I suppose our interstate highway system is beneficial. Other than large metropolitan areas you avoid the traffic of the cities. Assuming no accidents or weather issues. If you were to travel 100 miles by highway instead of interstate that would be a different story. Most highways cut right through the center of all the towns big and small. The mom said for her 100 miles would take 2 hours. We used to travel 130 miles to visit my grandma and it took 2 hours almost everytine. Speed limits on the interstate have gone up since then however. So only a bit better than her numbers. We still have traffic here. Unless you are in the middle of the dessert or great plains.
The biggest mistake a local in central Florida can make is taking I-4 when they could have used a toll highway. There is a spot where 3 lanes have to merge into the main interstate at once. Driving 4 miles in 48 minutes is not fun. No matter what time it is you will hit traffic.
As an American, there definitely is an immense feeling of freedom you get knowing that you could, for example, drive 2 days west and still be in the same country, using the same money, driving the same car.
One thing these videos never capture is just how diverse American is in culture and thought. Even in the United States, people tend to say "Americans believe this or that," but it all depends on where you live. A person in NY city has had very different cultural and living experiences vs. someone who grew up in rural Kansas and so on and so forth.
This is so very true! My Dad was in the military and we were stationed all over the States. I lived in 6 different states and have lived from one side of the country to the other (North Carolina to California). The culture shock is real!
I always think it would be better for people to think of states as actual countries unto themselves, under one "union" continent. May not be exactly true but I think it's a much more accurate representation, when you think of them all as countries rather than states, it's also easier to grasp the idea of them all having very different cultures and environments, etc.
Well said, I drive a lot on Interstates in California, and can say truckers are professional and safe, unlike the priks constantly tailgating and unsafe passing, often between Los Angeles, SF Bay area and Sacramento.
"To drive from the most northern part of England to the most southern point is six to eight hours." ...when I was in the army, my dad drove to pick me up from Fort Huachuca Arizona so I could take my Christmas holiday at home near Houston Texas. It took us 16 hours to make that drive. 13 of those hours was in Texas itself.
I'm half way between Erie and Pittsburgh. I drove 5 hours to a sister store for work one day, worked 8 hours then came back. Whooped at the end of that one, but the travel pay was good.
The disconnect between the size of one's homeland and the U.S. is very real. I worked for a company in the U.S. that was located in a suburb of Chicago. We had a sister company in the Netherlands. We would occasionally get Dutch visitors and one told us he would like to drive down to Florida over the weekend. We explained that while it was not impossible, the 30 hour round-trip drive would take up a big part of the available time. The state of Illinois alone is about 3.5 times the size of the Netherlands.
@Gaivs Ivlivs Caesar ikr, warm beaches 45 minutes away sounds like it would be wonderful, sighn me up. on a side note that would mean that the notorious Florida's alligator weilding Florida man would be 45 minutes away... nm I like being 30 hours away 😂
My In-laws are Italians, and it is always funny to me trying to put 'America' into European perspective. Once my Sister- and Brother-in-Law wanted to come and visit us when we were living in El Paso, Texas (I'm Californian, but was stationed there while still in the Army) since it is a nice and central location on the continent of North America. The planned itinerary was to visit Dallas, Las Vegas, San Francisco, and then Chicago, "if there's time," in a two week visit. I laughed, and said that we haven't visited Dallas since moving to Texas because it is a 9 hour drive from El Paso - in fact, Los Angeles is closer to El Paso than Dallas is. Also, the other three items on the agenda are even farther away. My In-Laws thought I was joking or exaggerating, so I told them that Los Angeles to New York is slightly further than Lisbon to Moscow and had to show a quick google search to be believed. When I said "The US is big [Gli Stati Uniti sono grandi]," apparently they thought I was bragging or something. No, it really is BIG.
i remember going from Atlanta, Georgia to los Angeles, California we spent so much time in Texas we followed I-10 it felt like we spent most of the day there
@@niq872 I had to drive from Washington State to North Carolina, and spent over 600 miles on I-90 in Montana alone. In January. Pretty country, scary conditions, went on forever. Pretty though.
I'm from El Paso and when I drive to visit my family in Chicago it is a 24 hour drive, I take it in 3 days 10 hours then 10 hours then the last 4. Stopping at hotels each night.
@@atorothcassidy4866 I'd just fly. I live in Washington now, and its a ~ 700 mile drive to my family in N. California, and we just fly when we have to visit. It's almost cheaper even.
You mentioned there’s large areas where no one lives and that is definitely the deserts. We have a few (some shared with Mexico) and there’s a very famous story used a cautionary tale in the US. A family of four Germans (two were tragically children) tried driving through Death Valley. At some point the got lost and misunderstood the size of the desert. They did eventually find the rental van and the two bodies of the adults, we can only assume the children died earlier somewhere else, and they were later dubbed as “The Death Valley Germans.” But Americans also make this mistake all the time. Europeans, please do not underestimate the size or environments of the US. Winters, summers, wetlands, national parks, woodlands, etc in some places are incredibly deadly. Foreigners and Americans alike can underestimate their surroundings and tragically meet their ends. Stay on marked roads, always have a sufficient amount of water and food and medical supplies when you take road trips here, and don’t trespass rural homes and territories. (Those people living on their own in the middle of nowhere are doing that for a reason. Leave them alone.) and for the love of god, do not try to approach wild animals. Deer, moose, bears, wildcats, wolves, snakes, gators, etc etc are not your friends, look up what wildlife exists where your camping or traveling so you know what to do during an encounter. Sorry, I just hear too many horror stories of Europeans putting their lives at risk because of a lack of research. We want you to have fun here, but so much of our environment is not covered in American films so just understand the risks outside of major cities.
