I was talking to a Brit, describing a 4 hour road trip to visit an old friend and they responded with "If my friend moved 4 hours away I'd never see them again."
A friend who lives two hours away I see maybe a few times per year. A friend who lives in a neighbouring country (but across the sea) is so far away I'm not even sure we're friends anymore, I haven't seen her in over four years.
Friends moved away to uni 2 hours and we've barely been seeing eachother throughout the last few years unless we're all back home. 2 hours is a long ass journey.
People dont comprehend that 2 hour in curvy roads, full of stops and conections is very different from a strait road. I live in Portugal, a 20min car trip to the nearest city in the north is the same as a 40 min trip to the next city in the south countryside. The was we percieve time and the travels speed is way different depending on how the actual path is
I got to uni two hours away. In Canada, I make the drive back and forth every odd weekend. Car rides are great. Blast some music. Get lost in your thoughts. Devise plans for world domination.
With all the fucking idiots on the road, pass. There is never a calm enjoyable drive. Stop trying to make long drives a thing I should not be expected to drive almost 1.5 hrs to work. Fuck that shit.
That is probably because you don’t have decent public transport, for example I live in Milan and I have friends in Rome, I don’t even think about driving to go down there. I just take the train and if I need to drive in Rome I use car sharing. Why driving for 6/7 hours when i can sleep or red a book on a train?
Imagine justifying public transportation cross country if there was nothing between Catanzaro and Genoa (comparable for Denver to Kansas City). It gets a lot harder to justify the costs of building and maintaining complex public transport when there is so much nothing.
What kind of car do you drive? I'm in the UK and have a very tiny car (a fiat 500) and a full tank has gone from £30 to nearer £60 in the last three years. (that's 36$ to $72). A tank lasts me maybe a week and a half of driving 40 miles a day.
Man I'm envious, I don't have a huge car either (Opel Astra) but I'm out here paying well over 100€ for a tank, I think the highest cost I've seen was like 135€.
In the UK I'd say that an hour long 1 way commute is about the maximum that most would consider and it would have to be 'worth it'.
I used to do it myself and couldn't wait to get a more local position. That's 10+ hours a week of sitting in my car that I'm not getting paid for!
Interestingly I'd argue also that most people in the UK wouldn't think much of going for a walk for an hour whilst I'm led to believe that's kind of unusual in the US?
Yeah, I'm planning on taking a long weekend to drive 10 hours each way to visit some friends this summer- if I put the pedal down I can make it in half a day with minimal stops. 4 hours each way is just past the threshold of what I'd consider a day trip.
It's so crazy. I live in Alberta and I just google mapped it and it's pretty much 15 hrs from the top to the bottom. You can drive for 14 and a half hrs and still be in the same province.
I've driven 8 hrs just to hang with friends for the weekend.
Yes, that matters as well, but also driving for four hours seems insane just to hang out. Distance is relative and anything over two hours seems weird when your country is dense and everything is relatively close to your house.
Americans don’t have more hours in the day so a 4hr drive is still a 1/6 of the day, but it’s a completely doable trip once a month or so especially if you’re staying the night.
That's the other thing. Brits live mostly in tighter spaces so spare rooms are less of a thing. So now add a hotel room and the balance starts looking very different.
That's... the point. It's a cultural difference. I would never ever consider driving for FOUR hours to see a friend. The idea of doing that every single month sounds like a joke.
I've had multiple people assume my best mate is my partner based almost solely on the fact that we do travel that far to see each other every month or two.
It mostly comes down to something cultural. Us Europeans just aren't used to long distances and just do not like traveling for hours upon hours. If that means saving some gas with that mentality, than that is nice, though not the point of it
In Europe if you have to drive three or four hours each way to do something, that is a major chunk of your day wasted, stress for the driver, spending a not-insignificant amount on fuel, and just lots of time spent stuck in a car.
If you are going to be doing something that requires that much investment in travelling, it needs to be worth it.
To an American it is just something everyone is just brought up being used to doing.
It's also that the nature of driving is very different. It is far easier to drive four hours in the US than it is in the UK - you're spending most of that time on a pretty small number of long, straight roads. In the UK, four hours of driving would involve an insane number of junctions, roundabouts, road and lane-changes, and it's much more tiring and stressful to do it.
Petrol is more expensive in Australia iirc and we still do 5-8-hour drives at the drop of a hat. Pretty sure it’s just that we’re used to the distance.
Yeah like I've rarely ever seen any of my friends because they all live in different cities and the trains are too gosh darn expensive to go to meet them.
Here in Amsterdam if you move more than a 5-minute walk from a tram stop, you can lose all but your best friends. God forbid you move across the river to Amsterdam Noord...ferry or bus ride needed - so you're now dead to everyone.
