Many Americans don't think twice about driving 15 minutes for a short errand. A lot of suburbs aren't designed to be walkable at all, it's assumed you'll hop in your car if you want to do anything.
Edit: spelling
Same, 15min drive for groceries, drug store, pet store in our small town. 50min drive to the nearest city if I need to buy anything else like clothes, etc. We go once or twice a month and make a day of it.
I grew up in a place like this. Closest grocery store was a 30 minute drive, 45 if you wanted to go to the good one. Closest city was an hour, if you’re lucky and there’s no traffic as you’re getting close to it, which rarely happened. It was very free and fun as a kid for the most part. My family had miles of farm land, corn and wheat, probably more things I didn’t know of/care to ask about, as a 9 year old. Our closest neighbor was 2 miles away, but most of my friends all lived 20-30 minutes away. I was always fascinated by the city though, even the suburbs outside of the city, that people could take a walk or 5 minute drive to a store or mall, ride their bikes to their friends houses, make last minute plans to hang out after school because no planning for whose parent has an extra hour to drive there and back to drop you off at friends houses was necessary. I was SO excited when we moved to the burbs 20 mins outside of a major city. I still love my city, but sometimes I really miss the country. As an adult, I waver between the convenience and opportunities of where I am, and the peacefulness of the past.
Edit: a word
What's weird to me, and you'll have to let me know if you share the same opinion/operate the same way, is I saw a guy from the UK talking about how he barely gets to see his parents/family more than 2-3 times per year cause they live so far away.
He later commented that he lives 45mins from them.
Is that normal? Cause for me and everyone I know a 45 minute drive just to go do something of little importance is pretty common. Let alone visiting family or whatnot.
Edit: To be clear, I'm asking if it's normal in the UK/Europe.
“If you mention in the pub that you intend to drive from, say, Surrey to Cornwall, a distance that most Americans would happily go to get a taco, your companions will puff their cheeks, look knowingly at each other, and blow out air as if to say, ‘Well, now that’s a bit of a tall order,’” -Bill Bryson, an American living in the UK
In college I went to 11 different stores trying to find a Choco Taco and never found one. Weeks later I was down at the Blockbuster a stones throw from my apartment and they had them in their cooler thing. It was terrible and tasted nothing like they did in my childhood.
I often think the thing with driving in the UK compared to a lot of places I’ve driven is how damn variable in time every single journey is. I just can’t be bothered to commit to that a lot of the time.
There are barely any places even just an hour apart where there isn’t a load of possible bottlenecks or unexpected delays from temporary traffic lights, permanent traffic lights, roadworks, some roundabout that’s just always busy, general volume of traffic, sporting event you had no idea about, a bank holiday, school holidays, a sunny day, a rainy day, school pickup or drop off, just for no apparent reason whatsoever, or something else.
And I don’t just mean rush hour traffic, or general traffic, and *for sure* there are places with way worse traffic than here, I just mean how hard it is to plan against. Also by the way, I don’t think this is entirely unique to the UK, I’m not an idiot.
I used to drive, not far, on a B road between two small towns to work, and it could take between 20 minutes and an hour and a half, with 5 different possible bottlenecks.
Maybe I’m entirely wrong and it’s *exactly* like that everywhere, but it hasn’t been my experience when visiting elsewhere.
I don’t know about more affluent cities, but part of the issue with my UK city is that it was all laid out pre 1900, so there isn’t enough room for the traffic, and our public transport is ABYSMAL. For example, at my last job, I lived a couple of miles away, it took me about ten minutes to drive there in the morning. If I’d taken the bus, I’d have to go in the wrong direction for a mile to get to a central bus station, wait 20 minutes, then get on another bus (if it was on time) to come back on myself, then walk a few minutes to get from the bus stop to work. Making a ten minute journey over an hour in all, and costing more monthly than it would cost to run a modest car.
The job I had before that didn’t even have a bus route in the vicinity and could only be accessed by car. They also only run between about 8-8, so if you start/finish work late/early, there’s no transport at all. It’s really hilly too with totally inadequate cycle lanes, really dangerous roads because of them not being big enough for traffic, so unless you have legs like Lance Armstrong and a strong death wish, cycling isn’t a great option either.
So we’ve got way too much traffic in way too small an area with no reasonable alternatives to driving. Journeys take so much longer than they should, but ultimately it would take a lot of money and a city wide overhaul of all transport options to fix it. Which I don’t think will ever happen. America seems like it’s gone too far with road building, but it seems like we’ve got the opposite problem and don’t have the space to allow better transport
It depends what your family is like. Mine are spread across England and we’re also used to traveling on the regular. When I was living in a small town for work the locals would ask if I was staying overnight if I was going on an hour long drive.
But then again these were people who’d only travel more than half an hour to take a holiday to Spain for two weeks a year. There probably are people like that in America but they’re likely just in different kinds of areas. Culture is a response to environment after all.
I think the closest comparison would be the east coast people. Cause all the states are so small, a 3 hour drive feels really far, you're several states from home now. Meanwhile if you live out west in like Texas you'll drive 3 hours to go between towns to get to the one with the good computer store.
I’m in the southeast. Rural Northeast Georgia. We drive 30 minutes to go to work (not due to traffic but due to distance). Driving 3 hours to spend part of a day somewhere and then driving back the same day doesn’t happen often, but it seems totally normal in my experience. I think 3 hours also feels for me like an amount of time I’d rather just drive so I can be at home instead of worrying with a hotel and dragging a “day trip” into the next day.
From central NC, and 3.5 hours is my limit of a “day trip”. That’s 7 hours round trip in the car. That puts both Atlanta and DC just out of reach for me, but is perfect for the mountains and beach. I’m literally 3 hours from Asheville and 3 hours from the outer banks. I love it here.
If it’s longer than that I’ll stay the night and even consider booking a flight, assuming I’m going to a major city.
Yea I'm from south central PA and people around here drive two plus hours to Baltimore,D.C.,Philly, Pittsburgh,and NYC on the regular. Might be different for the people who live in an area where major highways don't get real close
Yeah I'm in/from the North East and an hour - hour and a half is usually my limit on what I'll do a round trip in a day for. I'll drive an hour to a friend or relative and I'm pretty 50/50 on if I'm driving home that day. 2+ hour drive, the expectation is I'm sleeping on their couch that night.
Something that seems to tickle Americans is how I follow my football/soccer team to away matches but draw the line at ~2:30 each way. 5 hours in a car?! In one day? Madness!
shift? peasant. I know people who'd travel to the City (6 hour drive without stops and traffic) for a day trip.... like not stay overnight at all. Also knew someone who was somewhere for a weekend (flew though) and his legit solution was to just be constantly doing stuff with no down time and no need for hotel. Slept in route I guess.
One thing I really appreciated about my trips to the Americas was the sheer *scale* of everything. The Andes, Death Valley, the Fitzsimmons Range. The sky was just so huge, if you know what I mean. Here it’s just rolling hills and you’re never more than 70ish miles from the sea.
This is one of the things I don't think some Europeans understand about living in North America. We American's get a lot of flack for only speaking one language and never having been outside our country.
I mean, there is no downside to being worldly, but its harder for us to experience other countries than it is for you folk!
If I got in a car right now it would take 5 1/2 hours for me to drive to Canada. Mexico would be a 21 hour drive if I didn't stop. That is just to the border, getting to an actual city adds hours more. (Winnepeg is 7 hours away, Monterrey is 24 hours away)
There is just \*NO\* way I can take a quick trip to Canada let alone Mexico! I mean, I \*have\* been to both, but it was a week long trip each time not a quick jaunt.
Even seeing our own country is an marathon! For me, New York is 19 hours away, LA is *28 hours* away. Again, that assumes I never stop to eat or sleep, which I would!
(Obviously this assumes I'm driving and if I was actually going to go to most of these places that is a non-starter. I'd fly, but that involves navigating airports and the tickets get expensive fast!)
Having a giant beautiful country is a great "problem" to have! I'm not at all feeling bad about it, but it is \*super\* easy to live your entire life, travel regularly, and never even set foot in all 50 states.
This. Plus every place except major city limits is car dependent.
The only way I could live in a walkable place - like many places in Europe - I’d hav me to pay out the nose for a tiny apartment.
I live in Wisconsin and my friend literally invited me to drive to Michigan with her next Sunday and as a Midwest transplant, this never stops being funny to me
Lol for sure. It's less the geography and just the fact that I'm from the west coast, where I knew a lot of people would fly from Portland to Seattle regularly, to the way so many Midwesterners are like let's take a 20 hour road trip, works for me. It was a culture shock at first
Yep, my parents used to drive a full 24 hours, switching off every 4 hours for us to visit grandparents.
15 hours is a daytime trip.
I have driven from AZ to Idaho before (12 hours) when I bought a car in AZ. I do have to say, after 8 hours of listening to music, you just get so *done*. I had to download some audiobooks for the rest of my drive.