And know how easy it is for your car to get stuck in snow, and what to do when it happens to keep from dying. That is very dangerous, and several people per year die around the country because of it. US cell phone coverage is not as good as some places and can depend on the carrier you select, so it's possible your car could go off the road in a snowstorm and you won't be able to call for help.
CatDog69ing, to illustrate your point, years ago there was a TV program called National Geographic Explorer, and on one episode there was a man who, like so many, wanted to get the perfect picture of an elk in Jackson, WY, the gateway town of Grand Teton N.P., about 50 miles south of Yellowstone. He approached closer and closer until the elk had had enough, at which point he scooped the man up in his antlers, and tossed him around 8 feet/2.4 meters in the air. Bears and bison are also animals which are often approached too closely, even with their child in tow, as if they were approaching a merry-go-round horse.
@@jimgreen5788 yes! There was a woman recently who tried to approach a Buffalo and of course almost got gored. It happens in Canada a lot too. (Just saw a video of two drunk idiots fucking with a moose and she of course went after them.) Just leave the animals alone. Ain’t nobody gonna be a real life Snow White. Even the raccoons. If they don’t rip you to shreds, they can have diseases that are deadly. (I.E. Florida monkies lol)
My family lives in the high desert area, and have a home in death valley's area. we were once scared out of our beds because we heard somthing in the horse's watering hole. Come to find out it was a chinese tourist who wanted to walk the desert like he did the gobi. He thought it would be the same experience until noon hit and the 2L of water he had were gone. If we had not been in the area and refilled the bins this guy might have died. fyi it tends to get to 120F in the shade in some parts of death valley.
Similarly we get people from elsewhere in the US who underestimate our hiking trails in Phoenix and unfortunately perish in the heat. Always talk to the rangers first before attempting any hikes or journeys into the wilderness (even if it doesn't seem too far away from civilization like our mountains) and LISTEN if they tell you to turn back because you're underprepared. Grand Canyon rangers turn people around on the trails all the time. Grand Canyon is incomprehensibly large and deep in the canyon can be 100+ degrees Fahrenheit when up on the rim can be cool and breezy. The main takeaway is to listen to locals and listen to the professionals.
I'm American, and I traveled to the UK in the late '90s. Despite the fact that you can travel to parts of the country that have the trappings of "big city" living, such as London, there was always something that gave me the impression that the country was a "small village." It wasn't because of the geography, but the sense I got from the people, and the way things were put together. Many things just felt "smaller," or small town-ish. It's hard to describe. I didn't mind it at all. Just an observation.
Well, not quite. I will when they stop the royal family silliness...my family moved from Britain to America in the mid-1600's. Britain decided to stay in that era ever since.
I love road trips. When I moved from Tampa, Florida to Sacramento, Ca 12 years ago, it took me 3 days to drive it. So the fact that to drive across Britain will only take you 3 hours is mind-blowing to me. Just to drive from Sac to LA is about 7 hours, and you never leave the state.
@@TheSloppyjoejr if you are talking about Sac to LA, you don't hit LA traffic until the San Fernando Valley, and that's about 6 hours into the trip. I have made the drive many times.
@@damianorsini6468 And you know what I'm gonna say. It ain't the heat, it's the humidity. I lived in Tampa for a short while back in the day. Been in Seattle for a long long time now. My girl and I were in the Keys a coupla years ago and all I kept saying every time we went outside was "MAN, this humidity does not quit. It never takes off the gloves, it just keeps hitting you"!
I live just south of Tampa. That is almost coast to coast. I grew up circus (bio pic) and miss the traveling. I've been to every state in the Union except for Alaska (Went to Hawaii but was too young to remember). I used to drive a semi and you get a grasp of the size of the country if you drive across it. Across west Texas or Montana, miles & miles & miles & miles of nothing
Heavy or light traffic all depends on what part of the country your traveling. The county I reside in went from a population of 800 thousand when I was a teenager starting to drive with sparse traffic to well over 2 million today as a 56 year old. Now it’s gridlock and a horrible commute in my area.
For real- I grew up in the DC area. My dad had an hour commute to his office 15 miles away. At least twice a year we drove 12 hours to my grandparents house. And living in the Midwest- a five hour drive to Chicago is not a big deal.
We had a British friend who used to tease us when we'd complain about our vehicle breaking down and how we couldn't get to work or go get groceries. She'd laugh at us and tell us to walk, take the bus, take the metro (all of which are available)... Then she came to visit with us. The first thing she said after the initial greetings was "This isn't a car! This is a LIVING ROOM!" (about our suburban). Then we started driving her around...showed her where we worked, etc... She also did the bus and metro trips with us...which took hours. Drover her to visit places in the state..Anyway...when she returned home, she never teased us about just walking to go to work or to go shopping again.
living almost my entire life in New England, I can say that the town names are a mix of British name (I grew up in a town called Bristol) and Native American names.
@Jovet Then get corrected by the locals for the REAL and usually messed up way Mericans pronounce names of foreign origins. Even when we have closer timeline ties or large native speaker populations we mangle them pretty bad.... I might have gotten into a multi month argument over the street name Chanate here. With a multi gen local. I took French in school, and let's just say that NO ONE HERE uses even a hint of the correct pronunciation 😐🤦
tuna - Same here, but my state has a British, French and Amerindian name mix. I particularly like the Amerindian names for places since it is unlikely that they're matched by any others world-wide. It's nice to be unique in some way.
