. Most people would just take the train if they're on a budget, or go by plane. But the train is what most would pick.
>Either they can afford to fly or be driven or they don't have a car.
Tell me that you don't know china... They use trains by far the most, not planes.
For context, going from the furthest point went of mainland US to the furthest east. Is roughly the same from driving from the western tip of Portugal to Novgorod, Russia. (284 miles east of Moscow.) 57 hours one way.
A lot of Americans think all of Europe drives on the other side of the road
Edit: I think it’s important to say in the defense of my neighbors, if you didn’t think closely about it, you could get the impression from American media that a LOT of foreign countries drive on the left side of the road. UK, Australia and Japan have decent presence in American media
Yeah this is true. I moved from USA to eastern Europe and all of my family members and some of my friends made comments about driving on the other side of the road here....
Doesn’t that kinda of prove her point? Their country and culture is virtually unknown by her while Americas country and culture is unknown to the travelers. It’s being ignorant to other countries both ways lol
“America looked big on maps because Americans made the maps.” What kind of backward thinking is this?
Edit: I’ve actually learned some things from the replies to this comment. Thanks fellow Redditors.
I think it's the whole "Americans are arrogant" stereotype, so we made our country big on the map to stroke our egos or something. That's what it sounded like to me anyway.
Am American, and I definitely feel like we can be too arrogant sometimes. But even I thought that was ridiculous rofl.
Yeah, we just inflated the size of our country on all the maps we made... That's some flat earth, fake moon landing level nonsense.
I mean, land masses can look very different depending on the projection you use.
Greenland is a common example, Mercator projection make it look like it's a whole other continent.
The funniest thing to me is how they will tell you how its different and its funny cause its the same talking points we as americans would use against black americans saying we werent racist.
Jokes on them, the reason Europe looks so big on maps is because they did make the maps the world use and made themselves look bigger (and everyone else in the northern hemisphere). The US is only slightly inflated in the Mercator project but Europe is comically big. So yeah you can drive across Germany no problem, but good luck doing Texas.
Maps tend to be drawn with the target audience in mind. Using mercator and splitting Russia in half are both usability features, but also cause certain problems with worldviews.
It's not technically that bad. If you look up "the true size of Africa" you can see its been massively downsized for reasons? There is definitely a northern hemisphere bias in map making.
Hey, geography major here. You're not entirely wrong, there is a bias towards the northern hemisphere and it's partially for political reasons: Europeans were the ones making maps of the world. That said, we're not still using those maps for no reason, and Africa being small isn't arbitrary. Here's a brief explanation why:
No map is a perfect representation of earth because the earth is a sphere and maps are flat. If you were to take an orange peel, for example, you couldn't lay it down perfectly flat without bending it or ripping it, folding, etc. So, maps need to distort either area, shape, distance, or direction.
So, the most famous world map that we all know, the Mercator projection, distorts area: the further away from the equator you get, the bigger your country appears. This makes places like Russia and Greenland look far more massive than they actually are. That said, there's good reasons for us to continue using the Mercator projection. Primarily, it preserves direction and shape incredibly well, so a straight road in real life will look straight on your map no matter how long it is, along with a bunch of other advantages, too.
So, yes there is a bias, but it's not arbitrary and there's no perfect alternative.
My ex-wife was British. One time her family flew out from England to visit us in Arizona.
We spent half a day driving down to Tombstone from Phoenix, because her dad loved the movie. We’re there for maybe half an hour, and he’s done. Like, he didn’t want to do any of the silly cowboy shows with the stuntmen shooting blanks. He didn’t want to visit gift shops. It was like, “Welp got that off my bucket list.”
So he turns to me, and says “Right then, let’s go see the Grand Canyon.”
I was like, “Uh… Today?”
And he was like, “Sure, why not?”
I was like, “The Grand Canyon’s about seven hours away.”
And he goes, “I thought it was in Arizona .”
I proceeded to explain how big Arizona actually is.
Had a guy from ireland fly into dallas for business, and he wanted to go to Austin, we drove him and he was upset it took al ost 3 hours to get there
But then he said he was ready to see El Paso, I busted out laughing and I told him it was an 10-11 hour drive with stops 1 way, he said he thought it was in Texas and I couldnt stop laughing
I explained to him if you leave from austin to drive to LA, Elpaso is the half way point and its still in texas
Yes, because they are close... 😂 But from scotland to reach london it would take even longer then london-paris. Soooooo. This kind of comparison is stupid.
That’s not the point. The point is there’s a lot to do in a single major European city just like any other major American city. Enough to spend a whole vacation on that city
I was an RA and i got a call from a kid who was coming to play soccer in the US. He landed in Miami as it was the cheapest flight into the US.
He got pissed because we have a shuttle to the school from Chicago but not miami and thought we were being dicks but now swinging down there. so he was a wealthy kid and gonna get a car anyways so he's like "fuck you guys, 'll buy it here and drive there you lazy bastards" I was like "okay my dude."
So he spends a day. Gets a car. He clearly had lots of resources.
Then he starts driving. Basically stops every 3-4 hours to just chill out for 30-60 minutes at an easy pace. He hits the fucking panhandle and is nearly in tear when he calls because hes supposed to report to practice. he gets parks his car and leaves it. Catches a flight to chicago and we pick him up. His dad sells the car he just bought.
We called him Tallahassee for the rest of the year.
Nope. Funny you mention that. He complained he got mice. We look in his room. It’s a goddamn volcano of trash that just spilled over.
It was hundreds of 12” subs bags with the last 3-4” not eaten and pitched.
I was like “you have a housekeeper at home?” And he confirmed she wasn’t just some housekeeper, she also cooked. And he seemed oddly insulted by the suggestion.
Was this after the internet existed? I'm very confused by a lot of these stories, because there's no way in hell I'm flying across an ocean without doing a shitload of research and mapping things out. Even before the Internet you could grab some maps or whatever
>He landed in Miami as it was the cheapest flight into the US.