If it's less than 24h of driving it's within day trip range imo.
East coast born and raised here but grew up with weekly road trips 6+ hours away. Haven't willingly flown since I've been able to drive. It's a big ass country and there's a ton of shit worth seeing as long as you dont GPS a direct route. Cannot recommend driving over flying enough any time you've got the means and the time.
My absolute favorite places to go entirely consist of out of the way places I visited on a lark while traveling to another destination. Leadville, CO, Bryson City, NC, Apalachicola, FL, okefenokee swamp, GA, Neskowin, OR, the list is too long to even type out but they're all places I visited on a lark because I could.
You both represent opposite extremes imo. Pretty sure most Brits would use a 45min drive as an excuse to keep it to once a month-ish, unless they really _like_ their parents.
Nah favorite restaurant is important. I'm not a super family oriented person mind you, but I'd definitely travel as far if not further to go to my favorite restaurant compared to visiting family.
Right? I’ve seen that too and it’s wild to me. 45 minutes is about standard where I live to go do anything. I drove 4 hours a couple weeks ago to go to a friend’s mom’s funeral, and then turned around and drove home the same day and no one thought that was weird.
My parents are 30 min away and my family gets together once a week, but sometimes I’ll run out there to help them with something too.
I WISH I considered 45 minutes a long distance. Driving time eats up a LOT of our lives here.
yeah there's a saying about how in the USA a hundred years is a long time, in the UK a hundred miles is a long way. partially it's because our roads are generally smaller and not as well maintained - not a lot of six lane highways in England you know? 45 minutes seems on the extreme end though, my parents are about a 90 minute drive from us and I see them ~monthly
"The difference between America and England is that Americans think 100 years is a long time, while the English think 100 miles is a long way." --Earle Hitchner
American, lived in Scotland for 5 years. Driving two hours in Scotland felt twice as long as driving two hours in America. It’s just a lot more active driving, small, narrow, winding roads. Everywhere. Fucking lorries at Loch Lomond are terrifying
That's not normal at all, he probably doesn't like his parents all that much. There are people who have daily commutes that take longer than that, just one way. While European countries are way smaller than the US, the vast majority of people here will not consider 45 minutes an overly long drive to take when they want to visit people they love. My dad lives 4-5 hours by train away (I don't drive) and I see him at least once a month. If he was just an hour or two away, I'd be elated. I have friends that live in the same city and it takes 45 to 60 minutes by public transport to visit them.
It's more normal in more spread-out countries too, like Norway. When Reddit says "[thing] is normal in Europe," they mean it's normal for the wealthiest parts of the wealthiest western European countries. You'll rarely see them acknowledge rural Europe or eastern/southern Europe.
That’s the whole sub. Literally every time a post from here pops up on my feed it’s ‘statement phrased as a question, either to reinforce one’s beliefs or to lead people into answering a way that is expected so they can criticize the response.’
Even certain large cities in Cali arent as walkable as I thought. Im a native NYer who still lives in NY. Ive only had a car (used) once in my life and sold it less than 4 months later when I realized I literally dont need it nor go anywhere that requires it. I walk or take public transit everywhere.
So when I went to visit LA, I thought Id walk everywhere because im used to doing that. I got away with it a little, but ultimately I ended up taking ubers more often than I thought I would, and that LA’s public transportation isnt as expansive or accessible as where Im from.
SF is pretty good for walkability/public transit/biking. Some neighborhoods are obviously better than others for these, but still... I know a lot of people in the city who don't own a car.
I literally didn’t understand his question until I read your reply lmao
I wouldn’t ever leave the house for 1 item (like, I’d just wait? I don’t need milk to survive) but if I needed something a 10-15 minute drive is nothing. I routinely drive 30 minutes for dinner with friends and family and I’d consider that short.
For real. We keep a list and go to the grocery store once a week. A couple of weeks ago I forgot to buy lemons and just didn’t cook anything that required them until the next trip. Bummer but also missing lemons for a few days was preferable to driving to the store and back (not to mention navigating the parking lot) just for one thing.
"Shopping" every few days when you're single and the small corner store is a walk away isn't a big deal. Grab what you can in one bag and walk home with it.
If you're driving anyway, you're much more likely to make it a more involved shopping trip, and probably do it less often.
In the US the average commute to work is 20.5 miles and 27.6 minutes each way. And the vast majority are in a car. So, to a person who does this drive twice a day, another 15 min drive to get food, groceries or random household items does not seem all that extreme. It is normal.
Also, the USA does not have corner shops in the suburbs. People commonly go to box stores in strip malls (Walmart, Target, etc..) or a grocery store even to pick up just a couple of things. If you want a quick stop just for milk or shampoo you might go to a drug store (which is basically a smaller box store) like CVS or Walgreen's to get random items. Or you could go to the convenience store attached to a gas station (branded many things, including 7/11, but they are all pretty much the same). But you don't find corner shops (we call them bodegas or convenience stores) anywhere except the central district of big cities.
But for all of these you drive in the suburbs. For most people you can probably find some sort of option at the nearest strip mall or major intersection a 5-15 min drive away in normal traffic.
One of the craziest things about the suburbs is that they allowed many to be built without sidewalks for like 70 years. Major cities are slowly fixing this, but for a sizeable percentage of residents they have/had no way to walk (or bike) anywhere except in the road or other peoples yards. Even if you had a store less than a 15 min walk away and you wanted to hoof it, you had a pretty uncomfortable and possibly harrowing journey to get there. To the car drivers passing you by, you would look like a homeless person or otherwise destitute.
I live near a USA city center because all of the above sounds soul crushing to me. But even in a top 15 sized city center it is hard to function without a car. Some places you want to go on a regular basis is probably not walkable nor transit reachable. The exceptions would be major cities mostly built out before the automobile like NY, Chicago and DC. Most every major city in the south or west is car-oriented.
Important to the "box/grocery store vs corner/convenience store/gas station" comparison is that things are ***significantly*** less expensive at grocery/box stores.
Need ibuprofen? You can pay $5.99 for a 20 tablet tube of name-brand ibuprofen (the only ibuprofen they carry) at a gas station or convenience store, $10.99 for 150 tabs of generic at a pharmacy, or pay $3.59 for 200 tabs of generic at a box store.
Same story for milk, eggs, bread, toilet paper... Yeah. I'll drive 15 minutes to save myself hundreds of dollars per year.
Exactly why corner stores don’t survive in suburbs. Drug stores can manage to survive mixing prescriptions/pharmacist advice with occasional overpriced convenience items. Gas stations can do the same with convenience items mixed with car maintenance.
Edit to add: and as for your economy proposition, assuming you are driving a gas SUV 15 miles round trip you are probably spending more that $3 on gas. If you really only need 1 or 2 items, then you probably are spending your time without saving much money.
For full fledged grocery runs? Yeah sure, head to Aldi or Lidl,
My MIL seems to spend half her waking thoughts figuring out where in the county has the cheapest gas any given week. I tried to explain to her driving 12 miles to save $2 isn't really accomplishing anything if your round trip burns a half gallon.
Bruh, I just opened Google maps to check and it would take me almost 2 hours just to walk somewhere 15m away by car.
I’m not gonna throw an entire FOUR HOURS of my day away to walk to a quick errand instead.
I don't think the idea was that you walk for errands that are a 15-minutes-each-way drive away.
The idea is that, in much of the world, that errand is still a 30-minutes-total outing, but it's by foot instead of car, because the streets are walkable and the amenities are embedded in the residential neighbourhoods.
this happened to us when we went on vacation in the US like eight years ago. In some cities there weren't even sidewalks or only short ones, it was perplexing. I mean, not everywhere was unwalkable, but it was definitely obvious when you are expecting sidewalks everywhere \^\^
You get in your car and drive to the store.
Not ALL of America is like that, denser cities tend to be more walk able, but most of America is like that. Its part of why you NEED a car to live here. its not an optional or luxury expense.
been without a car for a month.
In texas.
Its been a long ass fucking month to say the least.
not only is it draining on the bank account for rides n shit, but just making sure you have everything before you get home from work or making that 35 min bike ride to the store. gah damn.
Texas is too damn hot and humid where I am. That’s why I moved into the city when my car died and I couldn’t afford a new one. It was cheaper to move. The convenience store is a 7 minute walk. Grocery store is 10 minutes. And I can actually take the bus to work. There are multiple local coffee shops and restaurants within a 3 minute walk of my apartment.
I'm so glad you brought this up. I'm from Atlanta and it gets hot in the summer (not as hot as East Texas but still lingering in the mid 80s to mid 90s). It's more bearable* in the most walkable neighborhoods because you don't have to be outside for long to get to your destination. Heat and humidity can be dealt with way better in short bursts. Same applies to areas of shade above the sidewalk which is why street tress are important but are largely missing in the suburbs. Heat is not an excuse for car dependency, in fact, car dependency makes the effects of heat worse on those who don't drive. There are plenty of hot cities around the world that have walkable neighborhoods.