Traffic varies GREATLY by where you're driving. I've driven in both rural areas and in metropolitan areas. It can take 4 hours to get from one side of Houston to the other side of Houston.
One of the things that really set in how big America was for me was on a cross-country road trip. We were driving through New Mexico, and as far as you could see in every direction was sand and sky. No hills, no dunes, no trees or any plants, as far as the eye could see in every direction you look. We were on that road for hours before we saw a small shack off the road side, and that's about the only thing that was out there
I always had trouble explaining how empty most of New Mexico is. Europeans just couldn't grasp the fact that there were places that had no structures, power lines or people for miles around. Just you, your vehicle and a dirt road.
Prairie madness was a real condition that affected the first pioneers moving into the plains. No landmarks, no trees or hills, just grass in every direction for days at a time when traveling by wagon.
@@Locomonkeys I have. Same road trip, drove through the mountains. I definitely preferred the mountains, I like the cold and snow and thought they were far more beautiful. Being able to see something like a mountain really helps centralize your perspective and you can tell you're moving. New Mexico dessert, it was like someone put a treadmill under the car because you would drive for so long and nothing would change
I worked with a guy from southern Indiana (across the river from where I live in Louisville, KY) who was stationed in Germany years before. I hadn't realized how many Europeans didn't understand how big America was until he told me he had some friends from Germany that were visiting the US and wondered if they could pop by and meet up with him. Turns out they were going to be in New Jersey, only some 11 hours away. He got a good laugh out of that. A popular vacation destination from my city is Destin, FL, which is in the pan handle and that's more than 9 hours away. To get to Orlando where all the theme parks are is a 13 hour drive.
I was in Madrid, Spain a number of years ago and a young man started a conversation with us. Practicing his English! After a bit he said that his cousin lived in the US and then asked if we knew him. All we could say was “probably not!”
I had a German friend do this also. First US visit, to NYC. Would have loved to see me over the NYE holiday. I live in Minnesota, so I had to send my regrets.
Yes. When I lived in Germany, we talked a family out of planning a trip to both the Grand Canyon and NYC during their 1 week trip. They thought it would take at most a day drive.
The East Coast of America, especially the Northeast, is a lot like England. You guys lived in New Jersey so you know what I mean. There's a town or a city every few miles with farms in between. You stop for fuel basically because you might as well fill up since you're stopping to use the bathroom or get snacks. But once you get out west... whew. There are amazing expanses where you stop to get fuel because it might be a while until you can fill up again.
@@2011blueman Yes! Thought that was what I remembered. Thought that some were saying it didn't count for some reason. Possibly because of the lockdown and when would that ever be able to be passed. Because everyone is stuck at home inside means you can't try to pass any records. Lol
@@lianabaddley8217 I mean "doesn't count" is kind of silly concept with it's an unofficial illegal thing, but yeah some people thought it was "unfair" since clearly covid was a once in a generation chance at super empty roads.
@@2011blueman OMG Yes! I am so glad that 1. I am not the only one that said, wait it's not even a "real" thing. 2. I had a concussion a few years ago and I still have problems because of it. So I wasn't sure if I was remembering things correctly or maybe just a dream. Lol Memory problems, balance issues, headaches. No Fun at all.
I have a couple UK friends, that when I first moved to my farm (in one of the southwest states)- there were several aspects about my new home/life that they genuinely struggled to believe. Details such as; •My “next door neighbors” are nearly a 10-15 minute drive away. That’s even with a speed limit of 75mph (which I take as more of a “suggestion,” since I’m basically the only person who uses the road… aside from my neighbors😂). •Just our “village hub” area, covers roughly 250,000-300,000 acres of land. •When I moved here, I became the 176th resident of said village. •We share an ambulance and a firetruck with the next village over (about a 45-60 minute drive away). •All adults within the surrounding villages are requested to volunteer for training as auxiliary firefighters/emergency/first aid personnel (just in case). •The only store we have is a truck stop on the edge of the village, but major shopping (for all necessary items that we can’t hunt/fish/grow/make/barter/etc. amongst ourselves) is done at the nearest “big town” (population appx. 10,000 people)….which is about a 2 1/2-3 hour drive away. •That same “big town,” is also our nearest emergency medical facility (but thankfully, one of the other 175 residents is a retired doctor 😂). •On occasion, I can go WEEKS without ever seeing another person. Where/how I live might seem like a dying and archaic thing -but we aren’t even remotely a “rare” situation out here in the USA (at least, not in any of the larger, agricultural and/or less populated states.) There are innumerable places just the same as my home (many of which encompass even larger areas of land, that are less populated and are far more remote) -scatter throughout the vast majority of states.…. And that’s why it breaks my brain when I imagine the full scope of just how HUGE Russia is. 😂
And this is why the people who say "you don't need guns, just call the police" get laughed at in Southwestern US. My town has a police force. It takes 15-25 minutes to respond during office hours, 30+ otherwise.
Size is relative. My father was born in Texas but was stationed in Alaska where I was born. I teasingly call Texas puny for being less than half the size of Alaska. But then I visited Australia and realized I wasn’t going to rent a car and drive from Sydney to Melbourne - you could drop Alaska into Australia twice! Then I saw you could drop Australia into Africa twice!! I’m now sufficiently recalibrated.