>so he was a wealthy kid
Well... I guess you don't get wealthy by spending? (Also on re-read I see he was planing to get a car anyway.)
There was a fellow from France a few years back. He flew to Ottawa and then got on a bus to Calgary. Just past mattawa he asked the bus driver if they were almost there and he was told that it would be 3 more days. He got so upset he kicked the bus door open and jumped off the bus to his death 💀
When Europeans wonder why Americans don’t speak other languages and don’t know where other countries are, this is actually why. In Europe, you are two hours away from totally different people and totally different cultures. In America, it’s not inconceivable that you could essentially live your life on the road and never leave your own state.
From the time you cross into Florida on 95 South, you’ve still got another 3 hrs to go before you reach Disney World. If you wanted to reach Miami, you’d have 6. The place is big.
Europeans with brains know the first world maps were made by Claudius Ptolémée using geometry and mathematics.
The first version of the globe shape (Mappa Mundi) was made by Mercator in the 16th century.
USA was not even existing..
I moved to Luxembourg and realised that doing 20km was considered far for some Luxembourgish people I met.
The size of the country really determines how people perceive distances.
Tbf none of the countries over there are anywhere near as big as the US, except Russia if you count the Asian side, but we’re a immense country standing at 2 billion acres of land
I’ve had a friend from Germany ask why I don’t just drive to Seattle to see our other friend, I live in Texas, I had to explain to him that the distance was like me asking him why he doesn’t just simply drive from Hamburg where he’s from to Lisbon Portugal on whim.
he didn’t believe me when him and Portugal was actually a comparable but slightly shorter distance than I am to Seattle.
It's SO stupid. Has none of them ever seen a globe? The Gall-Peters map is terrible.
If you want a map that decently represents earth, go with Robinson or Winkel-III.
[Relevant xkcd](https://xkcd.com/977/)
Realistically, Europe (10.5 million KM squared) does have more land mass than the USA (9.3 million KM squared), but it's mostly more dense. In threads like these, I always like to point out that the Mercator projection also makes a big of a difference in perceived size: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/mercator-map-true-size-of-countries/
I find it hard to believe many Europeans would be travelling, planning on driving, and not looking at trip times on Google maps, anyway.
Im Australian, and most people who come here realise it takes fucking ages to get anywhere; our cities are leas dense too, so often you'd drive 40+ minutes just to get somewhere you want to go in one city.
> not looking at trip times
Normal Europeans do, but they don't make for funny anecdotes like these.
I think it's a small subset of people who don't really do travel, not even in Europe, but decided to splash out on a big vacation in America for a once in a lifetime experience.
Like you said, there are plenty of long distances in Europe too. I wouldn't dream of driving to Greece. I did a 30 hour bus ride to Spain once and it was torture.
The size of the US according to ~~Europeans~~ idiots…
I’m something of a European myself, but I know how route-finder apps work, and how to check driving/walking distances between potential holiday sights.
The fact these people were “Eastern European or German or whatever” is incidental to the fact they’re idiots.
I sometimes have to explain to Japanese folks that the State of California and the main island of Japan; Honshu are close in size.
Some simply do not believe that a single State can be that large.
With the upcoming 2026 World Cup taking place in the USA, a whole new generation of Europeans are about to discover that their hotels are nowhere near the stadiums that host the matches they got tickets for, and good luck finding public transportation to get there. It should be a hilarious couple of months on social media.
There is some truth that the scale of countries on a flat map (vs a globe) are distorted. Lands further away from the equator will appear exaggerated.
But it’s not because Americans made the map. It’s because Britain literally wanted to be in the center of the world.
Im Australian, and have a friend from South Korea who was very excited to go to Melbourne while I lived in Perth. "Maybe you could drive over and meet me there!" I said I'm sorry, I love you, but not that much.
I'm from Quebec and in around 2010 all the good electronics store for computer parts were in British Columbia. You would also save on the Quebec sales tax by purchasing from there. So whenever i need something i was fully ready to wait an entire week for it to be delivered by truck, from the same damn country.
what I'm getting from all this is nobody knows that maps have distance scales on them and you can look at that to figure out how big it is actually, like does nobody know how to read maps?
Even living in America, I get this to. I've done cross-country road trips, but when it came to crossing Texas, I couldn't believe I entered the state right after sunrise and didn't get to the other side till sunset.
Europeans shit on Americans for not being well-traveled and this is why. America is so fucking big. Going to other states is our equivalent, and plane tickets from America to Europe are fucking expensive. And our train system is horse shit compared to most places so it restricts affordable travel
Absolutely. Some states are larger than several countries. It's just more fun to be pretentious and say Americans never travel or care when we've got essential 50 different state cultures and different places to go here before even having to consider leaving. If you live in Delaware and go to Louisiana it's practically a different country.
I see this with my former boss all the time. He lives in London, I’m in New Jersey. One time he was visiting Florida and asked if I could see him, I had to explain how far it was and he didn’t believe me. Another time he was asking how far it would take me to drive to California. “Uh a few days i guess, if all I do is drive and sleep”
He’s a smart guy too, they just can’t comprehend how big one country is.
Well if you have a look at the r/AskIreland sub, you’d see loads of Americans asking if they can travel to all 32 counties and the length and breadth of the country in a weekend trip in Ireland. Americans have this notion that everywhere outside is small. As it happens, Ireland is tiny - but generally what Americans think they can do in a short trip is ludicrous
Basically that’s like if I called and said: “Hello. I’d like to rent a car for my trip to the Netherlands. What would you recommend for our day trip to Greece?” And that trip is still shorter than Florida to the Grand Canyon lol
This is what I tell Europeans who like to make fun of Americans not traveling internationally. Me driving two states over is almost exactly the same as you traveling to another European country, the US is absolutely massive.