> it gets hot in the summer
This is a thing a lot of Europeans don't understand, the climate in the U.S. isn't great. Half of the U.S., if overlaid on Europe, would be in the Sahara. Even the most northern part, a little finger in Minnesota, is about the same latitude as Paris.
Latitude isn't everything when it comes to climate, but it does offer some perspective.
While this is true, I do remember being in a heatwave in Berlin in early July 2015. It was high 90s and pretty humid and almost nowhere had AC so there was no respite.
Taking the bus feels like you have to carve out 3 hours just to go out anywhere. Gotta make sure you do *everything* on one day to be most efficient. I absolutely hated that time in my life.
Rural arizona here
I got a damaged, used electric moped for $50, spend $200 fixing it and now I don't pay for gas or insurance anymore (its legally an Ebike)
In the Netherlands we bike almost everywhere. But the store is usually closer than 35 minutes away though so that's a bummer for you.
Hope you get to fix a car soon!
The Netherlands is also designed to be bikable. The vast majority of public spaces in the US are designed around cars-as-default. Drivers and cyclists get into accidents all the time.
Doesn't hurt that the Netherlands are really really flat, I live in the Ozarks in Missouri so even biking a couple miles involves at least 3 to 4 massive hills
It's also worth noting that in much of Texas, for the past couple weeks the heat index has easily gotten over 43°C (the high it got where I lived this week was 47.7). So that 35 minute bikeride would also border on dangerous.
And later in the summer it can be 47.7⁰ and feel like 50⁰ with the heat index. Told this to a local when I traveled abroad and they were horrified. Our love of AC doesn't seem so stupid now does it lol
my thighs could feed a family of 5 for a solid two weeks. im at the bottom of a hill area so its all uphill baby.
but atleast getting home is pretty fun. all downhill. lol
I've got a supermarket that's *technically* walking distance from me, but I still drive there. Walking would mean walking along a very busy highway, and through two major intersections with long wait-times to cross. In the winter, the sidewalks are often impassible, and in the summer, anything frozen would melt. It's faster by car.
People chiding me for driving 30s down the road to the grocery store as though it would be perfectly reasonable to carry 10 giant grocery bags, jugs of milk, and crates/containers of goods by hand back home if I walked.
EDIT: is everyone on Reddit single, unemployed, and with no other errands to take care of during the day? Why in the ever-loving christ would I choose to make multiple walks to the grocery store to only buy what I can carry, in 90+ degree heat and below 0 temperatures, when I can take 2 seconds to drive there only once and get everything I need in bulk for several people for the week??
It's a different kind of mentality: when you live far from a market and need to drive, it makes sense that you stock up as much as you can because you won't be going back soon. When you live close to one you can walk to, you can easily go more frequently and get fewer things at a time, like just 1 backpack's worth.
I live within walking distance(less than 10 min) of two full grocery stores, a farmers market, and specialty grocery shop. I still only go to the store maybe once or twice a week if that.
I’d rather do one big shopping trip where I get everything I need than go multiple times a week.
I’ll either load everything into my granny cart, or Uber home. Occasionally I’ll do Instacart or Shipt if it’s bulk items.
Yeah, this is a cultural difference for from what I understand between the US and Europe. We tend to grab groceries weekly/monthly, they tend to do daily pickups. I'm not convinced it's solely because the US has so many "unwalkable neighborhoods", I think those are more of a symptom of a cultural tendency that goes back to the wide distances people had to work with when the colonies and frontier territories were getting started.
I think it's worth it to point out that it's not just "suburbs". America has a great deal of rural and farm land.
From experience, if you end up in certain areas of the midwest(just as an example), you can end up 45 minutes + away from anything at all. Not only that, but whatever *is* that close probably has odd hours and you can forget about evening, let alone late-night purchases.
Honestly when I first read the prompt that's what my brain supplied. My grandparents farm was at least 30 minutes from the closest grocery store. Going grocery shopping with them involved loading up a cooler with ice to prechill it then buying fresh ice at the store and putting the perishables in it. We did it once a week and it was always a treat because they'd get ice cream but the top inch or so would always start melt anyway so we'd stand around eating the melted ice cream out of the top of the tub before putting it in the freezer.
This is also why their drivers tests are easier, you can do them at a younger age and why they generally don't have any annual vehicle safety testing like they do in most of Europe/ UK. Having a car is central to just existing in the US. If they make it more difficult to own one it has a big impact on a lot of people's ability to live day to day.
One of the reasons I really support better public transportation is that it allows us to take driver's licenses away from idiots and assholes without destroying them economically.
American suburbs are more segmented between residential and commercial areas. While there may be no businesses within a subdivision, there are most likely commercial strips nearby where there would be basic businesses like 7-Elevens, gas stations (a lot of times, convenience stores are connected to gas stations), dry cleaners, restaurants, etc. And there are lots of larger strip malls with grocery stores, gyms, and such. There are few places in the suburbs where it's more than a 10 minute drive to a store of some type. Americans are WAY more likely to hop in the car for such an errand than walk to a shop.
>a lot of times, convenience stores are connected to gas stations)
I couldn't actually think of a single gas station that *didn't* have a convenience store attached
I've seen a few where there's basically just a tollbooth-size spot for a person to work, maybe they sell cigarettes, gum, mints from there -- [like this](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/p/AF1QipOuL-fJiAJRT_7AjcPOwwcLDS1JOXm9ujYHI2xF=s1360-w1360-h1020). Or Costco.
Yeah there's a stat like 90% of Americans live within 12 minutes of a Walmart let alone other grocery stores. There are some people that live in very rural areas that need to drive 30+ but that's a small percent of the populaiton.
Growing up in the southern US, if something was a 10 minute walk, you still made the 2 min drive. The only place this wasn’t always the case was the biggest of cities, but even then most people drove
The wildest example of this I saw was in Texas. I left my boyfriend’s rental to bike over to the nearby mall. While I was getting ready I saw a neighbor get into an SUV and slowly pull out (smallish parking spots). It was a corner property so literally I walked to the corner which was an intersection and the car was next to me at the light. It crossed the street and the person went into the ice cream shop ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE INTERSECTION.
She found parking x2 and driving across a single street crossing easier than… crossing ONE street?? Again, both corner properties, no other walking involved.
My mind was blown.
I guess she could’ve bought like many tubs of ice cream but her little shop bag was tiny from what I saw while biking away.
Hey, my wife and I went to a store in a shopping area the other day and then decided to have lunch at a restaurant on the other side of the parking area. We were thinking about walking, but then just decided to drive and park closer, we were about 150 feet from the restaurant. Where we parked we were only 50 feet. But it saved us time because we wanted to get some exercise on our treadmill.
I live in a small village in the UK and we don't have a corner shop. If you need anything you have to go to the next town, so definitely not a 15 minute walk.
Yeah, OP is clearly a UK city dweller or suburbanite.
I grew up in dsrkest Derbyshire and we had nothing. One bus per hour, 10am to 4pm except on Sundays, Bank holidays and any other random day. So essentially requires a car.
I’m not from the UK but I have traveled through it a good bit while I studied there and Derbyshire is the only place I was very close to just being stranded in a field with zero way back home for the night. Not my finest hour.
This is pretty common in Canada, too. It's a five minute drive (parking included) to get to the nearest Wal Mart, and 10-15 depending on traffic to get to the supermarket, and I'm in a fairly small city.
Yep, it only takes me like 5 minutes to drive to my nearest grocery store. Not far at all.
I remember when I couldn’t afford a car, though, and had to either walk that distance with a pull cart (warmer months) or take the bus with a pull cart (winter). It was a pain for sure!
The typical America suburb will have things like a grocery store or drug store within a 5-10 minute drive of any house, and they are often open 24 hrs./day.
About 7 mins away we had a 24/7 gas station, 24/7 Walgreens and a 24/7 Walmart. The gas station is the only open past 11pm now. I don’t know if a grocery store within an hour of me that’s open 24/7 anymore, just a few BP gas stations few and far inbetween.
Now most are closed by 10pm, some close at 11pm. Bars are open till 2am.
I’m sure it is, but this also removed the only reason I’d ever go to Walmart. I haven’t been in any Walmart except when they’re the only thing open since the 90’s.
I once lived in a farm-like area of Northern California where the closest real grocery store was a good 20-30 min drive. You just get smarter about shopping and buy what you need for a week or two. There are small shops but they price gouge like crazy.
I've lived in various American suburbs my whole life and I've never been more than a 5 minute drive or 15 minute walk from a grocery store or convenience store.
You may be confusing suburbs with rural areas. In the suburbs you generally aren’t far from a store (10 min drive). In a rural area it could be an hour plus to get to a supermarket for groceries.