@@leechowning2712 dude, that's ALL of rural America. majority of america is rural areas and farm land, most police take 15-30 minutes to get to these remote places. My closest town is about a 15 minute drive and it only has like 4 police officers that could all be busy and they don't usually travel outside of town. My Sharif's office is even farther then that. Guns are NECCESSARY in the rural parts of the US, period.
@@leechowning2712 a police force must be nice. We have a county force, but that's a long wait for any help. Saw a state officer twice in 3 years. We police for ourselves.
I live in the Inland Empire. It's no joke how big it actually is. I just recently did a 10 hr drive to Utah and that was a long drive. Coming back was the same thing. The US is huge, and you can run into cities all around southern California, but outside of that, there are areas where ypu will not see cities or towns for miles.
Our size is why most of us don't have passports. We spend alot of time traveling/discovering our own country, sometimes our own states. It's not that we don't care about going to other countries or cultures, it's that we just haven't gotten to that point yet and it's expensive to travel so far away. Each state basically has it's own culture as if it is its own country. There are also places so secluded that it takes a 45 minute drive to get to the grocery store, police station, doctor's office, or fast food place.
@@101steel4 You have obviously never been the the US. LOL You would be hard pressed to see 75% of our entire country in 28 days, let alone all of it. People commute 2 hours to work on a daily basis here and are still in the same city and that has nothing to do with traffic. Depending on where you live, you can go through 2 or more European countries in that amount of time. It's really not about the time off (every time). There is just so much to see here that we just stay here. I will admit that we miss out on some things, as I love to travel. However, so are you.
@@sbostic08 That may be true of you guys and Texas, but definitely not on a national level. Anything you guys can do, we can do more of it, and better.
@Nick Hall I'm American and traveled enough to know what I like and dislike. The UK is more interesting to look at b/c I like the old architecture and scenery. Maybe that's why I like the PNW.. it has similar weather and lush landscape.
@@sbostic08 We can match their scenery, and depending on where you’re at we have architecture that predates the USA by a fair amount. We don’t have castles, but given the what I know about British history I don’t consider that to be a positive thing. To each their own though.
When I lived out west in Idaho I had a German friend who was astonished at the wide spaces. He said the same thing about Germany - that you drive a few miles and you are in another town or city. Truthfully, I was astonished myself because in Michigan the towns are much closer together.
I live in Boise Idaho and when I was young there was open space in the Treasure Valley, like in between Boise and Meridian, Meridian and Nampa. But now there is no separation. The entire valley is just smushed together lol. But yes, beyond the valley there are wide open highways where you won’t even find a gas station for an hour etc.
Oregonian here. Went on a trip back East - Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York - and the states felt squished together! Plus too danged many people, and I do live in Portland, not in the country. 😄 Plus everyone drove too slow.
29% of Michigan's land is in the Upper Peninsula, where the towns are most definitely not "much closer together". I'm near Sault Ste. Marie, which is more than 150 miles away from any other towns with more than 10,000 people.
I once had some German exchange students visit us in Minnesota. Where that little dot represent Minneapolis. They enjoyed staying here so much they wanted to do a cross country road trip. So, they proudly stated that they would rent a car for two weeks and drive across the country. Seeing all the major cities this, was met with a resounding question from all of us in the US student group. Who said you’d need actually about 4 months to go all around the USA. My grandparents don’t like to fly so they drive everywhere. Typically it takes them at least 2 to 4 days of doing nothing but driving to get from. Florida to Minnesota. Plus if you wanted to go east coast to west coast is exponentially longer.
Huh? Either they were doing more than just driving or they were driving very very slowly because from Orlando Florida to Brainard Minnesota is only a 24-hour drive, give or take. 2 days is more than enough time to make the trip one way. My old Boy Scout Troop down in Houston Texas used to go up to Minnestoa every now and again on a 2 weeklong canoeing trip along the Minnesota/Canadian border. It never took them longer then 19 hours to make the trip one-way and they had to drive under the speed limit.
@@Princess_Celestia_ I know its hard to believe-but not everybody drives 100 +mph. The fastest I every made El Paso TX to Chicago (1300 miles _was 19 hours and the was running 90 most of the way.
I married a man from England. We've been married 16 years. In the beginning, we had to apply for a K1 Visa. While we were waiting, we were setting up the house and everything. But he refused to get a car. He said he could take the train or bus to work. I'm like what train or bus ? Lol. When he got here, he was shocked we had no shops close by to walk to and everything was so far apart with no public transport. 16 years later, he still curses at the trains where we live for not carrying people and belly aches about having to have 2 cars. LOL. And we live in the suburbs of a pretty big city !
This is really great the other way around though. Being so used to the size of America makes smaller countries seem super travelable. I was able to see everything I wanted from top to bottom in japan in like a week
I've lived in the metropolitan Detroit area for many years and when we want to get away we go "up north" which leaves a lot of area to cover. If you want to really get a way you go to the Upper Peninsula. That is primarily wilderness and very beautiful. It was a favorite spot of Rudyard Kipling. There's a Rudyard County, the town of Rudyard and the town of Kipling in the U.P. Everyone who visits remarks on how beautiful it is.
I just moved out of San Bernardino county and I can tell you it is massive. It took us about 3 and a half hours to just get out of the county from the east end to the west end.
