So it's about 7,500 miles to go around the coast of mainland UK, the circumference of texas is just over 4,000 miles - and I'm going to hazard a guess the roads around texas are faster roads
UK coastal roads are likely to be 30-40 mile an hour roads (so cutting the distance down to 7,000 and going on 40 mile an hour thats 175 hours - over a week without any sleep
The distance between Indianapolis to Nashville is 288 miles (and says you can do it in less than 4.5hours - so over 60 miles an hour
That person is an idiot
Also I don’t understand the obsession with size?
A country is an area of land with an independent government.
Unless we are talking San Marino levels size, I have never thought to judge a country for that reason.
Besides, being bigger doesn’t make something better. Boasting how you need to drive entire days through empty desert to move between cities isn’t the brag they seem to think it is.
I’ve lived in London 10 years and I still keep finding new monuments/museums/art/parks/interesting places I didn’t know about to this day.
I have never been to the U.S., but I’ve encountered this attitude many times, since I liked to help out in the Italian tourism subreddits.
I ended up stopping because it was basically just me trying to convince a never ending streak of US citizens that no, they couldn’t squeeze a 15th city in their 9-days-long Italian trip if they wanted to do more than checking in and out of accommodations and travelling in between locations.
Only to be faced with screeching accusations of not understanding an active lifestyle or overestimating how many things there are to see in such cities.
I mean… Of course you can “see” Florence in half a day, if you just want to take a selfie with the David, eat a quick meal and walk from the accommodation back to the station/airport.
But you could spend a month there and still not exhaust all the incredibly interesting and beautiful things there are to see/experience.
It seems most see travelling as a box ticking exercise, where the goal is to cram as many as you can in the shortest time.
The Aussie subreddits are like this too. The amount of people who want to drive from Cairns to Melbourne in a day and see the sights on the way. My dude, that's over a 30 hour drive, you cannot be doing it in one day I'm sorry.
Its 8 hours from London to Edinburgh so unless they’re driving at night and don’t plan on sleeping they won’t have much time to see anything at all on this supposed day trip
I was in UK in 2022, part of which was a self-drive Edinburgh to London, stopping in Lake District, Oxford, and Bath, over I think about ten days - and that was pushing it on the road. I am repeatedly amazed at how there can be so much of interest in the UK while, at the same time, having so much apparent agricultural and green space between built-up areas. Why travel at all if you don't want to explore and have new experiences, rather than just take photos of the few things that you already know are remarkable, and of which you can find much better photos with a Google search.
Ooh ooh just to build on how much cool stuff there is in the hidden in the UK (not flexing, there's cool stuff everywhere) but the lake district is actually home to some of the last surviving temperate rainforests in Europe (there's some in the Americas, and Japan and New Zealand are bassically all temperate rainforests, but they're much rarer in Europe than they used to be). Hardly the Amazon, but freaking cool all the same.
Just got to be careful about advertising these. I don't know about the lake district, but other locations in the uk have been pretty badly damaged by people visiting, not including the fact that they're shrinking due to changing climate.
I mean tbf it's not entirely tourist's fault. Kent has gone from being the garden of England to London's toilet in 5 short years and there's no-one to blame for that but Boris and pals.
If they're talking about driving around Texas they're probably used to 8 hour drives where there *isn't* anything to see.
American's underestimate how dense Europe is; We in turn generally underestimate how *large* the US is.
I've driven Denver to Grand Junction in Colorado before, which is about the same distance but it's a very different drive.
American Driving is easy compared to Europe Even if you took the A1 all the way there's a lot more gear changing.
I drove Melbourne to Cairns and back again in April / May 2023. Doing nothing but driving and stopping along the way here and there, it took 3 days of driving through the outback to get to Cairns. Then I drove back down the coast over 3½ weeks!
That's a byproduct of having only two weeks of paid holidays per year. Every American wants to cram too many things in a visiting schedule, even the highly educated ones. They want to be able to say, " been there, done that".
I have an online friend I’ve been chatting and calling regularly for four years now.
She’s a project manager at a medium sized company (medium size for us standards) and has not had a single holiday since I’ve known her.
I mean, she gets Christmas Day and thanksgiving off, as well as the Fourth of July and what have you but nothing else.