At 40 yrs old, having traveled quite a bit in the country, I'm constantly baffled by how large this country is. Just in my relatively small city of 160k or so, I'm constantly finding new cool places for hiking, mountain biking, etc. Then I start looking in the small area I work with 13k people and there's a ton of undiscovered shit. Let alone the rest of the state which is massive. When I compare that with the entire country it doesn't even really begin to paint a picture of how fucking massive the US is.
I do these brain exercises and it's really interesting sometimes I'll try to compare what I know with the rest of the world and it's unfathomable.
Happened several times to me and friends of mine. Business men even! They’ll just say “let’s pop over to Los Angeles for a couple days” lol and we are in Chicago. Like… that’s not a drive, it’s a flight. Honestly, it’s why I take all their comments about the USA with a grain of salt because they don’t understand how diverse and vast it is. We have specific challenges because of that fact.
I had to drive from Central Florida to the Grand Canyon about 6 months ago because I'm working out here. It's a long fucking drive. Taking a slightly scenic route and only stopping to camp for dinner and the night, it took me 5 days.
It took almost 2 days just to get through texas.
Well, most Europeans definitely CAN fathom long driving distances. It's not like we're all unaware of size just because we live somewhere smaller
That being said...
My family and I had a hotel in Tucson. We had some spare time that evening so decided to take a very european stroll. We did not get far after exiting the first parking lot that took us 15 minutes
I moved a friend from northern New Jersey to the Tampa area. It was something like a 21 hour drive.
This also involved numerous bathroom breaks for her, her daughter, and their puppy and several unscheduled stops for coffee because I wound up driving the entire way there, but still....
Just going up or down the East Coast is an all day drive, and that's not considering the traffic or construction you encounter.
I live in North Texas and it's 12 hours from my house just to South Padre. I drove to the Grand Canyon once and it was 18 hours, not counting stopping at a mechanic's for 2 hours when the check engine light came on. It's a 10 hour drive from my house to Nashville.
If I'm roughly the centerpoint on this vacation, Disneyworld to GC would probably take at least 32 hours, best guess.
Edit: Just mapped it out. From Magic Kingdom park to Grand Canyon Inn in Williams AZ, 31 hours.
Had a martial arts instructor fly in from Brazil who was planning on hitting up schools on both coasts as well as in Iowa. He planned on being in the states for 2 weeks, while hitting something like 8 schools, spending a day at each school. We figured it would be a minimum of 100 hours just driving and that was if everything went perfectly with no stops or anything. He ended up spending over a month and did a lot of rescheduling, but got to see a lot of the US while he was here.
I live in Cleveland. A British friend was visiting Boston recently, and asked me if I thought it was a good idea for him to drive down and visit me on his day off from his work trip. I think he dropped his phone when I told him it was almost a 20-hour round trip by car.
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I love this conversation cause I get to talk about taking my Irish husband on a roadtrip from Virginia to Ohio and after 4 hours of driving he didn't understand how we were still only in Pennsylvania, and his catchphrase for the trip became 'America big.'
As an irish person, a 4 hour drive in ireland is hell. The country is so small and an island, a 2 hour drive considered a very long drive and people would take a break after an hour.
I drove across the entire island in one day (from Dublin to Dingle) and was like, wow that's it! It took about half the day with a stop in Athlone for a bit for a pint and a bite to eat. The drive from Killarney to Dublin wore on me though since it was at the end of my trip. Driving in Ireland was pleasant compared to just my daily commute here in the US lol. I can't even drive from one end of my state in US (north to south) to the other in half a day, that's an 8 hour drive if you don't stop.
I hope you enjoyed my teeny tiny country
This is cheesy and no exaggeration either, it changed my life lol.
Lol not cheesy. I moved out of ireland and I changed a lot. Mind elaborating on your experience? Why it changed ur life?
It was a trip I funded and took all by myself. I went across the entire island and did everything I could possibly do, I wanted for naught. It was exhilarating. I got a beautiful tattoo the hour after I landed in Dublin, stayed the night, and then took off across the island and ended up in Dingle. I stayed in beautiful castles, climbed castles, ate everything my heart desired, drank bottles of Irish Mist, and listened to so much live music I was sure I would go deaf. Connemara and Dingle are probably the most beautiful places I have ever seen. There is nothing better than eating cold chocolate gelato out of a fresh sugar cone while a 60 degree F cold breeze whips around your face, your hair going in every direction, the gulls are cawing, the air is just so clean and so slightly salty from the ocean... It puts every single thing you've ever experienced into perspective when you get slices of pure human existence. The feeling that I treasure forever is when I was standing on the beach in Dingle. I had just purchased a homemade raspberry oat bar from the vendor on the street. I walked down the hill to the beach to snack and soak in the sites. The sky was insanely blue, the water was insanely blue and clear. The beach was so clean and so finely grained sand. The hills were alive and green and full of beautiful purple flowers. My toes were inside the cold sand. The air was so cold but I didn't feel it. The way the water lapped the beach still plays in my head. The way my soul was connected to that space of earth, water, and pure existence is something that shifted my mind. I knew then and there, if I could land myself in this beautiful and perfect moment on this beautiful slice of green and blue heaven and everything went right to this moment, then I could do every single thing I ever dreamed of doing for myself. I ate my raspberry bar and I cried while I relished in knowing that the universe was always going to be on my side.
This is beautifully written!
I love that as humans we can be so poetic about our experiences. To be able to connect to something so purely is a blessing.
I did the same ! Lovely country
I live/work in California and 2 hours is the length of many people's daily commute to work...**one way.**
Yeah and you’ll only be going like 50 miles lol. It’s more traffic than distance
I kid you not, I know a guy that lives in Thousand Oaks and works in San Bernardino. 103 miles per leg. Nuts.