10:20, well travel times will depend on which 100 miles you are going. Along the eastern seaboard it's going to be like you described, same with Southern California. Before the pandemic the average American commute time was just north of an hour for about 40 miles. I live in Ohio and used to commute to Pittsburgh, I was going 67 miles and it took me about 90 minutes, I had coworkers that were just coming across town and their commute time was longer than mine.
@@Talishar True, but it does depend on the time of day. I worked for years driving the freeways of LA. After a while you know where the bottlenecks are and can plan alternate routes (sometimes on the streets) to get you around them. Also it is often quicker at night. As mentioned in the video, driving distances might not be a concern. There are a lot of styles of food that LA offers and I would splurge once a week. Some of my favorite locations were 25 to 50 miles away; I would take the freeway and get there in about 15 to 50 minutes, listening to the SIG Alerts (monitoring the freeway traffic flows). And of course, any of my out of state friends visiting Pasadena would get me to be a guide to Disneyland, about 50 miles away. I now live in Portland, Maine. Driving 25 miles still takes me about 40 minutes because the speed limits going through the villages are about 30mph, not the 60 mph of the turnpikes.
From Scrabster Scotland to Bournemouth England, it's a 12 hour 40 min drive, 721 miles. In Canada in the province of Ontario, you can drive from the city of Ottawa to Kenora and you will change time zones in a trip that takes 21 hours and covers 1,211 miles, never leaving the province.
My family regularly drove from Seattle to Bangor when I was growing up. It took 7 days if we stopped at hotels, but 5 days if you had at least 3 or 4 drivers and drove through the night. After the first 2 days, you just feel like this is the new reality and you'll never not be driving. Then, when we hit the smaller states on the east, we gain momentum.
What's even better is the OPPOSITE perspective can happen, as seen by my sister. We grew up in the Midwest--that means everything is huge and far away. When she visited Vermont for a science conference, she wanted to pick up the New England states that she hadn't visited. When she got on the highway to head to New Hampshire, when the exit for said state appeared after a mere ten minutes, she was positive she was wrong because there is NO WAY a new state could appear that fast when you started in the middle of one, and so she missed the proper exit. So yeah, we, at least, also have difficulty comprehending states that small.
A number of years ago, I drove almost the entire length of I64. I started at the Atlantic Ocean in Norfolk, Virginia and drove to St Louis, Missouri. It was a distance of approximately 1000 miles and it took approximately 18 hours to complete the trip.
My family went on a road trip through the midwest a couple years ago. We flew out to Denver, Colorado, rented a car and put over 3000 miles on it over the course of the trip. We crossed 9 state lines during the trip. We went to Mount Rushmore, the Battle of Little Bighorn, Arches National Park and camped in Yellowstone. It was one of the best trips of my life, and it doesn't even scratch the surface on what the U.S has to offer. A year later, we went on another roadtrip through New England. We spent 5 days driving up from Northern Virginia to Maine, then we trickled down through New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Maryland. The two trips are completely different. The east coast has much more dense population concentration, as well as entirely different climates, weather, and culture. They could easily be considered different countries, which is why we have our beloved state system, and even then many of our states could easily be split into multiple countries if judged by European standards.
My brother and I both live in Texas, and if I want to go visit him and his family it's "just" a six hour drive one way, most of it spent more or less driving straight north.
I live in California and drove in all counties over the years, but driving in Texas makes California seem closed in, even small. Texas is huge top to bottom and side to side.
When my sister comes home to Utah from close to Dallas. It takes them around 18 hours driving. With sometimes 3 drivers. Depending if they let 1 of their kids help.
I live in Michigan. The drive from Copper Harbor in the Upper Peninsula to the Ohio border on I-75 is a more than ten hour drive. Off course, we are about 3 percent larger than the UK.
I used to love road trips. My family would do road trips from San Francisco to San Diego to visit relatives. Then road trips to Yellowstone National Park. The Grand Canyon. These days I would do road trips with friends to Las Vegas. 😂
In the 90s I worked all over the Midwest, East Coast and the south and southwest remodeling furniture stores working from state to state winters in the south summers up north there's no telling how many tens of thousands of miles I driven but the scenery along the way was awesome from driving through the Smokey mountains to the deserts of Arizona or the swamps of Louisiana
A little perspective for our European friends. I live in Nevada. I drive 106 miles (about 170 km) round trip to commute to work each day. The 2 major cities in Nevada (just 1 of 50 states) are a 7 hour drive apart. I live in a small town, and the nearest significant shopping or fast food is a 45 minute drive away. There are stretches of highway in this state that are so flat and straight that at night you can see a car coming the opposite direction, with a combined closing speed of 200 kph, 10 minutes before you pass.
When you guys described the time it takes to get end to end in England, I had to laugh at how amazing it is that my home state of Michigan is 10-12 hours from northernmost to southernmost point (depending on whether you drive like a Michigander or a normal person).
I'm from Pennsylvania, on the east coast. It takes about 4-5 hours to drive east to west in our state, if traffic is good. I took a bus once from Seattle on the west coast, back to Pennsylvania. The trip took a nightmarish 3 1/2 days. One of the craziest things I have ever done. Saw some amazing sights along the way, and realized just how diverse the landscape in our country is. By day three I was starting to go loopy though cause I couldn't sleep to save my life.
My daughter lives in Jacksonville, Florida. Thinking Jacksonville is on the coast, I asked her if she swam often, because that's one of her favorite things. She said she wouldn't swim in the river. I asked her about the beach, since J'ville was on the ocean, she said where she lives the beach is an hour away because they live on the other side of the river from it and traffic is so congested. My mind was blown, not realizing how massive Jacksonville is (after seeing your video of Lawrence talking about it.)