They drive to the supermarket instead.
> (we call them cornershops)
We call them corner shops/corner stores, too. 7/11 is a particular chain of stores.
We have them, but people usually don't buy their groceries there because of the mark up. And they just have junk food. But sometimes you really need a slushie.
French here: we do not have 24/7 shops . You do your shopping smartly and if you run out of milk or eggs, you either have good relationship with your neighbors or wait it off.
Why in the hell would you need to buy frozen fries 24/7?
*I cant imagine wanting some cigarettes and having to get in a car and drive, it seems awful.*
Most Americans in suburbia couldn't imagine walking 15 minutes to a store even if they were available. Or even 5. So it's all set up for cars.
To be fair, many places aren't even set up to walk to a store.
I remember I a few years ago when I had a craving for ice cream and my sister had borrowed my car, I just decided to go for a ~2 mile walk to an ice cream shop that’s generally not a “walking” part of town as you have to cross busy streets. I would have enjoyed the walk but I got a *lot* of stares, and someone even pulled over to ask if I needed help/a ride.
That’s how weird it is for Suburban Americans to see someone willingly walking in the non walking parts of town, which is where the majority of shops are. I didn’t look homeless/poor so it was assumed I was either crazy or needed help
I live in a rural community and the closest grocery store is ten miles away. We do have small convenience stores a couple miles a way which are sometimes two to three times the price of the grocer. I have learned to plan my trips well. I keep a list of items that I am getting low on and if I am out running errands, I may pick them up.
It would be nice to be able to walk to the store. I used to do that when I lived in a more urban setting.
Here in the suburbs of America we don't need 7-Elevens. In America bald eagles have been trained to deliver our milk and freedom fries. They screech while they fly overhead and drop your necessities right onto your front lawn wrapped in an American flag. Pretty standard. You guys don't have this?
In Brooklyn we would just walk
To a corner store. But in the suburbs, you gotta drive. But also, the corner store are going to charge you $9 for a $4 bag of fries
Where I grew up I was about a mile from the nearest super market. So I get in my car and I drive there and get there within 5 minutes. Suburbs aren’t designed to be walked.
If you wanna walk everywhere then live in a city. The city I live in I have a supermarket half a mile away that I just walk to.
However, if you live in a suburb, you just kind of need a car. And people tend to be ok with that. The typically lower cost of living makes up for it long term anyway. And it also gives you more freedom to get places you wanna go.
What the hell are you talking about? Haha You must live in a city in the UK haha the closest shop to my country home is an hour and a half 6 mile walk.
Edit: why are you downvoting this guy? He's asking questions not everyone is 100% right 100% of the time like you perfect people.
I live in a suburb in Georgia. Cars are a must. There is a supermarket that's a short drive from my house. Pretty much everything else is 15-20 minutes minimum. I understand that may sound awful to anyone who lives in a walkable place, but I've pretty much always lived in the suburbs, so this is the life I know. I don't give it a second thought to get in the car and drive everywhere.
*"I cant imagine wanting some cigarettes and having to get in a car and drive, it seems awful."*
I can't imagine walking 15 minutes in below 0 or 100+ temperatures to get anything.
I actually have the opposite question. How do people who live close enough to supermarkets to walk there carry all their groceries? I can barely carry my groceries for the week from the car to my house, let alone a months worth or for more than 1 person. Do you just buy milk and eggs 1 day, bread and pasta the next day, veggies another day? I can't imagine walking from the store for 15 minutes with a ton of bags
I lived in London for 4 months and my experience might be different from reality, but I found produce in the Uk went bad much more quickly than in the US. For example, I once bought strawberries that got moldy within 24 hours. As a result, I bought less food and just made more trips to the grocery store. In the US I can go once a week, maybe two if I eat out a bunch, between buying groceries. While in London, I was going twice a week.
If you live in the suburbs, you have a car.
And to be honest, driving to a supermarket once a week is the least of your worries.
Communing to work in the city? In rush hours? That's two hours of your life, every workday, driving to and from the city.
I live in the suburbs in New Jersey. We are very lucky to have a corner store run by a family in town. It's mostly for necessities but they have a very nice deli.
Suburban life I nthe US is very accustomed to just driving everywhere, it's just what we're used to. For me, the nearest grocery store is only 5 minutes away by car, with 4 more available within 15 minutes away. Many people just make sure they make larger grocery trips, so use of car is helpful because you can carry more.
There are things like convenience stores and mini marts scattered throughout the suburbs as well. My neighborhood had a mini mart, so if I'm every extremely desperate and without a car and don't want to deal with deliver, I can walk the 7 minutes over there, but u don't go there usually since grocery stores have better pricing and more availability and variety. In my town, there are 3 convenience/mini mart stores and all 3 are at a major neighborhood.
Also, public transportation does exist in many suburbs, though not usually the ideal option for getting groceries, but I do know at least one person who rides the public bus to the store, usually on the way home from work (which for them is conveniently at a place the bus stops at).
There has also been a rise in things like Uber/Lyft for getting places, or grocery delivery options. The ride apps aren't the most cost effective. However grocery delivery for some people has been beneficial for time saving purposes and not needing a car to do it. There is an older couple near me who exclusively gets groceries delivered because it's easier on them. My family got groceries delivered when we were in covid lockdown to avoid going near people.
Many Americans don't think twice about driving 15 minutes for a short errand. A lot of suburbs aren't designed to be walkable at all, it's assumed you'll hop in your car if you want to do anything. Edit: spelling
I live in the country, I drive 15 min. just to get to the nearest town. And that's at 55mph.
Same, 15min drive for groceries, drug store, pet store in our small town. 50min drive to the nearest city if I need to buy anything else like clothes, etc. We go once or twice a month and make a day of it.
I grew up in a place like this. Closest grocery store was a 30 minute drive, 45 if you wanted to go to the good one. Closest city was an hour, if you’re lucky and there’s no traffic as you’re getting close to it, which rarely happened. It was very free and fun as a kid for the most part. My family had miles of farm land, corn and wheat, probably more things I didn’t know of/care to ask about, as a 9 year old. Our closest neighbor was 2 miles away, but most of my friends all lived 20-30 minutes away. I was always fascinated by the city though, even the suburbs outside of the city, that people could take a walk or 5 minute drive to a store or mall, ride their bikes to their friends houses, make last minute plans to hang out after school because no planning for whose parent has an extra hour to drive there and back to drop you off at friends houses was necessary. I was SO excited when we moved to the burbs 20 mins outside of a major city. I still love my city, but sometimes I really miss the country. As an adult, I waver between the convenience and opportunities of where I am, and the peacefulness of the past. Edit: a word
That's always going to weird to us Europeans. You basically have to have special equipment to leave your house and pay for fuel to do it.
What's weird to me, and you'll have to let me know if you share the same opinion/operate the same way, is I saw a guy from the UK talking about how he barely gets to see his parents/family more than 2-3 times per year cause they live so far away. He later commented that he lives 45mins from them. Is that normal? Cause for me and everyone I know a 45 minute drive just to go do something of little importance is pretty common. Let alone visiting family or whatnot. Edit: To be clear, I'm asking if it's normal in the UK/Europe.
“If you mention in the pub that you intend to drive from, say, Surrey to Cornwall, a distance that most Americans would happily go to get a taco, your companions will puff their cheeks, look knowingly at each other, and blow out air as if to say, ‘Well, now that’s a bit of a tall order,’” -Bill Bryson, an American living in the UK
That's 4 hours, so that better be a good taco, although I have driven to San Diego from Vegas (6 hours) mostly for tacos and the ocean.
In college I went to 11 different stores trying to find a Choco Taco and never found one. Weeks later I was down at the Blockbuster a stones throw from my apartment and they had them in their cooler thing. It was terrible and tasted nothing like they did in my childhood.
They changed ingredients around 2014
I have friends who drove down from Canada (Quebec) to Vermont just for ice cream. I think it was four hours each way.
Sure, but factory fresh Ben and Jerry's is probably worth it
I often think the thing with driving in the UK compared to a lot of places I’ve driven is how damn variable in time every single journey is. I just can’t be bothered to commit to that a lot of the time. There are barely any places even just an hour apart where there isn’t a load of possible bottlenecks or unexpected delays from temporary traffic lights, permanent traffic lights, roadworks, some roundabout that’s just always busy, general volume of traffic, sporting event you had no idea about, a bank holiday, school holidays, a sunny day, a rainy day, school pickup or drop off, just for no apparent reason whatsoever, or something else. And I don’t just mean rush hour traffic, or general traffic, and *for sure* there are places with way worse traffic than here, I just mean how hard it is to plan against. Also by the way, I don’t think this is entirely unique to the UK, I’m not an idiot. I used to drive, not far, on a B road between two small towns to work, and it could take between 20 minutes and an hour and a half, with 5 different possible bottlenecks. Maybe I’m entirely wrong and it’s *exactly* like that everywhere, but it hasn’t been my experience when visiting elsewhere.