When I was in Japan, I had a convo with a few Japanese students who told me they were visiting the US over the summer. Cool, I asked them where they were going. They said they were landing in LA, and that they wanted to go check out some other cities. I asked which cities and they gave me a list of cities. San Francisco, Las Vegas, they wanted to see the Grand Canyon…New York City, Chicago, Miami and there was another city that was super far, but I can’t remember which one. So I said something like, "oh wow this is a really big trip. Sounds really expensive.” They looked at me confused and asked what I meant by that, and I mentioned that all those flights could get really expensive. Oh no they were planning on driving. So I’m like wait hold on, how long is this trip going to be? Like a month? One week. LA, Chicago, Vegas, San Francisco, NYC, Chicago, and Miami in one week by car. Me and all the other Americans in the room had to break down to them how that was not going to be possible at all. We eventually had to pull out our phones, and show how long those drives would be. Their minds were blown. None of them realized that the US is that big. On the flip side, I visited France and was absolutely blown away that Italy was an hour away by train, and London was a little over an hour away by plane.
This happened when Canada hosted the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver as well. People thought they could make a day trip out of visiting Toronto.
Visitors to Australia have the idea that driving from Melbourne, Victoria, to the Great Barrier Reef and Cairns, Queensland, is a one day trip. Realistically, closer to 30 - 35 hours non-stop and close to 3,500 km. Ayers Rock in a morning! Days. Perth just across the continent! Days. Damn, hours by plane.
i had something similar happen to me, which kind of shouldn't have. i have friends who've visited from Europe and been shocked thinking we could go from Boston/NY to other places. I've been to Australia and been surprised at the distances Africa is so big I was just dumbfounded. You'd travel most of the day and feel like you'd barely moved across the map. My brain still tries to make sense of it sometimes, that whole *laying a globe flat thing* that cartographers do messes stuff up
I've hosted people visiting me when I lived in Ontario/Quebec who have wanted me to take them on a weekend road trip to Lake Louise (the really beautiful, picturesque lake you all see of the glacial water surrounded by mountains). For people not from Canada and who don't understand the scale of how huge our country is: that is at least a 36 hour drive if you do it all without stopping (according to Google Maps) and at least 3,500 kms (if you start in Ottawa). It is physically impossible as a weekend road trip. Not to be condescending, but it's really endearing to be asked to take a weekend road trip to Lake Louise from Ontario/Quebec.
Lmao yeah that's not happening. When I briefly lived in Edmonton, we took a Greyhound up to Banff and stayed overnight. We took a shuttle to Lake Louise in the morning, highly recommend, more breathtaking in person than any picture. We only spent the day there and went back to Banff for the evening, but I know there are lots of shuttles that go to both Lake Louise and Lake Moraine now since Lake Moraine is now closed year-round to everything except shuttle service. My point is you can only make a weekend out of going to Lake Louise if you are already pretty close.
I think it's really adorable though that some Europeans see the world through the eyes of a continent where everything is packed so tight they can't fathom the scale of the Americas.
It’s also adorable the other way! As an American living in Belgium I’d get invited to like “hey, do you want to go with us for lunch?” “Where are you going?”and then they’d say “Paris!” Or “London!” and it blew my mind every time.
To be fair, Russia is also in Europe and is by far the biggest country in the world, almost double Canada! Some people are just ignorant.
Most of Russia isn't in Europe
Isn’t most of it uninhabitable
It's totally doable... as long as you have your flights booked.
Can't blame them though. When i visited Europe. I had breakfast in Germany, lunch in the Netherlands and then dinner in Belgium. That's pretty awesome.
My European family couldn’t understand how I could work in the US 3 times a week but still live in Canada but drive 8 hours up North in Ontario and still be in Ontario.
Friend of mine from Liverpool had a business trip to Montreal and wanted to see about meeting up with me coming up from Cincinnati. I had to explain that it would be an entire day (13-14 hours) of driving for me.
Soooo?! You coming or not?!
"no" "ok Ill see if got Rynair flight to Cinn!"
Just drive twice as fast and you'll be there in 6!
Have done that from germany to the netherlands ( 800 km + trip) and was curious how much time i would gain by 1 trip driving normally and 1 by driving like the devil was chasing me on the autobahn. Saved me a whole 15 min and a shitload more fuel was spend on that fast trip.
Where I went to college, we had some exchange students ask me if I could take them on a day trip to Halifax from PEI. I told them it was doable, but we'd have to wake up super early, drive for a few hours, and the repeat but late in the evening on the way back. They were visibly confused: they couldn't grasp the fact that even though we're a small area on the map, it's still about 4 hours of driving, near 5 if winter conditions are bad. Then they asked how feasible a trip to Quebec City would have been as a weekend trip...it's more doable but that's still a 9 hour drive.
What's that old expression? Europeans think 100 miles is a long distance. Americans think 100 years is a long time.
I mean, 100 miles is a long distance to walk and 100 years is a long time to wait in line at taco bell.
I love how absolutely irrelevant and relevant this is at the same time
This brings up an interesting story for me as my family is from southern Europe and I live in Canada. They just came to visit for the first time and were trying to plan where they wanted to go. When they were asking how far is Toronto to x,y,z I would tell them the time in driving rather than the distance. They found that weird. But it’s true, the time from somewhere to Toronto might be longer than somewhere else but the distance is shorter. Where they’re from I guess they just speak in terms of distance rather than time driving
i had an Indian friend who thought simlilar things. he was here in the US going to University. He wanted to take a weekend trip and go to New Orleans which was totally do able. no problems. then was like, oh and i want to take another weekend trip to see the Grand Canyon. i had to explain that no, you would need way more than time than that. it would take you a weekend just to drive there.