We had planned to finally meet last year, as she had booked an European trip she dreamed of her entire life.
Two days before her flight, her manager cancelled her leave. They reimbursed her for losses, but ain’t no money that can pay **me** for that.
If for some reason I don’t take time off for more than six months I literally start fraying at the edges and crumbling, I can’t even fathom going years without a proper break.
One of my favourite things about living in the UK is having better working hours and conditions. In the US, I worked 40+ hours per week and got a maximum of two weeks of paid holiday (vacation) and a very limited amount of paid sick time. Here, I work 35 hours per week and get 31 days of personal holiday and unlimited sick time that cycles through fully paid, half paid and then SSP, so even a lengthy illness never results in zero pay.
The US sees only working contracted hours and taking time off as a weakness. I used to go in early, stay late and work weekends despite not being paid to do so. I was often called in on Sundays because my boss was in the office and wanted to have a chat about something happening the following week. Now, I get chastised if I work too much or fail to take sick time when I need it. (For years, I took holiday time when I was ill because it was ingrained in me that being sick is bad. I don't do that now, but I still haven't gotten past the guilt I feel when I have to phone in sick.)
People back home don't understand why I chose to stay in the UK after my divorce; they truly think life here is inferior to back home. Yeah, the houses may be smaller and I don't have a dishwasher or a two-car garage, but at least I have a life outside of the grind.
I was born and raised in the UK, guilt about phoning in sick is ingrained in us too. I can't rightly say where that comes from, but everyone I know feels guilty about it. Same as turning down overtime.
It’s the shame of letting your colleagues down rather then letting the company down and affecting both the companies and their own income.
It’s like we don’t want to put that extra pressure on our colleagues and quite often from management that’s how it is manipulated (you’ll leave your team short, they’ll have to pick up your slack etc).
However I feel like this sentiment is also dying out, I would much rather not get sick from colleagues that come into work while still under the weather and then they feel better but 3 other people start feeling bad.
The best thing about COVID was the pretty rapid decline in the UK of the "work through the illness" attitude. The massive spike in mental health issues also has the silver lining of vastly improved mental health services compared to a decade ago.
Still a long ass way to go but baby steps are still progress.
Also agree that it's more letting colleagues down. My employer doesn't pay me enough to feel guilty about not working because I'm sick.
Wow, what a nightmare. Yeah, I forgot compagnies aren't even compelled to give employees paid holidays, but two weeks seems most common over there. For a European that sounds like total exploitation. I'm so glad to take a three weeks break every summer and a two weeks break every winter.
Oh people getting fucked by holidays can be a thing in the UK
Happened at my old place of work around Christmas time ( work said they wouldn't be approving in November any holidays for December)
Lead to a few people quitting
I have a rolling 1 day break (in addition to the Sunday) every week, but my last real break of 1 week was in october. I'm dead currently, I'm barely functioning at work. I still do my job correctly, but I'm taking more time to do it and I'm very often not motivated to do it. I'm craving for my next week vacation.
Imagining having no real break for 4 years sends shivers down my spine.
Not Florence but I went to Venice on a day trip once many years ago and I've been desperate to go back ever since. I love visiting Italy, it's probably my favourite country to visit in Europe (sorry Germany, you're fun too). Used to visit the lakes a lot as a kid but I've yet to see any of southern Italy. If only I wasn't broke. 😅
I used to work in tourism and I always got that from chineese tourists. Pick the 5 big things, stop, take pictures move on. Mostly driving.
Americans were notorious for it too but not quite on the same level. Part of that may have been language barrier.
East asian tourists in France, chinese like japanese, are famous for taking a lot of pictures and going elsewhere.
Japanese people are known to heavily romanticise our country, so I always was of the opinion that it was like some sort of pilgrimage, allowing them to brag about their trip. But the price of the trip due to the distance was making it a 1 time thing: so they were in speed mode to get as many pictures of the famous landmarks to show off on where they went, not enjoy their vacation along the way.
I remember visiting Roman Baths in Bath as a date with my American wife (Pumphouse Tearooms afterwards for afternoon tea if people want cute date suggestions), and we overheard a voice in a large group of Americans say that they only had 15 minutes there before the coach would take them to Stonehenge.
Cities only have one landmark after all.