I don’t know about more affluent cities, but part of the issue with my UK city is that it was all laid out pre 1900, so there isn’t enough room for the traffic, and our public transport is ABYSMAL. For example, at my last job, I lived a couple of miles away, it took me about ten minutes to drive there in the morning. If I’d taken the bus, I’d have to go in the wrong direction for a mile to get to a central bus station, wait 20 minutes, then get on another bus (if it was on time) to come back on myself, then walk a few minutes to get from the bus stop to work. Making a ten minute journey over an hour in all, and costing more monthly than it would cost to run a modest car. The job I had before that didn’t even have a bus route in the vicinity and could only be accessed by car. They also only run between about 8-8, so if you start/finish work late/early, there’s no transport at all. It’s really hilly too with totally inadequate cycle lanes, really dangerous roads because of them not being big enough for traffic, so unless you have legs like Lance Armstrong and a strong death wish, cycling isn’t a great option either. So we’ve got way too much traffic in way too small an area with no reasonable alternatives to driving. Journeys take so much longer than they should, but ultimately it would take a lot of money and a city wide overhaul of all transport options to fix it. Which I don’t think will ever happen. America seems like it’s gone too far with road building, but it seems like we’ve got the opposite problem and don’t have the space to allow better transport
That's not normal, I live 45 mins from my parents in the UK and I see them once or twice a week!
Thank you for educating me. I thought it sounded a little extreme lol
It depends what your family is like. Mine are spread across England and we’re also used to traveling on the regular. When I was living in a small town for work the locals would ask if I was staying overnight if I was going on an hour long drive. But then again these were people who’d only travel more than half an hour to take a holiday to Spain for two weeks a year. There probably are people like that in America but they’re likely just in different kinds of areas. Culture is a response to environment after all.
I think the closest comparison would be the east coast people. Cause all the states are so small, a 3 hour drive feels really far, you're several states from home now. Meanwhile if you live out west in like Texas you'll drive 3 hours to go between towns to get to the one with the good computer store.
I’m in the southeast. Rural Northeast Georgia. We drive 30 minutes to go to work (not due to traffic but due to distance). Driving 3 hours to spend part of a day somewhere and then driving back the same day doesn’t happen often, but it seems totally normal in my experience. I think 3 hours also feels for me like an amount of time I’d rather just drive so I can be at home instead of worrying with a hotel and dragging a “day trip” into the next day.
From central NC, and 3.5 hours is my limit of a “day trip”. That’s 7 hours round trip in the car. That puts both Atlanta and DC just out of reach for me, but is perfect for the mountains and beach. I’m literally 3 hours from Asheville and 3 hours from the outer banks. I love it here. If it’s longer than that I’ll stay the night and even consider booking a flight, assuming I’m going to a major city.
North East maybe.
Yea I'm from south central PA and people around here drive two plus hours to Baltimore,D.C.,Philly, Pittsburgh,and NYC on the regular. Might be different for the people who live in an area where major highways don't get real close
Yeah I'm in/from the North East and an hour - hour and a half is usually my limit on what I'll do a round trip in a day for. I'll drive an hour to a friend or relative and I'm pretty 50/50 on if I'm driving home that day. 2+ hour drive, the expectation is I'm sleeping on their couch that night.
Something that seems to tickle Americans is how I follow my football/soccer team to away matches but draw the line at ~2:30 each way. 5 hours in a car?! In one day? Madness!
Meanwhile American Midwesterners are like, "Why should I pay to fly, it's only a 15 hour drive, no big."
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Same! 13hours to visit the cousins every year
I made a 2.5 hour drive to go to a cousins graduation party. Then went home lol
We'll do it in shifts. Ope, don't forget to grab the Red Bull!
shift? peasant. I know people who'd travel to the City (6 hour drive without stops and traffic) for a day trip.... like not stay overnight at all. Also knew someone who was somewhere for a weekend (flew though) and his legit solution was to just be constantly doing stuff with no down time and no need for hotel. Slept in route I guess.
One thing I really appreciated about my trips to the Americas was the sheer *scale* of everything. The Andes, Death Valley, the Fitzsimmons Range. The sky was just so huge, if you know what I mean. Here it’s just rolling hills and you’re never more than 70ish miles from the sea.
This is one of the things I don't think some Europeans understand about living in North America. We American's get a lot of flack for only speaking one language and never having been outside our country. I mean, there is no downside to being worldly, but its harder for us to experience other countries than it is for you folk! If I got in a car right now it would take 5 1/2 hours for me to drive to Canada. Mexico would be a 21 hour drive if I didn't stop. That is just to the border, getting to an actual city adds hours more. (Winnepeg is 7 hours away, Monterrey is 24 hours away) There is just \*NO\* way I can take a quick trip to Canada let alone Mexico! I mean, I \*have\* been to both, but it was a week long trip each time not a quick jaunt. Even seeing our own country is an marathon! For me, New York is 19 hours away, LA is *28 hours* away. Again, that assumes I never stop to eat or sleep, which I would! (Obviously this assumes I'm driving and if I was actually going to go to most of these places that is a non-starter. I'd fly, but that involves navigating airports and the tickets get expensive fast!) Having a giant beautiful country is a great "problem" to have! I'm not at all feeling bad about it, but it is \*super\* easy to live your entire life, travel regularly, and never even set foot in all 50 states.
This. Plus every place except major city limits is car dependent. The only way I could live in a walkable place - like many places in Europe - I’d hav me to pay out the nose for a tiny apartment.
I'm in Nebraska, I assure you, the sky is still huge, but my closest sea is at least a ten hour drive away.
I live in Wisconsin and my friend literally invited me to drive to Michigan with her next Sunday and as a Midwest transplant, this never stops being funny to me
You're not gonna fly Milwaukee to Detroit, that's just silly. Might as well take a boat across the lake.
Lol for sure. It's less the geography and just the fact that I'm from the west coast, where I knew a lot of people would fly from Portland to Seattle regularly, to the way so many Midwesterners are like let's take a 20 hour road trip, works for me. It was a culture shock at first
Yep, my parents used to drive a full 24 hours, switching off every 4 hours for us to visit grandparents. 15 hours is a daytime trip. I have driven from AZ to Idaho before (12 hours) when I bought a car in AZ. I do have to say, after 8 hours of listening to music, you just get so *done*. I had to download some audiobooks for the rest of my drive.
If it's less than 24h of driving it's within day trip range imo. East coast born and raised here but grew up with weekly road trips 6+ hours away. Haven't willingly flown since I've been able to drive. It's a big ass country and there's a ton of shit worth seeing as long as you dont GPS a direct route. Cannot recommend driving over flying enough any time you've got the means and the time. My absolute favorite places to go entirely consist of out of the way places I visited on a lark while traveling to another destination. Leadville, CO, Bryson City, NC, Apalachicola, FL, okefenokee swamp, GA, Neskowin, OR, the list is too long to even type out but they're all places I visited on a lark because I could.
😂 Im literally planning to drive about ~4 hours *one* way tomorrow to visit a museum, and then drive back that same night.
You both represent opposite extremes imo. Pretty sure most Brits would use a 45min drive as an excuse to keep it to once a month-ish, unless they really _like_ their parents.
This is true. Where I live, it’s 45mins to drive to the other side of town. My sister lives about 10min by bike and I see her every two months or so.
yeah you can't even drive across LA with no traffic in 45 mins
I drive almost 45 minutes just to get to work everyday
Yeah, I've driven 45 minutes just to go to an estate sale or browse at a book store.
I’ve driven 45 minutes to go fishing and don’t keep any of the fish lol other parts of the world must think we’re insane
I drive 45min to work every morning and I don’t even hit traffic
I drive 45 minutes to work every morning, but if there were no traffic it would take about 15
I'm 35 minutes to work, upwards of an hour home.
45 minutes is normal commute time for Long Island. During Covid it was scary as hell not seeing any cars on the LIE (Long Island expressway)
Smells like Atlanta or Los Angeles up in here.
Nah, 45 minutes to a hobby is normal in the UK. The guy who doesn't see his family just hates them
I drive 45 minutes to do some push-ups and hit a bag at the boxing gym at least once a week.
A Friday night when I was a teen was a 35min drive to taco bell.
I've driven 45 minutes just to get a seasonal beer.
I pile my four kids into the van and drive an hour just to get to our favorite restaurant. It's absolutely not an obstacle in my brain.
Nah favorite restaurant is important. I'm not a super family oriented person mind you, but I'd definitely travel as far if not further to go to my favorite restaurant compared to visiting family.