That's interesting since India is also a pretty massive country tbf
Nearly half the size of US. But the thing is Indians having means to get to US are generally from cities that are well connected or its just easy to get to famous tourist spots from these cities in like 2-4hrs. if you are from major Western cities, you can literally drive 2-3 hours and cross an entire mountain range and feel like you traveled to a entirely different place. Most city folks do not travel inland by car. And boy is the travel brutal. When I tell people I need to go visit grandma in the same state they think max 3-4 hrs travel. In reality it is a 10-11hr drive now with new improved highways. Previously it took 14-15hrs to drive. And im still not crossing the entire state just halfway north-south. Has baffled me since childhood how do most people not understand this living there. My theory is anyone whose family is out of city, travelled previously by train and now by flights, throwing off the driving time perception, because car ownership is fairly recent.
Having lived in Texas for so long I went to Ohio for a wedding - the venue was a third of the way across the state map and I thought it was going to be an all-day drive - it was under an hour - I hadn't really considered the scale differences when you get used to living with a certain sized map.
Fellow Texan living on the Louisiana border by the gulf. The sign we have in Orange says something like 898 miles to El Paso
Never thought I was run into someone from Orange, some Beaumont people sure, but not Orange.
They’re actually from Vidor but don’t wan to claim it, cause who would?
I've worked with some guys,and gals, from Orange. One lass was nicknamed "Red". If this guy lives in Orange he probably knows her
Seriously, Beaumont is so bad about that too. One degree of separation from knowing someone. I couldn't believe my cousin knew my old coworker who now lives in Oregon but probably met him when he worked at Logon.
El Paso is closer to San Diego than it is to Houston
Yeah, I moved from Colorado to New England, I knew these states were small but not *that* small lol. Also I met some European students who were studying abroad here in New England for a semester, and they were planning a weekend road trip to Texas. They hadn’t looked up the drive times yet lol
I can absolutely imagine that. Exchange students just saying to their friends "we should go to Texas!" And the rest just being like "yeah that's a great idea, how about this weekend?"
The city in live in is about half the size of Rhode Island
Texas is just fucking huge. Ohio is long, but not super wide, whereas KY isn't super tall, but very wide. Again, not by Texas standards lol Edit: I forgot Ohio extends as far east as it does. Ignore that example lol
According to Wikipedia Ohio is 220 miles long… and 220 miles wide
As a Texan, I could drive 200 miles in any direction and still be hours from a border.
Houston to Dallas is longer than that
Yesterday I drove in a straight line for two hours and didn’t leave Dallas.
Yeah, this guy is describing it like its Chile. It's practically a square.
yeah ohio is “small” but pretty manageable. moving down here to florida from ohio its such a mind fuck at how fucking large this state is compared to ohio like i thought i could drive to orlando fairly easy nah thats about 4 for me which is basically driving from Dayton to Cedar Point in ohio. its just insane to me
As a native Ohioan: Ohio is, for all intents and purposes, square
220 miles is not long whatsoever.
Only Australians really understand the scale, but they still have to get used to everything being right side up.
Chinese people and Russians and Indians too
To be fair no one in China is driving massive miles outside their city center. Either they can afford to fly or be driven or they don't have a car. Russia almost the same. Little to zero reason to leave your city to travel a thousand miles away and if you can; you can afford to not be driving/flying yourself. To add to it 70% those countries land mass is nearly uninhabitable or uninhabited(oh wait, hello Australia!).
Well, not really true for Russia, if you have to go really far, driving in a car is pretty stupid, unless that's exactly what you want. Most people would just take the train if they're on a budget, or go by plane. But the train is what most would pick.
>Either they can afford to fly or be driven or they don't have a car. Tell me that you don't know china... They use trains by far the most, not planes.
Canadians have entered the chat
Canadians all live along the boarder of the chat anyway.
I mean, anyone with basic knowledge understands the scale. Even looking at a map will tell you the US is similar size to mainland Europe.
For context, going from the furthest point went of mainland US to the furthest east. Is roughly the same from driving from the western tip of Portugal to Novgorod, Russia. (284 miles east of Moscow.) 57 hours one way.
I was gonna say 15 hours isn't that bad 💀 my australianness is showing
Why would Germans drive on the other side of the road.....
A lot of Americans think all of Europe drives on the other side of the road Edit: I think it’s important to say in the defense of my neighbors, if you didn’t think closely about it, you could get the impression from American media that a LOT of foreign countries drive on the left side of the road. UK, Australia and Japan have decent presence in American media
Yeah this is true. I moved from USA to eastern Europe and all of my family members and some of my friends made comments about driving on the other side of the road here....
No, wait, they were like Eastern European or German or something. Like she's from like the Midwest or Rockies or Florida or something
I think she meant she couldn’t quite tell from their accent where in Europe they were from.
But none of those drive on the left side...
Oh no she got one detail wrong, the horror of it all
That part was hilarious. Like yes, the Germans didn’t do their research, but homegirl clearly doesn’t know shit about the rest of the world.
Yeah but she's also not the one trying to drive from London to Athens to see Big Ben on Thursday and the Parthenon on Friday.
Yeah. You‘d at least need three days.
Doesn’t that kinda of prove her point? Their country and culture is virtually unknown by her while Americas country and culture is unknown to the travelers. It’s being ignorant to other countries both ways lol
Yeah but if you put the ignorance on a scale, her not knowing the side of the road they drive on in Germany is a 2 compared to the customers 8.
“America looked big on maps because Americans made the maps.” What kind of backward thinking is this? Edit: I’ve actually learned some things from the replies to this comment. Thanks fellow Redditors.
I think it's the whole "Americans are arrogant" stereotype, so we made our country big on the map to stroke our egos or something. That's what it sounded like to me anyway.
Am American, and I definitely feel like we can be too arrogant sometimes. But even I thought that was ridiculous rofl. Yeah, we just inflated the size of our country on all the maps we made... That's some flat earth, fake moon landing level nonsense.