When i lived in the UK my friends all thought I was full of hot air when I was always suprised by how small things were. Then they visited me in NYC and I stood them in the middle of Times Square and shouted I TOLD YOU SO! They finally admited I was right XD I got a lot of apologies that day lol
Haha love that story. London is a big city but it's big in the sense of it's sprawling in density, not so much of it height-wise. NYC is big in terms of height in its buildings.
It would be interesting to have you do a comparative regarding biomes. Size provides distinct environments. I've lived in England for ten years and it's terriffic and very beautiful. It does lack variety, however. so, how does the Colorado plateau compare with the size of the United Kingdom? How does the Bonneville salt flats compare when laid over a British countryside? Or, the Everglades? Just something that would be fun as a comparitive.
There are several "towns" out west that have one resident, where people moved away and one person stayed behind. One lady is the mayor of her "town", postmaster, bartender, and innkeeper, winning every election by a landslide and automatically getting her liquor license renewed by herself. :)
We live in southern Colorado. From the ranch we drive once a week to the Post Office for mail. Twenty four miles. Our closest neighbor is seven miles. Some times we are snowed in for eight days or so. Been doing this for eighteen years. We love it and wouldn't change for anything.
Alaska is a whole other animal. Thousands of square miles of nothing but wilderness. Some people go into the woods up there and never come out. It happens so often they even have a phrase for it. They say "gone missing" and that says it all.
Yup, I agree. I grew up in a small town in Alaska called Barrow and as children me and my friends had two incidents where the local wildlife came straight into town and tried to hunt us. First was a lone wolf who we saw tracking us but got scared off by a neighbors dog after following us a good ten minutes, and another time a polar bear chased us under the town's college building (most buildings are on stilts there.) before giving up. There's a reason everyone carries guns in Alaska lol!
As a Yank I just want to declare: May God Bless the Brits Forever !! Along with Israel and Canada our tightest friends (in good and bad times) always... 🤠 EeYaWhooo
Now that you guys have a pretty good general idea of just how big the U.S. is, go on an accent tour and react to Accent Tour of the U.S. by Erik Singer. It's 3 parts, but very entertaining and educational. 🇺🇲 📝😊❤
Woohoo Alaska number 1! xD Edit: Anchorage, does not "feel" that large to me personally. When I visit the lower 48, places like San Fransisco seem to take far longer to cross as opposed to my city where you can get across in a few minutes.
@@mystrenula3911 Yea I suppose so if you consider them that. But if you ask someone from Eagle River where they are from, they are going to say Eagle River, not Anchorage. Even people from Anchorage don't usually say Anchorage, they will say something like Muldoon or Mountain View.
As an American I can say we are HUGE in land mass. One Christmas we decided to drive from western NY to Nevada for a visit with our extended family. It took 4 days with three kids under 10… we never did that again🤣🤣🤣
I remember when I went to Cambridge and was talking with a local, she mentioned that her parents lived elsewhere at the moment. She said they didn't drive to see her too often because they lived a bit far and didn't want to drive all that way, and when I asked her how far away they lived she said 2 hours. I was floored considering it's common for a lot of people in Birmingham, Alabama, to drive down about 3-4 hours to the beach for spring break or a long weekend. It's just a matter of perspective I guess.
Road trip vacations are the best!! Especially when traveling out west. Flying into a place may seem convenient, but you miss so many things along the way.
I biked from the Pacific ocean to the Atlantic ocean a few years ago. It took me all summer. Biking across the widest part of Wales/England would have taken me 4 days.
I used to know a guy who would bike home from college for Thanksgiving every year in college. It was weird seeing him go off with little more than a 10 speed and a water bottle. He was leaving from the San Francisco area (Palo Alto) to Santa Barbara within a day. whatver it was sounded crazy to me.
Yeah road trips and long drives are completely common here. My aunt lives in Oregon so while growing up my fam often drove like 10 hours from the Bay Area to the Oregon Coast to go camping with them. But of course there is traffic in all highly populated areas. Y'all were mentioning you can just get on the road and go but that really depends. Im from Cali and I know for sure LA traffic in rush hours is horrible. A 5 minute drive without traffic can end up taking like 30+ minutes. Although driving from place to place in LA can be slow and frustrating, you can drive from LA to San Francisco(390 miles) in about 6 hours with few to no slowdowns until you get to the highly populated Bay Area(and that's also assuming you're under the speed limit and many californians are not). And the drive on the california coastline between these two large cities is beautiful. Americans enjoy being able to take in the scenery while driving because there are massive areas of natural beauty all across the country in the places where industry and urbanization haven't totally taken over. I'd driven alone from the Cali coast to see my family in wyoming(1000 miles away) several times by age 19 but that's just a normality here in the United States.
There are plenty of people in the eastern US who don't really get the scale of the entire country. The states in the east tend to be smaller and the cities closer together. My cousins in upstate New York state at one point thought they could take a week's vacation, drive to visit our cousin in Florida, then drive over to see me in Houston, Texas and head over to the Grand Canyon before heading back to New York. That's 6,000 miles, and almost 4 days driving time even if you didn't stop.