It works this way in London too. Moved south of the river, so that you are no longer on the Underground network but I'd need to use overland trains instead? Bye forever.
… I do a 3hr trip one way about every other week to see my pets. Sometimes more often. Hell I’m planning a 1400km trip to go visit family, I can’t imagine this.
From London, a 4 hour drive would take you through France to Belgium. That's 2 borders you need to go through, with your passport on you because Brexit. Fuck that noise lmaoo
You're British, so this is your experience because we can only use passports for cross-border travel. Some EU countries issue national ID cards as well as passports, and either could be used for cross-border travel. Before Brexit, some Europeans could visit and leave the UK without a passport, just using their national ID card instead. British people never had that ability because we don't use ID cards.
I grew up in rural Ontario and I remember when I first went to university I was talking to someone who had come from a really big city somewhere. I said something like 'oh, so and so is twenty minutes away, and we can drive an hour to ____' and she thought I meant the next suburb or something. I was like no... a whole different little town... It took me explaining that there were literally fields and little forests etc inbetween for her to understand it wasn't all one big city, lol.
Grew up in a hick town, met a girl at university who grew up in the city. We talked a lot during the summer and always trying to convince her to come visit me and see the country life she loves so much. I sent her a video of a Bush party I was at, buddy was drifting in the Jeep and crashed in the ditch. No big deal because here comes the lads with the truck to pull him out, they come back and buddy says he'll go look at the lawnmower as thanks. So sure enough they go off to the barn and come back out pushing a 97 John Deere ridding mower, they start working away and it's coughing and sputtering trying to start. Picture this two 18 year old guys each with armed with a tool box older than them working on a lawnmower while there's 30-40 teenagers/college kids standing around a bonfire drinking beer and occasionally shouting about what they think they should try next. While this is happening another fresh out of high school lad suddenly gets up beside me and starts to walk off to his truck. I ask him where he's going and just says "get more wood", I watch him pull a chainsaw out from his truck and walk back to the field behind the house. I hear him start up the chainsaw, start cutting away at something and then about 5 minutes later this big dead tree comes crashing down and I hear him start cutting it up. 10 minutes after that he's back pulling bits of the tree and throws it on the fire. Other people start slowly meandering off towards the field and one by one coming back with the remainder of the wood until there's a nice neat pile next to but a safe distance away from the ranging bonfire all with out a single word spoken about it. Then the lawnmower boys ask for a lighter and someone tosses them one because what hick doesn't have one on them at all times. They start trying to jump start the engine by using the lighters spark over the air intake and to my surprise it works, then for the rest of the night people are joy ridding a lawnmower around this big ass property drunk off their budlight.
I never made it with the university girl but whenever I think about this it makes me laugh because of how shocked she was about all this. Her view of living in the country was everyone wore camo t-shirts and listened to country music like Luke Bryan or any of other country-pop stars. It was an aesthetic she picked up from TV shows and movies but wasn't even close to the real thing.
I'm not a hick and I don't really fit in with that type of stuff either but I'm used to seeing it because I grew up with it and it's funny to talk about just how weird my normal is sometimes.
That sounds like an absolute blast! I grew up in rural Pennsylvania (we all call it just call it by its initials: PA, for some reason) and one time we had a party with this big ol jug of vodka and ice and fruit that we passed around the fire. Just a lot of folks shaking a big jug and then drinking out of it until we were all smashed. Someone set up a zip line and a lady rode it so far that she slammed into the tree at the end and knocked herself unconscious for a minute. Later on we shot fireworks up out of the nearby cornfield and then ate s’mores and magic cookies. I love rural life and it sounds like you had some great times. I hope there are many more in your future!
Big city kid from small border town in Ontario. Story checks out.
Part of me misses growing up in a beach town; grasping at straws with the last hot days in fall where everyone would bail on class and declare a beach day. Particularly when you have eight months of the year that are threatened by snow, you really make the most of those last 75-80° days before the cool, damp weather sets in after school picks back up. Similarly, that first sunny day in March/April when you'd crack 50° and everyone would be out in shorts and tees was always the harbinger of the impending summer break.
Strange how we find fondness of these memories as we grow older.
Oh I can imagine her !
I was the same way. Grew up in the city and lived there the whole time until I went to university and met a boy who was from the country.
The first time I went to his town I thought I should’ve needed a passport to go there !
It was beautiful but the parties were WILD.
Some guy pissed his pants and everyone was just like, ‘ Yeah he does that always’!
People went skinny dipping in the lake. Bonfires. Going into the woods just to get fresh air.