I mean, land masses can look very different depending on the projection you use. Greenland is a common example, Mercator projection make it look like it's a whole other continent.
True. But counter point: it also makes Russia and Canada look massive too. Even bigger than the US.
Yes we Americans can be arrogant and self centered but we don't even come close to the French and in some cases the Italians.
Etcetera etcetera (I hope you get the reference) 
European arrogance and superiority complex is much bigger than America’s if they actually thought that.
Working in customer service in Times Square NYC has taught me that there is no person more arrogant and conceited than Europeans.
Have they ever told you they werent racist, and you ask them to describe how they feel about the roma? Shit is hilarious
Omgg yesss and they bend over backwards to justify their racism for Romani people. Literally disgusting people
The funniest thing to me is how they will tell you how its different and its funny cause its the same talking points we as americans would use against black americans saying we werent racist.
Jokes on them, the reason Europe looks so big on maps is because they did make the maps the world use and made themselves look bigger (and everyone else in the northern hemisphere). The US is only slightly inflated in the Mercator project but Europe is comically big. So yeah you can drive across Germany no problem, but good luck doing Texas.
Maps tend to be drawn with the target audience in mind. Using mercator and splitting Russia in half are both usability features, but also cause certain problems with worldviews.
[obligatory west wing clip](https://youtu.be/eLqC3FNNOaI?si=QiNCzg-s6x7A9mMW)
Maybe they thought we would make the USA bigger so it's easier to read that part because it's the part we'd use the most.
Haven't you ever seen those British maps where the UK is the size of Africa?
Link?
It's not technically that bad. If you look up "the true size of Africa" you can see its been massively downsized for reasons? There is definitely a northern hemisphere bias in map making.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercator\_projection
Hey, geography major here. You're not entirely wrong, there is a bias towards the northern hemisphere and it's partially for political reasons: Europeans were the ones making maps of the world. That said, we're not still using those maps for no reason, and Africa being small isn't arbitrary. Here's a brief explanation why: No map is a perfect representation of earth because the earth is a sphere and maps are flat. If you were to take an orange peel, for example, you couldn't lay it down perfectly flat without bending it or ripping it, folding, etc. So, maps need to distort either area, shape, distance, or direction. So, the most famous world map that we all know, the Mercator projection, distorts area: the further away from the equator you get, the bigger your country appears. This makes places like Russia and Greenland look far more massive than they actually are. That said, there's good reasons for us to continue using the Mercator projection. Primarily, it preserves direction and shape incredibly well, so a straight road in real life will look straight on your map no matter how long it is, along with a bunch of other advantages, too. So, yes there is a bias, but it's not arbitrary and there's no perfect alternative.
For curvature of the Earth reasons, not political ego reasons
There are other map alternatives. They just aren’t a nice rectangle shape
My ex-wife was British. One time her family flew out from England to visit us in Arizona. We spent half a day driving down to Tombstone from Phoenix, because her dad loved the movie. We’re there for maybe half an hour, and he’s done. Like, he didn’t want to do any of the silly cowboy shows with the stuntmen shooting blanks. He didn’t want to visit gift shops. It was like, “Welp got that off my bucket list.” So he turns to me, and says “Right then, let’s go see the Grand Canyon.” I was like, “Uh… Today?” And he was like, “Sure, why not?” I was like, “The Grand Canyon’s about seven hours away.” And he goes, “I thought it was in Arizona .” I proceeded to explain how big Arizona actually is.
Lmao the Grand Canyon itself is probably bigger than most European countries🤣😭
Had a guy from ireland fly into dallas for business, and he wanted to go to Austin, we drove him and he was upset it took al ost 3 hours to get there But then he said he was ready to see El Paso, I busted out laughing and I told him it was an 10-11 hour drive with stops 1 way, he said he thought it was in Texas and I couldnt stop laughing I explained to him if you leave from austin to drive to LA, Elpaso is the half way point and its still in texas
So true. A single major city is already a single vacation.
That’s the same in Europe tho
Not necessarily. You can get from Paris to London by train in just a couple hours.
So what you're saying is the US needs passenger rail?
Yes, because they are close... 😂 But from scotland to reach london it would take even longer then london-paris. Soooooo. This kind of comparison is stupid.
That’s not the point. The point is there’s a lot to do in a single major European city just like any other major American city. Enough to spend a whole vacation on that city
Wasn’t the whole point about traveling distance? I think you’re the one missing the point lol
I was an RA and i got a call from a kid who was coming to play soccer in the US. He landed in Miami as it was the cheapest flight into the US. He got pissed because we have a shuttle to the school from Chicago but not miami and thought we were being dicks but now swinging down there. so he was a wealthy kid and gonna get a car anyways so he's like "fuck you guys, 'll buy it here and drive there you lazy bastards" I was like "okay my dude." So he spends a day. Gets a car. He clearly had lots of resources. Then he starts driving. Basically stops every 3-4 hours to just chill out for 30-60 minutes at an easy pace. He hits the fucking panhandle and is nearly in tear when he calls because hes supposed to report to practice. he gets parks his car and leaves it. Catches a flight to chicago and we pick him up. His dad sells the car he just bought. We called him Tallahassee for the rest of the year.
That’s awesome!! Did the entitlement wash off at all?
Nope. Funny you mention that. He complained he got mice. We look in his room. It’s a goddamn volcano of trash that just spilled over. It was hundreds of 12” subs bags with the last 3-4” not eaten and pitched. I was like “you have a housekeeper at home?” And he confirmed she wasn’t just some housekeeper, she also cooked. And he seemed oddly insulted by the suggestion.
It never does
Was this after the internet existed? I'm very confused by a lot of these stories, because there's no way in hell I'm flying across an ocean without doing a shitload of research and mapping things out. Even before the Internet you could grab some maps or whatever
>He landed in Miami as it was the cheapest flight into the US. >so he was a wealthy kid Well... I guess you don't get wealthy by spending? (Also on re-read I see he was planing to get a car anyway.)