Hearing that it takes 6-8 hours to drive from the northernmost to the southernmost points of the UK really puts it into perspective since it takes me 6-8 hours to drive from my house in the Inland Empire to Las Vegas. In the time it takes them to cross a whole country I only drive across about 1.5 states (crossing through Arizona)
A former governor of New York accidentally married his first cousin, they had no idea until they went to his family reunion and they started recognizing the same relatives. Iceland, home to about 500,000 people, set up a database people can check when they start dating to make sure they're not related to each other before it gets serious.
Thank you for pronouncing "Oregon" correctly. Now imagine Britain split by mountains with one half being mostly high desert and dry farming (Eastern) with the other half consisting of wet and lush farm lands (Western) and you have our state.
The distances is also why mass transit is not as good as Europe. It’s just too far between cities to have a reliable rail network. There wouldn’t be enough paying passengers to make the routes cost effective.
There is a reason why the USPS chose to fly the mail long distances more than a half century ago... Hours instead of a similar number of days... There is a reason why the best and busiest intercity passenger railroad went bankrupt which made Congress create Amtrak...
sixth form is usually included within a secondary school building, but you still have to apply for a place at the sixth form. if you apply to a sixth form where you also attended secondary, you usually get priority over external students. and yes, sixth form students do walk around the same building as secondary school students, but they dont have to wear a uniform while the secondary schoolers do. when you start sixth form, being able to walk around the building without a uniform and seeing the younger years wearing one is probably one of the best feelings ever.
For scale, because I grew up in southern California... there are three major freeways that go north/south running through San Diego. All of them are at least 5 lanes going each way (sometimes more, so we're talking 10-14 LANES for traffic PER freeway) and the roads are always full. Always. It's so damn startling and I freaking learned to drive there. I live near Washington DC now and it's a madhouse here, too, but it's just not that level of crazy.
My forefathers weren't really creative with names, especially in the original 13 colonies. In Pennsylvania alone, we have over 100 cities, towns, counties, and townships named after places in England.
1) On the "Office Blokes" channel, they are quite harsh when talking about Grimsby. You were less harsh. Grimsby apparently has quite the reputation. 2) My state of Rhode Island has these cities and towns that were named after places in England: Barrington, Bristol, Coventry, Cumberland, Exeter, Glocester, Greenwich, Little Compton (probably Cullompton, Devon), Newport, New Shoreham, Portsmouth, Richmond, Tiverton, and Warwick. We have towns named for English kings: Charlestown (Charles II), Jamestown (James II), and Kingstown (possibly Charles II). We have towns named for people from England or Americans with English surnames: Burrillville, Cranston, Foster, Hopkinton, Johnston, Lincoln, Smithfield, and Warren. There are many more English names used for neighborhoods or parts of towns. We also have lots of indigenous place names, some of which can be challenging: Misquamicut, Pettaquamscutt, Quonochontaug, and Usquepaug. 3) The massive size of San Bernandino County, California, county is misleading. It does have a population of about 2.2 million, but much of that is near Los Angeles. Most of the county is inhospitable desert, including the Mojave. The metropolitan area for Sitka, Alaska, is nearly the size of London's but has a population of only 8500.
Having lived in California for most of my life (did a 6 month hitch in Texas while I was with the Air Force) I never think about just how large a state we are when compared to other countries... until I see videos like this. Then I'm blown away by that fact.
For the most part I have to agree, unless you're traveling through a major city, the traffic on the interstate for example might feel crowded at times but it doesn't actually slow down or get congested much. I used to have to drive from Indiana all the way to Alabama for my Air Force Reserve commitment every other month. It was a 7 hour drive that went through Louisville KY, Nashville TN, and Birmingham AL. For the vast majority of the trip it was smooth sailing but those 3 cities were a nightmare to drive through. Especially Nashville.
Years ago, I met a British couple flying into JFK for their first holiday in America. Bless their hearts. They actually thought that they could see America from the Statue of Liberty to the Grand Canyon in 2 weeks.
I've got friends driving from Orange County, south of L.A., to NYC in three days. Straight through to Chicago, no stops. I'm flying, will spend a few days there on my own and meet up with them when they arrive.
My wife and I picked up a load of citrus in Central Florida and delivered to Seattle Washington and it was just over 3000 miles and straight through was about 50 hours, and that's deducting fuel stops and bathroom breaks.
Yep, taking a drive is the best thing about living in Southeastern Pennsylvania. Close to the ocean, bays, rivers, dozens of cities, Amish farmland, and the mountains.
I'd like to add also that while Russia is the biggest by land, over 60 percent of Russia is uninhabitable. Canada is the second largest by land yet 80 percent of their land is uninhabitable as well. So the US can technically be considered bigger. The real size by arable habitable land puts India first and the US second with Russia falling to third place. While one from the UK might not grasp the size of the US, Americans also might not grasp the size of the UK. It definitely works both ways you're right. Also I've noticed europeans who have never visited the US always underestimate the size massively. Especially online when I see people asking why half of Americans don't get passports. I for one want to see my whole country before I see other countries XD. The sad fact is that most Americans will never get the chance to see all of America. All the deserts, forests, ice caps, sand dunes, etc. Just too much time and money needed to see it all for someone like me.
Went by Greyhound bus from Mississippi to California in 3 days. Awesome trip as I saw the whole South of the USA. The US is a beautiful country with so much to see. BTW I grew up in Manchester UK until I was 14. My beautiful British mother decided after my father died, who was American, that we would be better off in the USA. I did go back to England with my daughter in tow for 3 years. We got there in 1994 and came back in 1997 after Princess Diana died. Out of all my cousins there was only about 10 who came to see us. My mother had 4 sisters and 1 brother and we had loads of cousins.