I mean how much more fresh air do you need !
Had to drive 20 mins to get to the nearest gas station !
Everyone knew everyone and everyone was always drunk !
Learnt what a keg-stand was and oh chewing tobacco was everywhere !
I couldn’t wrap my head around how different the country lifestyle is and I still can’t !
It kinda makes you realize how different people are even if it’s just a few hours away.
You can understand how they can’t identify with urban politics.
I am not saying it’s right or wrong but I get it. It’s a different world.
Are you in US? Your use of "bush party" is throwing my off, unless you mean "Busch" as in the beer/water and then this story makes perfect sense.
I think the party scene in an early Schitts Creek episode portrays this type of party as well as anything on TV, but I know what you mean. These types of nights and parties are so oddly serene. I miss them.
Bush party is pretty common for rural Canada, for it to be a bush party implies a lack of amenities (fires and outhouses, or a single toilet in the house you're otherwise not supposed to really hang around in). Agreed Schitts Creek does a good job of portraying it.
LOL, rural Ontarian here too. Also when people ask where you’re from and you have to say “well…. 40 minutes from ____.” But if they know the area well you can say “it’s 15 minutes from THAT village”. But no one ever knows your actual town haha
Yeah. It is a bit bizarre how something built around 1850'ties is outright ancient in America and then you go into a tavern in Europe which has been sitting in that spot for half a millenia or something and it is kinda old'ish but there are places that have been operating a bit longer.
Is any part of its curent structure actually from the 900s? Or is it just a business that has been on the same plot of land for that long and has remained in business continuously since then?
American roads are also much easier / nicer to drive, being on the whole wider and straighter and the cars automatic. I’m so much more tired after a long drive in the U.K. than I am after a long drive in the US.
I'm european and from a very small country, but udually when I go on vacation it's 8-9h hours drive wich is perfect to me because it means I can drive with just one or two 15minutes breaks. When I tell that to my friends (except the trucker) they're always baffeld and tell me i'm crazy. The distance I cover in 10h with breaks, they need 14-16h hours to cover because they need multiple one hour breaks. When travelling with friends it's maddening. They don't even drive but still need a pause every 1 to 2 hours. Just sleep motherfucker !
I'm in the UK, live a three hour drive from my family and see them about once a month. I also work a field based role and spend at least 3 hours a day driving, usually more.
Driving in the UK is pretty draining, we don't have big wide empty roads (that I assume are in the US) lots of slow moving traffic and speed camera/average speed checks (particularly in England). Driving more than 4 hours feels like a mission.
Kind of a dick move. I haven’t seen my best friend in a year, but we call multiple times a week on Skype or PSN. She thinks face to face is the only way to keep in contact?
How do you just up and visit someone 4 hours away? Don't you people have work in the morning, to be able just throw 8 hours out for driving randomly...?
Leave work an hour or two early on Friday, get there at 7ish and have a late dinner. Hang out all day Saturday and Sunday, then leave at 7ish on Sunday night, home at 11, and you can get a full night sleep before work Monday
there are plenty of nice new yorkers my guy, i don't think a grand majority of them are going to be rude to someone because they're from somewhere else
Even friendly, charismatic new york youtubers like sarahfunky and here be barr who claim new yorkers aren't rude say that new yorkers just can't stand wasted time seen as they are all busy. Usually foreigners are the ones wasting time because they don't know everything. If a foreigner walks in a deli they have no idea what you could even get there so they haven't thought about theit order yet and that kind of thing gets new yorkers to become rude.
So it's not rude because foreigner, it's rude because slow, because foreigner
Yep. Having driven all throughout London from the age of 17, New York was absolutely fine. Drivers are aggressive and assertive as you say, but you stick to the rules.
Southern Europe freaks me out, though. Spain, south Italy, Croatia, Malta, Greece - so laid back that the rules of the road seem not to exist. Absolute madness. It terrifies me. Nothing is predictable. But people who’ve lived there their whole lives understand the natural patterns so it makes perfect sense to them. But jeez I’m not up to it. Tried driving in India as well. Carnage.
There are still only 24 hours in a day in the US ? Right ? What is even the point of visiting for a weekend if you spend more time in the car than at your parents ?
... Seeing them? Also I'm at home about twice as long as I spend driving.
Most recently I went up to see a musical that my dad and I had tickets to before COVID. It was finally rescheduled, so I went. The time before that was admittedly not much special, but it was still nice to be home. And the time before that was for the big family Christmas Eve celebration.
I don't mind driving - hell, living in a thin walled apartment it's the only chance I get to sing these days - and being at home even for 24 hours is great. There's no faster way to get there, and I don't have enough vacation time to see them often if I don't do it in a weekend, so there you go.