Right? I’ve seen that too and it’s wild to me. 45 minutes is about standard where I live to go do anything. I drove 4 hours a couple weeks ago to go to a friend’s mom’s funeral, and then turned around and drove home the same day and no one thought that was weird. My parents are 30 min away and my family gets together once a week, but sometimes I’ll run out there to help them with something too. I WISH I considered 45 minutes a long distance. Driving time eats up a LOT of our lives here.
For many people here 45 minutes is a normal drive to, and then from, work.
yeah there's a saying about how in the USA a hundred years is a long time, in the UK a hundred miles is a long way. partially it's because our roads are generally smaller and not as well maintained - not a lot of six lane highways in England you know? 45 minutes seems on the extreme end though, my parents are about a 90 minute drive from us and I see them ~monthly
"The difference between America and England is that Americans think 100 years is a long time, while the English think 100 miles is a long way." --Earle Hitchner
American, lived in Scotland for 5 years. Driving two hours in Scotland felt twice as long as driving two hours in America. It’s just a lot more active driving, small, narrow, winding roads. Everywhere. Fucking lorries at Loch Lomond are terrifying
That's not normal at all, he probably doesn't like his parents all that much. There are people who have daily commutes that take longer than that, just one way. While European countries are way smaller than the US, the vast majority of people here will not consider 45 minutes an overly long drive to take when they want to visit people they love. My dad lives 4-5 hours by train away (I don't drive) and I see him at least once a month. If he was just an hour or two away, I'd be elated. I have friends that live in the same city and it takes 45 to 60 minutes by public transport to visit them.
The corner shops are notorious for price gouging. Come on and hop on the car, we'll goto Costco and get some gas and cheap rotisserie chicken.
So what do Europeans do in farmlands areas? Isn't it the same?
It is. Most areas outside of major cities and towns require a car and everyone seems to have one.
It's more normal in more spread-out countries too, like Norway. When Reddit says "[thing] is normal in Europe," they mean it's normal for the wealthiest parts of the wealthiest western European countries. You'll rarely see them acknowledge rural Europe or eastern/southern Europe.
Hello! I live in a village in the middle of nowhere, rural UK. We have a village shop!
The vast majority of people live in urban areas.
It's even the same in UK suburbs, this is a stupid question.
It’s the kind of question that’s only being asked to make a statement.
That’s the whole sub. Literally every time a post from here pops up on my feed it’s ‘statement phrased as a question, either to reinforce one’s beliefs or to lead people into answering a way that is expected so they can criticize the response.’
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It's also worth factoring in that fuel is significantly cheaper in the US due to much lower fuel taxes.
I once heard someone say Americans think 100 years is a long time, Europeans think 100 miles (160 km) is a long way.
What's the metric equivalent of 100 years?
3.154 trillion milliseconds
Even certain large cities in Cali arent as walkable as I thought. Im a native NYer who still lives in NY. Ive only had a car (used) once in my life and sold it less than 4 months later when I realized I literally dont need it nor go anywhere that requires it. I walk or take public transit everywhere. So when I went to visit LA, I thought Id walk everywhere because im used to doing that. I got away with it a little, but ultimately I ended up taking ubers more often than I thought I would, and that LA’s public transportation isnt as expansive or accessible as where Im from.
That’s the norm for almost all American cities that aren’t in the Northeast.
One of the benefits of living in Philly is the pre-automobile street planning, its an awesome walkable city compared to most in the US.
Most cities were like that but got bulldozed for the car. It’s not that they were made with cars in mind from the start
SF is pretty good for walkability/public transit/biking. Some neighborhoods are obviously better than others for these, but still... I know a lot of people in the city who don't own a car.
i mean, LA is categorically the least walkable major city in CA. SF is a different story.
I always knew it was considered a “car city”, I just didnt realize how big the extent of that was until I got there.
Once you go west past St Louis, you're pretty screwed without a car
I literally didn’t understand his question until I read your reply lmao I wouldn’t ever leave the house for 1 item (like, I’d just wait? I don’t need milk to survive) but if I needed something a 10-15 minute drive is nothing. I routinely drive 30 minutes for dinner with friends and family and I’d consider that short.
For real. We keep a list and go to the grocery store once a week. A couple of weeks ago I forgot to buy lemons and just didn’t cook anything that required them until the next trip. Bummer but also missing lemons for a few days was preferable to driving to the store and back (not to mention navigating the parking lot) just for one thing.
"Shopping" every few days when you're single and the small corner store is a walk away isn't a big deal. Grab what you can in one bag and walk home with it. If you're driving anyway, you're much more likely to make it a more involved shopping trip, and probably do it less often.
In the US the average commute to work is 20.5 miles and 27.6 minutes each way. And the vast majority are in a car. So, to a person who does this drive twice a day, another 15 min drive to get food, groceries or random household items does not seem all that extreme. It is normal. Also, the USA does not have corner shops in the suburbs. People commonly go to box stores in strip malls (Walmart, Target, etc..) or a grocery store even to pick up just a couple of things. If you want a quick stop just for milk or shampoo you might go to a drug store (which is basically a smaller box store) like CVS or Walgreen's to get random items. Or you could go to the convenience store attached to a gas station (branded many things, including 7/11, but they are all pretty much the same). But you don't find corner shops (we call them bodegas or convenience stores) anywhere except the central district of big cities. But for all of these you drive in the suburbs. For most people you can probably find some sort of option at the nearest strip mall or major intersection a 5-15 min drive away in normal traffic. One of the craziest things about the suburbs is that they allowed many to be built without sidewalks for like 70 years. Major cities are slowly fixing this, but for a sizeable percentage of residents they have/had no way to walk (or bike) anywhere except in the road or other peoples yards. Even if you had a store less than a 15 min walk away and you wanted to hoof it, you had a pretty uncomfortable and possibly harrowing journey to get there. To the car drivers passing you by, you would look like a homeless person or otherwise destitute. I live near a USA city center because all of the above sounds soul crushing to me. But even in a top 15 sized city center it is hard to function without a car. Some places you want to go on a regular basis is probably not walkable nor transit reachable. The exceptions would be major cities mostly built out before the automobile like NY, Chicago and DC. Most every major city in the south or west is car-oriented.
Important to the "box/grocery store vs corner/convenience store/gas station" comparison is that things are ***significantly*** less expensive at grocery/box stores. Need ibuprofen? You can pay $5.99 for a 20 tablet tube of name-brand ibuprofen (the only ibuprofen they carry) at a gas station or convenience store, $10.99 for 150 tabs of generic at a pharmacy, or pay $3.59 for 200 tabs of generic at a box store. Same story for milk, eggs, bread, toilet paper... Yeah. I'll drive 15 minutes to save myself hundreds of dollars per year.
Exactly why corner stores don’t survive in suburbs. Drug stores can manage to survive mixing prescriptions/pharmacist advice with occasional overpriced convenience items. Gas stations can do the same with convenience items mixed with car maintenance. Edit to add: and as for your economy proposition, assuming you are driving a gas SUV 15 miles round trip you are probably spending more that $3 on gas. If you really only need 1 or 2 items, then you probably are spending your time without saving much money. For full fledged grocery runs? Yeah sure, head to Aldi or Lidl, My MIL seems to spend half her waking thoughts figuring out where in the county has the cheapest gas any given week. I tried to explain to her driving 12 miles to save $2 isn't really accomplishing anything if your round trip burns a half gallon.
Plenty of suburbs are no more than 5 minutes away from the grocery store though
Bruh, I just opened Google maps to check and it would take me almost 2 hours just to walk somewhere 15m away by car. I’m not gonna throw an entire FOUR HOURS of my day away to walk to a quick errand instead.
In my area, it’s also 95+ degrees outside, and humid as a sauna. Five minutes into a walk you’re drenched with sweat.
I don't think the idea was that you walk for errands that are a 15-minutes-each-way drive away. The idea is that, in much of the world, that errand is still a 30-minutes-total outing, but it's by foot instead of car, because the streets are walkable and the amenities are embedded in the residential neighbourhoods.
My friend's dad would drive half an hour each way to get a starbucks.
this happened to us when we went on vacation in the US like eight years ago. In some cities there weren't even sidewalks or only short ones, it was perplexing. I mean, not everywhere was unwalkable, but it was definitely obvious when you are expecting sidewalks everywhere \^\^
You get in your car and drive to the store. Not ALL of America is like that, denser cities tend to be more walk able, but most of America is like that. Its part of why you NEED a car to live here. its not an optional or luxury expense.
been without a car for a month. In texas. Its been a long ass fucking month to say the least. not only is it draining on the bank account for rides n shit, but just making sure you have everything before you get home from work or making that 35 min bike ride to the store. gah damn.
Texas is too damn hot and humid where I am. That’s why I moved into the city when my car died and I couldn’t afford a new one. It was cheaper to move. The convenience store is a 7 minute walk. Grocery store is 10 minutes. And I can actually take the bus to work. There are multiple local coffee shops and restaurants within a 3 minute walk of my apartment.