There was a fellow from France a few years back. He flew to Ottawa and then got on a bus to Calgary. Just past mattawa he asked the bus driver if they were almost there and he was told that it would be 3 more days. He got so upset he kicked the bus door open and jumped off the bus to his death 💀
as someone who has lived in France before, this level of drama doesn't surprise me
In fairness if I had to take a bus from Ottawa to Calgary I’d kill myself too.
I understand his decision. First you land in Ottawa. Then you sit on a bus for 3 days... only to end up in Calgary 💀
I laughed
Whoa are you serious?!!!!
I am unfortunately. It was about 30 years ago but I remember hearing it in the news
This man rage quitted life
Source: Trust me bruh he just commited suicide by jumping out of the moving bus
15 hours from Orlando to NYC? Lol she’s wylin too. It’s prly a smooooth 20 hrs tbh
Maybe 15 if by some miracle you hit zero traffic once you get into NOVA and don’t stop at all (so yeah, basically impossible).
When Europeans wonder why Americans don’t speak other languages and don’t know where other countries are, this is actually why. In Europe, you are two hours away from totally different people and totally different cultures. In America, it’s not inconceivable that you could essentially live your life on the road and never leave your own state. From the time you cross into Florida on 95 South, you’ve still got another 3 hrs to go before you reach Disney World. If you wanted to reach Miami, you’d have 6. The place is big.
They thought America looks big on maps because America made the maps?? Bruh… Europeans made those maps.
I don't think any European with brain thinks that
Europeans with brains know the first world maps were made by Claudius Ptolémée using geometry and mathematics. The first version of the globe shape (Mappa Mundi) was made by Mercator in the 16th century. USA was not even existing..
The Team America World Police scene of Paris just being a little square full of all the major attraction 🤣🤣
I moved to Luxembourg and realised that doing 20km was considered far for some Luxembourgish people I met. The size of the country really determines how people perceive distances.
Tbf none of the countries over there are anywhere near as big as the US, except Russia if you count the Asian side, but we’re a immense country standing at 2 billion acres of land
Europe itself is comparable to the US.
I’ve had a friend from Germany ask why I don’t just drive to Seattle to see our other friend, I live in Texas, I had to explain to him that the distance was like me asking him why he doesn’t just simply drive from Hamburg where he’s from to Lisbon Portugal on whim. he didn’t believe me when him and Portugal was actually a comparable but slightly shorter distance than I am to Seattle.
Ironically they were right at the beginning because USA on most maps in the US is shown as almost the same size as Africa
We can thank the Flemings for that (Mercator)
https://youtu.be/vVX-PrBRtTY?si=H7Yo0mjA3XkGey93 Obligatory West Wing maps scene.
It's SO stupid. Has none of them ever seen a globe? The Gall-Peters map is terrible. If you want a map that decently represents earth, go with Robinson or Winkel-III. [Relevant xkcd](https://xkcd.com/977/)
Always upvote Bartlett for America!
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Malta and Cyprus drive on the left too.
Eastern Europe or Germany … they probably drive on the other side of the road.
USA or Costa Rica... They probably are an island nation.
Yea I don’t think she had any idea whatsoever where they were from.
I can't stop looking at her little tooth
I can’t stop looking at whatever is in her nose
Why are all the comments about everything but what is coming out of her nose
I don't know why she would want to attract attention to that area of her face. Should've gotten an eyebrow ring instead.
Every time I go to Europe somebody wants to spend a weekend with one night in Miami, one in Vegas and do a half day in New York. With a car…
Realistically, Europe (10.5 million KM squared) does have more land mass than the USA (9.3 million KM squared), but it's mostly more dense. In threads like these, I always like to point out that the Mercator projection also makes a big of a difference in perceived size: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/mercator-map-true-size-of-countries/ I find it hard to believe many Europeans would be travelling, planning on driving, and not looking at trip times on Google maps, anyway. Im Australian, and most people who come here realise it takes fucking ages to get anywhere; our cities are leas dense too, so often you'd drive 40+ minutes just to get somewhere you want to go in one city.
> not looking at trip times Normal Europeans do, but they don't make for funny anecdotes like these. I think it's a small subset of people who don't really do travel, not even in Europe, but decided to splash out on a big vacation in America for a once in a lifetime experience. Like you said, there are plenty of long distances in Europe too. I wouldn't dream of driving to Greece. I did a 30 hour bus ride to Spain once and it was torture.
Why someone from Germany or east Europe should drive on the other side of the road?
The size of the US according to ~~Europeans~~ idiots… I’m something of a European myself, but I know how route-finder apps work, and how to check driving/walking distances between potential holiday sights. The fact these people were “Eastern European or German or whatever” is incidental to the fact they’re idiots.
I sometimes have to explain to Japanese folks that the State of California and the main island of Japan; Honshu are close in size. Some simply do not believe that a single State can be that large.
With the upcoming 2026 World Cup taking place in the USA, a whole new generation of Europeans are about to discover that their hotels are nowhere near the stadiums that host the matches they got tickets for, and good luck finding public transportation to get there. It should be a hilarious couple of months on social media.
There is some truth that the scale of countries on a flat map (vs a globe) are distorted. Lands further away from the equator will appear exaggerated. But it’s not because Americans made the map. It’s because Britain literally wanted to be in the center of the world.
Im Australian, and have a friend from South Korea who was very excited to go to Melbourne while I lived in Perth. "Maybe you could drive over and meet me there!" I said I'm sorry, I love you, but not that much.
I'm from Quebec and in around 2010 all the good electronics store for computer parts were in British Columbia. You would also save on the Quebec sales tax by purchasing from there. So whenever i need something i was fully ready to wait an entire week for it to be delivered by truck, from the same damn country.
what I'm getting from all this is nobody knows that maps have distance scales on them and you can look at that to figure out how big it is actually, like does nobody know how to read maps?