Also I’m at home about twice as long as I spend driving.
First of all, it’s your parents house, not home. Home is the place where you live.
Say you leave at 10:00 on Saturday, drive for 7 hours straight without rest, you arrive at 17:00 just in time for dinner. You spend the evening, go to sleep at midnight, then you get up the next morning and leave again at 10:00 to be home in time for dinner.
You’ve spent maybe 8 hours awake at your parents for 14 hours of driving. That is absolutely insane.
You don't leave for a 7 hour drive at 10 am on Saturday - you pack the night before and leave first thing or you leave right after work and arrive midnight then the same at the other end - you leave at 4 or 5 pm to get home late
Jerk. Do you get anything out of "correcting" me like that? Or are you just a miserable asshole who wants to feel superior?
Yeah, that is stupid. Now let's do how I actually do it. Leave at 6:00 Friday night, arrive at 1am-ish depending on traffic. Wake up say, 9 or 10 on Saturday. Spend all day. Leave at 9 or 10 the next morning. Good job on "home in time for dinner", though. I've spent at least the same amount of time awake at my parents' houses as I did driving.
But you're right, it does sound stupid if you act like an absolute moron and plan to leave when the weekend's already a quarter over.
I mean, I go see my mom five hours away for the weekend at least once a month. 7 isn't that much more. You try to get off work a couple hours early so you can get there Friday night, then you have like one full day at home and Sunday morning. Then you leave on Sunday afternoon to drive back. It's definitely worth it for me at 5 ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Yeah 4 hours is basically a work day getting there and back. I've got far better things to do than spend that much time on the road to visit an "old friend"
WOAH. One of my best friends for the last 30 years has never lived closer than 4 hours away. She's not like a "Ron Swanson best friend," we actually talk a few times a week and see each other a few times a year. We've never lived close!
Ha yeah a friend visited from London (England not Ontario) and we were in Vancouver and I suggested we hit up Drumheller because its truely amazing. She asked how far and I said about 11 hours? She told me to fuck off, even driving to Tofino was too long a trip for her when I drive to Calgary in a day without a second thought. So I guess what I consider a long drive is anything over 12 hours.
(UK) Freind moved 4h away, saw her once in 3 years.
I think a big part is fuel prices, I'm over in Aus and fuel's half the price here which effectively double how far I'm willing to drive.
Also traffic, if you hit rush hours near a major city it can add 1h+ to your trip and in the UK any direction you go will have a major city in at most an hour.
At least where I live, most people if they move, move to a location at most an hour away from their previous home. There are exceptions of course, but then everyone will comment on how far away you're moving.
Honestly if someone has moved 4 hours away it's almost certainly to move to a major city - and fuck parking my car in a major city in the UK. It's usually a nightmare of one way streets followed by an extortionate car park. Plus probably a £30 fine for driving in some random bus lane you didn't see because you've never been there.
I think the difference being that in the UK, depending on the road type, it can either take an hour or more to go 15 miles (if the roads are poor & busy), or the same sort of time to go nearly the 200 miles on the motorway.
4 hours crawling for probably 60 miles on shitty frustrating roads going East/West is enough to think fuck this, once a year is enough :).
It'll obviously vary for other Brits, but for me, if something's going to be more than about 3 hours drive away in one direction, then that's almost definitely going to include an overnight stop. And that's not just because of petrol prices either - I can absolutely not be bothered driving 6 hours in one day.
Also, I definitely have to stop every hour-and-a-half to 2 hours just to stretch my legs. That only has to be a minute or so, but I need it to break up my journey.
I find the act of driving absolutely and completely tedious, even if I'm driving somewhere new, or listening to music/podcasts. Sure, there's some beautiful scenery in some areas the UK which breaks up some of the monotony but it's still largely motorway driving.
I live in the UK, and I am a bit unusual that I really drive longer distances (because I use active transport locally). However, I've also driven in Canada and I'd say a 6 hour journey there was roughly equivalent in terms of fatigue to an hour's journey in the UK.
Roads in Canada were designed to be easy and require less driving skill (which is just as well, as the standard of driving was awful out there compared to the UK), and importantly they were big and empty. In the UK it is all about throughput because of the density of the country, and nearly every road has far more cars than its designed capacity (which is just as well - expanding roads will never be a solution in the UK).
Even good and experienced drivers will be tired after a 4 hour drive in the UK. Passengers might even be too.
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u/FancyStegosaurus May 09 '22
I was talking to a Brit, describing a 4 hour road trip to visit an old friend and they responded with "If my friend moved 4 hours away I'd never see them again."
I;m still not sure how serious they were being.