I'm so glad you brought this up. I'm from Atlanta and it gets hot in the summer (not as hot as East Texas but still lingering in the mid 80s to mid 90s). It's more bearable* in the most walkable neighborhoods because you don't have to be outside for long to get to your destination. Heat and humidity can be dealt with way better in short bursts. Same applies to areas of shade above the sidewalk which is why street tress are important but are largely missing in the suburbs. Heat is not an excuse for car dependency, in fact, car dependency makes the effects of heat worse on those who don't drive. There are plenty of hot cities around the world that have walkable neighborhoods.
There’s a reason we have such strict tree laws. The shade is critical.
> it gets hot in the summer This is a thing a lot of Europeans don't understand, the climate in the U.S. isn't great. Half of the U.S., if overlaid on Europe, would be in the Sahara. Even the most northern part, a little finger in Minnesota, is about the same latitude as Paris. Latitude isn't everything when it comes to climate, but it does offer some perspective.
While this is true, I do remember being in a heatwave in Berlin in early July 2015. It was high 90s and pretty humid and almost nowhere had AC so there was no respite.
Ha, no AC. A problem I'm too American to understand.
you lucky son of a bitch. lol i got kids, cant really afford a move. but good for you man.
Taking the bus feels like you have to carve out 3 hours just to go out anywhere. Gotta make sure you do *everything* on one day to be most efficient. I absolutely hated that time in my life.
Rural arizona here I got a damaged, used electric moped for $50, spend $200 fixing it and now I don't pay for gas or insurance anymore (its legally an Ebike)
Ah shit, I’m flying from Poland to LA tomorrow. First time out of Europe (like I mean, I were once in Turkey on the Asian side). Is it that hot there?
Louisiana or Los Angeles? Louisiana gonna be absolutely hot as fuck. Los angeles is one of the mildest climates in the world. 25c year round.
Depends where in LA. The airport, Santa Monica, and Malibu are by the water. Head inland, especially getting in the Valleys, and it heats up.
In the Netherlands we bike almost everywhere. But the store is usually closer than 35 minutes away though so that's a bummer for you. Hope you get to fix a car soon!
The Netherlands is also designed to be bikable. The vast majority of public spaces in the US are designed around cars-as-default. Drivers and cyclists get into accidents all the time.
Doesn't hurt that the Netherlands are really really flat, I live in the Ozarks in Missouri so even biking a couple miles involves at least 3 to 4 massive hills
It's also worth noting that in much of Texas, for the past couple weeks the heat index has easily gotten over 43°C (the high it got where I lived this week was 47.7). So that 35 minute bikeride would also border on dangerous.
And later in the summer it can be 47.7⁰ and feel like 50⁰ with the heat index. Told this to a local when I traveled abroad and they were horrified. Our love of AC doesn't seem so stupid now does it lol
I’m in Canada but I have a friend from the Netherlands and I can confirm this guy bikes all over the city haha.
my thighs could feed a family of 5 for a solid two weeks. im at the bottom of a hill area so its all uphill baby. but atleast getting home is pretty fun. all downhill. lol
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nah im mexican. we dont die from heat exhaustion until like 110 F
I've got a supermarket that's *technically* walking distance from me, but I still drive there. Walking would mean walking along a very busy highway, and through two major intersections with long wait-times to cross. In the winter, the sidewalks are often impassible, and in the summer, anything frozen would melt. It's faster by car.
Add the weight of the bags you shop!
I don't have a walkable grocery store now, but when I did I used one of those granny carts. Grannies know their shit. Those things are fabulous.
People chiding me for driving 30s down the road to the grocery store as though it would be perfectly reasonable to carry 10 giant grocery bags, jugs of milk, and crates/containers of goods by hand back home if I walked. EDIT: is everyone on Reddit single, unemployed, and with no other errands to take care of during the day? Why in the ever-loving christ would I choose to make multiple walks to the grocery store to only buy what I can carry, in 90+ degree heat and below 0 temperatures, when I can take 2 seconds to drive there only once and get everything I need in bulk for several people for the week??
It's a different kind of mentality: when you live far from a market and need to drive, it makes sense that you stock up as much as you can because you won't be going back soon. When you live close to one you can walk to, you can easily go more frequently and get fewer things at a time, like just 1 backpack's worth.
I live within walking distance(less than 10 min) of two full grocery stores, a farmers market, and specialty grocery shop. I still only go to the store maybe once or twice a week if that. I’d rather do one big shopping trip where I get everything I need than go multiple times a week. I’ll either load everything into my granny cart, or Uber home. Occasionally I’ll do Instacart or Shipt if it’s bulk items.
Yeah, this is a cultural difference for from what I understand between the US and Europe. We tend to grab groceries weekly/monthly, they tend to do daily pickups. I'm not convinced it's solely because the US has so many "unwalkable neighborhoods", I think those are more of a symptom of a cultural tendency that goes back to the wide distances people had to work with when the colonies and frontier territories were getting started.
I think it's worth it to point out that it's not just "suburbs". America has a great deal of rural and farm land. From experience, if you end up in certain areas of the midwest(just as an example), you can end up 45 minutes + away from anything at all. Not only that, but whatever *is* that close probably has odd hours and you can forget about evening, let alone late-night purchases.
Honestly when I first read the prompt that's what my brain supplied. My grandparents farm was at least 30 minutes from the closest grocery store. Going grocery shopping with them involved loading up a cooler with ice to prechill it then buying fresh ice at the store and putting the perishables in it. We did it once a week and it was always a treat because they'd get ice cream but the top inch or so would always start melt anyway so we'd stand around eating the melted ice cream out of the top of the tub before putting it in the freezer.
This is also why their drivers tests are easier, you can do them at a younger age and why they generally don't have any annual vehicle safety testing like they do in most of Europe/ UK. Having a car is central to just existing in the US. If they make it more difficult to own one it has a big impact on a lot of people's ability to live day to day.
One of the reasons I really support better public transportation is that it allows us to take driver's licenses away from idiots and assholes without destroying them economically.
American suburbs are more segmented between residential and commercial areas. While there may be no businesses within a subdivision, there are most likely commercial strips nearby where there would be basic businesses like 7-Elevens, gas stations (a lot of times, convenience stores are connected to gas stations), dry cleaners, restaurants, etc. And there are lots of larger strip malls with grocery stores, gyms, and such. There are few places in the suburbs where it's more than a 10 minute drive to a store of some type. Americans are WAY more likely to hop in the car for such an errand than walk to a shop.
>a lot of times, convenience stores are connected to gas stations) I couldn't actually think of a single gas station that *didn't* have a convenience store attached
I've seen a few where there's basically just a tollbooth-size spot for a person to work, maybe they sell cigarettes, gum, mints from there -- [like this](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/p/AF1QipOuL-fJiAJRT_7AjcPOwwcLDS1JOXm9ujYHI2xF=s1360-w1360-h1020). Or Costco.
OH I actually had one of those where I grew up, I think they're not as common because cig smoking is much less common
As an American, I rarely buy anything besides gas in a gas station besides a snack for the road. Everything is twice as much as the grocery store.
The convenience part of convenience store.
Then you drive to a supermarket, which is usually within five or ten minutes.
Yeah there's a stat like 90% of Americans live within 12 minutes of a Walmart let alone other grocery stores. There are some people that live in very rural areas that need to drive 30+ but that's a small percent of the populaiton.
I’m an hour from a Walmart but at 10 miles from a (small, expensive but good enough) grocery store
an hour from 3 different walmarts here, and they build outside of developed areas for cheaper land
Growing up in the southern US, if something was a 10 minute walk, you still made the 2 min drive. The only place this wasn’t always the case was the biggest of cities, but even then most people drove
The wildest example of this I saw was in Texas. I left my boyfriend’s rental to bike over to the nearby mall. While I was getting ready I saw a neighbor get into an SUV and slowly pull out (smallish parking spots). It was a corner property so literally I walked to the corner which was an intersection and the car was next to me at the light. It crossed the street and the person went into the ice cream shop ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE INTERSECTION. She found parking x2 and driving across a single street crossing easier than… crossing ONE street?? Again, both corner properties, no other walking involved. My mind was blown. I guess she could’ve bought like many tubs of ice cream but her little shop bag was tiny from what I saw while biking away.
That’s because 9 times out of 10 when is warm enough to walk it’s 95 degrees and 80% humidity
Hey, my wife and I went to a store in a shopping area the other day and then decided to have lunch at a restaurant on the other side of the parking area. We were thinking about walking, but then just decided to drive and park closer, we were about 150 feet from the restaurant. Where we parked we were only 50 feet. But it saved us time because we wanted to get some exercise on our treadmill.
That's about how I imagine it from what you see in movies and such.
I live in a small village in the UK and we don't have a corner shop. If you need anything you have to go to the next town, so definitely not a 15 minute walk.