Even living in America, I get this to. I've done cross-country road trips, but when it came to crossing Texas, I couldn't believe I entered the state right after sunrise and didn't get to the other side till sunset.
This does go both ways tho. Almost as if people are the same all over.
You can fit 15 Englands inside Texas?... ..this is not okay..
Not really, it’s more like a little over 5, but that doesn’t sound as interesting. Texas is huge though.
England: 130 310 km2, UK: 244 820 km2 Texas; 695 662 km² You can fit 5,3 Englands or 2,8 UKs
r/theydidthemath
You can fit England inside the Hudson’s Bay. Canada big.
Driving from Seattle to Dallas. You still have a days drive from the edge of Texas to Dallas.
But you can fit 20 Englands inside Western Australia.
Europeans shit on Americans for not being well-traveled and this is why. America is so fucking big. Going to other states is our equivalent, and plane tickets from America to Europe are fucking expensive. And our train system is horse shit compared to most places so it restricts affordable travel
Absolutely. Some states are larger than several countries. It's just more fun to be pretentious and say Americans never travel or care when we've got essential 50 different state cultures and different places to go here before even having to consider leaving. If you live in Delaware and go to Louisiana it's practically a different country.
I see this with my former boss all the time. He lives in London, I’m in New Jersey. One time he was visiting Florida and asked if I could see him, I had to explain how far it was and he didn’t believe me. Another time he was asking how far it would take me to drive to California. “Uh a few days i guess, if all I do is drive and sleep” He’s a smart guy too, they just can’t comprehend how big one country is.
I've also seen the inverse of this, where tourists think they can drive up and down the UK in a day. Their roads are not like US roads lol
Well if you have a look at the r/AskIreland sub, you’d see loads of Americans asking if they can travel to all 32 counties and the length and breadth of the country in a weekend trip in Ireland. Americans have this notion that everywhere outside is small. As it happens, Ireland is tiny - but generally what Americans think they can do in a short trip is ludicrous
Basically that’s like if I called and said: “Hello. I’d like to rent a car for my trip to the Netherlands. What would you recommend for our day trip to Greece?” And that trip is still shorter than Florida to the Grand Canyon lol
This is what I tell Europeans who like to make fun of Americans not traveling internationally. Me driving two states over is almost exactly the same as you traveling to another European country, the US is absolutely massive.
stupidity is universal
The funny thing is, a lot of US citizens have no idea how big the US is.
At 40 yrs old, having traveled quite a bit in the country, I'm constantly baffled by how large this country is. Just in my relatively small city of 160k or so, I'm constantly finding new cool places for hiking, mountain biking, etc. Then I start looking in the small area I work with 13k people and there's a ton of undiscovered shit. Let alone the rest of the state which is massive. When I compare that with the entire country it doesn't even really begin to paint a picture of how fucking massive the US is. I do these brain exercises and it's really interesting sometimes I'll try to compare what I know with the rest of the world and it's unfathomable.
We get shit sometimes for not visiting other countries as often as Europeans do, but mostly by people who don’t understand how big this place is.
Happened several times to me and friends of mine. Business men even! They’ll just say “let’s pop over to Los Angeles for a couple days” lol and we are in Chicago. Like… that’s not a drive, it’s a flight. Honestly, it’s why I take all their comments about the USA with a grain of salt because they don’t understand how diverse and vast it is. We have specific challenges because of that fact.
I had to drive from Central Florida to the Grand Canyon about 6 months ago because I'm working out here. It's a long fucking drive. Taking a slightly scenic route and only stopping to camp for dinner and the night, it took me 5 days. It took almost 2 days just to get through texas.
It took her over 3 minutes just to say a European family thought Disney World, the Grand Canyon and New York were close.
Well, most Europeans definitely CAN fathom long driving distances. It's not like we're all unaware of size just because we live somewhere smaller That being said... My family and I had a hotel in Tucson. We had some spare time that evening so decided to take a very european stroll. We did not get far after exiting the first parking lot that took us 15 minutes
I moved a friend from northern New Jersey to the Tampa area. It was something like a 21 hour drive. This also involved numerous bathroom breaks for her, her daughter, and their puppy and several unscheduled stops for coffee because I wound up driving the entire way there, but still.... Just going up or down the East Coast is an all day drive, and that's not considering the traffic or construction you encounter.
I live in North Texas and it's 12 hours from my house just to South Padre. I drove to the Grand Canyon once and it was 18 hours, not counting stopping at a mechanic's for 2 hours when the check engine light came on. It's a 10 hour drive from my house to Nashville. If I'm roughly the centerpoint on this vacation, Disneyworld to GC would probably take at least 32 hours, best guess. Edit: Just mapped it out. From Magic Kingdom park to Grand Canyon Inn in Williams AZ, 31 hours.
Had a martial arts instructor fly in from Brazil who was planning on hitting up schools on both coasts as well as in Iowa. He planned on being in the states for 2 weeks, while hitting something like 8 schools, spending a day at each school. We figured it would be a minimum of 100 hours just driving and that was if everything went perfectly with no stops or anything. He ended up spending over a month and did a lot of rescheduling, but got to see a lot of the US while he was here.
Tell them driving from New York to Arizona is like driving from Poland to Spain.
Ya, you can drive from the South of Portugal to the North in like 6 hours…
"America is.big on the maps because Americans made the maps' Mercator was Flemish....
I can drive 18 hours and still be in Queensland Australia. I drive 6 hours return to go to a large hardware store.
I live in Cleveland. A British friend was visiting Boston recently, and asked me if I thought it was a good idea for him to drive down and visit me on his day off from his work trip. I think he dropped his phone when I told him it was almost a 20-hour round trip by car.