The naming convention of New England stems from Colonial Era, of course. When presented with a map of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, King Charles I literally ordered “Name this River and this town after me and get rid of the rest of the Savage names.” The Quinebequoin River was renamed the Charles River, and Mishawum was renamed Charlestown. If you dig around enough, many places with English names have the Indigenous names still known. Eddie Izard, in one of her acts used to start off, “I’m from England, where History comes from” (tongue-in-cheek about Anglo/Eurocentrism) “The Pilgrims had no imagination. They left Plymouth, and landed… in… Plymouth.”
I really love your reaction to this video. Lawrence is great as well. My husband and I live in the Saint Paul metro area. My Dad lives in Tennessee. It’s 863-900 miles between us. When we travel to visit Dad we drive to his house in one go. Hubby drives at about 75 miles an hour. It takes us 12 hours one way. We have made the trip 4 times in all weather. It’s not a big deal for us at all. I hope this gives you a good idea of the size and a perspective of the country. Best wishes from Minnesota.😀
I knew a guy in college that was from the UK. The craziest thing he said to me one time was “I can’t believe you all don’t know where other people are from.” I asked what he meant. He said “we’ll if someone tells me their from (insert English town here) I know it and have been there most of the time. When you have someone tell us their from Utah but no one around here knows the town he’s from it’s crazy to me” he really didn’t understand just how big the US is.
Hello from Riverside County, California (part of the Inland Empire), From my city to Las Vegas is about 270 miles and usually takes about 4 .25 hours. My personal best drive time to Vegas is 3.5 hours. But this can really vary depending on weather and traffic. Interstate 15 is the main road to Vegas from Southern California. It goes over El Cajon pass which does get snow in the winter, sometimes requiring snow chains on your tires. If it's a holiday weekend or if there is a big event in Vegas, it can take up to 9 hours to get back. On Thanksgiving weekend 2022, there was a 16 mile long traffic jam at the state line coming into California.
I'm a proud resident of Alaska and can attest to its size. There are less than a million people in the whole state and it takes 6-7 hours to drive between the two largest cities on the road system (most towns require boats and or airplanes to get to, including the state capital)
Driving straight through from Chicago Illinois to Tampa Florida, It takes roughly 21 hours. on the way down there, you encounter mostly open highways with little traffic. although, there are six different cities you pass through on your way. There are bypasses, but the traffic becomes much more congested the closer you get to the cities. A couple of the cities go through the Appalachian Mountains, and are absolutely beautiful. Especially during the fall.👍
Greetings from America 👋 We do enjoy visiting the UK - it feels like a nice change from the states and new things to see, learn and enjoy some very beautiful areas. The Palm House at Kew Gardens is my favorite spot in London, for example. Mainly we enjoy the UK for the cultural exchange. On the other hand, America has a little bit of everything to offer without a culture change. You can often even find the same brands and the same products in all 50 states and territories. We can have the same Krispy Kreme doughnuts in Ohio as they have in Louisiana, and the beach chairs at Wal-Mart in Hawaii are the same as at Wal-Mart in Florida. A Marriott hotel in Anchorage Alaska will have the same standards, rooms and services as a Marriott in Dallas Texas. Part of the appeal of America is the freedom to be just about anywhere you want to be and still have access to conveniences and experiences that are familiar to you.
I live in Alaska and just drove from Anchorage to Homer and back. It took 9 hours including stops. Seen lots of moose, bald eagles and plenty of beautiful views. It was a nice little road trip.
Seattle to Miami is the same distance as starting in London...and ending up in Baghdad. Yes, the US is huge. There is traffic in cities, but a road trip would only have moderate traffic.
There are a lot of people who live in Los Angeles or San Fransisco or New York who were born there and never left their city limits because everything they felt they needed were there, they had no reason to leave. Inversely, there's people who live in Podunk, Small Town, USA who have never left their town, ever, because they also felt they had no reason to leave because everything they needed was there. Ironically, people in New York or Los Angeles and other large cities think people in small towns are backwards country people, even though the people living in small towns can be more traveled.
San Bernardino here. Most of the county is national forests and deserts and are sparsely populated. Just did the drive from one coast to the other. Driving 8-9 hours a day will take about 5 days. It’s 36 hours if you drive straight through.
I lived 4yrs in Suffolk England as a child so know your perspective. But now I'm in San Bernardino county. You're right, if we have to travel from one region to another far region, the traffic won't be terrible the entire way. But we will have to go through metropolitan traffic areas occasionally. I live in San Bernardino county (Redlands) and commute to Riverside to work. About 20 to 30 minutes depending on traffic. Btw, I live a 2 minute walk from where the San Bernardino shooters lived in that house the media descended upon like vultures. Everyone could see the helicopters circling the shooters being cornered in their vehicle about 5 miles way (?) across the valley. I was on the freeway going to work. We are big and our problems are too. :(
There's this bit at the end of Fiddler on the Roof where Tevye is talking to a friend about where in America they'll be going. The friend says, "Chicago, America." Tevye says, "Chicago, America? We are going to New York, America. We'll be neighbors." That always cracks my dad and me up.
I visited GB years ago, and drove. The trip from London to Inverness was just about the same distance from My home near San Diego to San Francisco, both in California. It was a substantial day's drive.
I appreciate the little tangents and curiosities that are beyond the topic of the video, like all the cities in New England named after locations in/near England