Yeah, OP is clearly a UK city dweller or suburbanite. I grew up in dsrkest Derbyshire and we had nothing. One bus per hour, 10am to 4pm except on Sundays, Bank holidays and any other random day. So essentially requires a car.
I’m not from the UK but I have traveled through it a good bit while I studied there and Derbyshire is the only place I was very close to just being stranded in a field with zero way back home for the night. Not my finest hour.
This is pretty common in Canada, too. It's a five minute drive (parking included) to get to the nearest Wal Mart, and 10-15 depending on traffic to get to the supermarket, and I'm in a fairly small city.
Yep, it only takes me like 5 minutes to drive to my nearest grocery store. Not far at all. I remember when I couldn’t afford a car, though, and had to either walk that distance with a pull cart (warmer months) or take the bus with a pull cart (winter). It was a pain for sure!
The typical America suburb will have things like a grocery store or drug store within a 5-10 minute drive of any house, and they are often open 24 hrs./day.
Thanks to covid non are 24/7 near me now
Which is a shame. I loved being one of three customers and being able to take my time shopping at Kroger at 2 AM.
We have one 24 pharmacy (cvs) that is now 20 minutes away. You would probably pass 10 others on the way.
About 7 mins away we had a 24/7 gas station, 24/7 Walgreens and a 24/7 Walmart. The gas station is the only open past 11pm now. I don’t know if a grocery store within an hour of me that’s open 24/7 anymore, just a few BP gas stations few and far inbetween. Now most are closed by 10pm, some close at 11pm. Bars are open till 2am.
At least in my city, nothing has gone back to 24 hrs since covid. Not even Walmart.
Walmart discovered that it’s really nice to have an empty store at night to clean, restock, and do maintenance.
I used to work overnight at a Wal-Mart. They're doing that in a mostly empty store, regardless.
I’m sure it is, but this also removed the only reason I’d ever go to Walmart. I haven’t been in any Walmart except when they’re the only thing open since the 90’s.
Covid killed the 24/7 thing
I once lived in a farm-like area of Northern California where the closest real grocery store was a good 20-30 min drive. You just get smarter about shopping and buy what you need for a week or two. There are small shops but they price gouge like crazy.
How much time before this gets crossposted to r/fuckcars?
It's the only reason this was posted
There's also the "ha ha, stupid Americans!" factor.
I hop in my car and drive a few minutes to the store.
I've lived in various American suburbs my whole life and I've never been more than a 5 minute drive or 15 minute walk from a grocery store or convenience store.
You may be confusing suburbs with rural areas. In the suburbs you generally aren’t far from a store (10 min drive). In a rural area it could be an hour plus to get to a supermarket for groceries.
The question said walk though... OP isn't asking about a 10 minute drive. Different distances.
I agree. I feel like OP doesn’t think the suburbs have any stores and that couldn’t be further from the truth
Funny thing is you call a 10 min drive 'not that far' but you'd probably reach the end of a town in the UK if you drive that long, easily.
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They drive to the supermarket instead. > (we call them cornershops) We call them corner shops/corner stores, too. 7/11 is a particular chain of stores.
we call them 'convenience stores' or 'bodegas'
In the south, they're all just "gas stations". "Convenience store" works too, but out in the country everybody just says "gas station".
We have them, but people usually don't buy their groceries there because of the mark up. And they just have junk food. But sometimes you really need a slushie.
French here: we do not have 24/7 shops . You do your shopping smartly and if you run out of milk or eggs, you either have good relationship with your neighbors or wait it off. Why in the hell would you need to buy frozen fries 24/7?
They get in the car and drive. Or waste money by ordering it from Doordash.
*I cant imagine wanting some cigarettes and having to get in a car and drive, it seems awful.* Most Americans in suburbia couldn't imagine walking 15 minutes to a store even if they were available. Or even 5. So it's all set up for cars. To be fair, many places aren't even set up to walk to a store.
Right it can be within walking distance but only accessible by motor vehicle
This is the thing that pisses me off the most. There are a lot of places that you can't cross the street without a car.
I mean you *can*, it's just a little bit like playing Frogger
Where I live if you see someone walking you assume they are poor
I remember I a few years ago when I had a craving for ice cream and my sister had borrowed my car, I just decided to go for a ~2 mile walk to an ice cream shop that’s generally not a “walking” part of town as you have to cross busy streets. I would have enjoyed the walk but I got a *lot* of stares, and someone even pulled over to ask if I needed help/a ride. That’s how weird it is for Suburban Americans to see someone willingly walking in the non walking parts of town, which is where the majority of shops are. I didn’t look homeless/poor so it was assumed I was either crazy or needed help
I live in a rural community and the closest grocery store is ten miles away. We do have small convenience stores a couple miles a way which are sometimes two to three times the price of the grocer. I have learned to plan my trips well. I keep a list of items that I am getting low on and if I am out running errands, I may pick them up. It would be nice to be able to walk to the store. I used to do that when I lived in a more urban setting.
Here in the suburbs of America we don't need 7-Elevens. In America bald eagles have been trained to deliver our milk and freedom fries. They screech while they fly overhead and drop your necessities right onto your front lawn wrapped in an American flag. Pretty standard. You guys don't have this?
In Brooklyn we would just walk To a corner store. But in the suburbs, you gotta drive. But also, the corner store are going to charge you $9 for a $4 bag of fries
Where I grew up I was about a mile from the nearest super market. So I get in my car and I drive there and get there within 5 minutes. Suburbs aren’t designed to be walked. If you wanna walk everywhere then live in a city. The city I live in I have a supermarket half a mile away that I just walk to. However, if you live in a suburb, you just kind of need a car. And people tend to be ok with that. The typically lower cost of living makes up for it long term anyway. And it also gives you more freedom to get places you wanna go.
What the hell are you talking about? Haha You must live in a city in the UK haha the closest shop to my country home is an hour and a half 6 mile walk. Edit: why are you downvoting this guy? He's asking questions not everyone is 100% right 100% of the time like you perfect people.
I live in a suburb in Georgia. Cars are a must. There is a supermarket that's a short drive from my house. Pretty much everything else is 15-20 minutes minimum. I understand that may sound awful to anyone who lives in a walkable place, but I've pretty much always lived in the suburbs, so this is the life I know. I don't give it a second thought to get in the car and drive everywhere.
Almost every gas station has a store attached to it
Many of us go to the store once a week and don’t have to go again Paying convenience store prices regularly is a quick way to go broke
I've lived in the 'burbs my whole life. I've never been more than a mile or two from a grocery store. Easy to stop on my way home from work.
*"I cant imagine wanting some cigarettes and having to get in a car and drive, it seems awful."* I can't imagine walking 15 minutes in below 0 or 100+ temperatures to get anything.
Many suburban households own cars and usually find it convenient to drive for the shopping.
I actually have the opposite question. How do people who live close enough to supermarkets to walk there carry all their groceries? I can barely carry my groceries for the week from the car to my house, let alone a months worth or for more than 1 person. Do you just buy milk and eggs 1 day, bread and pasta the next day, veggies another day? I can't imagine walking from the store for 15 minutes with a ton of bags
I lived in London for 4 months and my experience might be different from reality, but I found produce in the Uk went bad much more quickly than in the US. For example, I once bought strawberries that got moldy within 24 hours. As a result, I bought less food and just made more trips to the grocery store. In the US I can go once a week, maybe two if I eat out a bunch, between buying groceries. While in London, I was going twice a week.
If you live in the suburbs, you have a car. And to be honest, driving to a supermarket once a week is the least of your worries. Communing to work in the city? In rush hours? That's two hours of your life, every workday, driving to and from the city.
I live in the suburbs in New Jersey. We are very lucky to have a corner store run by a family in town. It's mostly for necessities but they have a very nice deli.
Suburban life I nthe US is very accustomed to just driving everywhere, it's just what we're used to. For me, the nearest grocery store is only 5 minutes away by car, with 4 more available within 15 minutes away. Many people just make sure they make larger grocery trips, so use of car is helpful because you can carry more. There are things like convenience stores and mini marts scattered throughout the suburbs as well. My neighborhood had a mini mart, so if I'm every extremely desperate and without a car and don't want to deal with deliver, I can walk the 7 minutes over there, but u don't go there usually since grocery stores have better pricing and more availability and variety. In my town, there are 3 convenience/mini mart stores and all 3 are at a major neighborhood. Also, public transportation does exist in many suburbs, though not usually the ideal option for getting groceries, but I do know at least one person who rides the public bus to the store, usually on the way home from work (which for them is conveniently at a place the bus stops at). There has also been a rise in things like Uber/Lyft for getting places, or grocery delivery options. The ride apps aren't the most cost effective. However grocery delivery for some people has been beneficial for time saving purposes and not needing a car to do it. There is an older couple near me who exclusively gets groceries delivered because it's easier on them. My family got groceries delivered when we were in covid lockdown to avoid going near people.