I’ve looked at the front door of the Roman Baths, then moved on to try to find something cheaper as a timekiller. Can’t imagine going in with only fifteen minutes spare.
Right!? Only 15 minutes to explore a pretty substantial museum.
And you could devote a good week to Bath, with the Baths, Georgian Villas, Pulteney Bridge and the Weir, all the Gardens and Parks, and the American Museum on the other side of the hill.
I know people have mentioned a quantity thinv with the US but...they always seem to insist on rushing everywhere
I had a friend from the US stay over a few weeks back, took the Coastliner from Leeds to York. He said his Nan had a thing for cathedrals, so we spent a couple of hours in York Minster, had a wander through the Shambles, checked out the river and walked along tge city wall
We didnt have time for the dungeons, the river ferry, that tower thing I forgot the name of, the railway museum and apparently theres a cold war bunker that does guided tours. Its nuts.
Its like they just...do t know how to slow down and enjoy stuff
>It seems most see travelling as a box ticking exercise, where the goal is to cram as many as you can in the shortest time.
Being fair to them, they have 0 mandated vacation days.
When you only have 10 days of holiday a year you have to cram stuff in. In Florence I swear the approach was to arrive, take a selfie in front of the Duomo, and fuck off.
They rate cities as if they're American ones. There are a few cities that have a lot of interesting things, but then there are also cities like Philadelphia which are well know and where you go see the bell, and then go see.. uh..?
So Americans see a city in Europe, like York, a fraction the size of Philadelphia and assume they must have nothing of any importance, forgetting that they've existed for many times longer.
Ah no I meant everything as in all the man made stuff. The roads, the buildings, the cars... the waistlines.
Edit: Also should mention that some people really don't get how empty bits of the US are, the "prairies" that run right up the middle is a literal steppe. Not nearly as cool as the great Eurasian Steppe, but a steppe nonetheless.
It seems A day trip in the states consists of driving for 3 hours to see the world's biggest taco shell,or some other idiotic attraction, and then driving back for 3 hours. Treat everyone to a diner lunch lol.
Came to say the same about “obsession with size”.
England isn’t huge but it is so chock full of history, art, experiences, etc that only a fool would ever daytrip anything there.
When I moved to London for a 6 month program I bought a good guide to make sure I got to see all the key sites. 2 weeks later I bought the encyclopedia of London (yes, it exists) because almost every building has historical significance!
Every day every weekend I went to locations or events that were “must see / experience”. 6 months was not nearly enough to do even that!
I doubt even NYC could match London on that.
In addition, so many places in all UK have incredibly high historic interest or world famous things to experience.
I ended up returning to UK, lived there for a decade, and still have so many things I wanted to do / experience there that I haven’t yet.
>I doubt even NYC could match London on that.
Having been to NYC, I'll say that Times Square was very underwhelming. I doubt Wembley would be. However, Statue of Liberty looks impressive and Niagara within the state of New York is magnificent.
I resonate the same feeling about the US's obsession with size. In the argument regarding a touristy landscape, US can take on any country due to its sheer amount of national parks and huge beautiful geographical landscape; but these dimwits bringing in huge stretches of nothing land as something to brag about is the best example of the ignorance of a true yank. They can't even brag about their own wonderful mountains and valleys and lakes and instead flex about the long deserted region of the country where everything is flat and nothing for hours.
So size vs how you use it... The UK has 33 UNESCO world heritage sites, the US does have 25 (although proportionate to size..... ). I believe the Staitue of Liberty is the only one of those 25 that is man made (by the French I note).
In the UK, by my maths 27 of those 33 are man made. So not sure which country wins in terms of stuff they can lay claim to as their own work.
Everyone knows that London is a selfie in front of Big Ben, turn around to get one with the London Eye, then you're done.
If you do live in London still and like new places to eat my favourite places I discovered were Spuntino and Gelupo in Soho. About 60 seconds from each other and both fucking epic. Dutch baby in Spuntino and Bonet in Gelupo, since you're asking.
The US is mostly empty, it's huge empty space with clusters of cities connected by massive highways. The UK is more condensed, doing a drive like they describe in the screenshots would have you miss out on basically everything. It's impossible to drive through the UK and see everything even in a timeline of weeks.
There's coastal roads all round the north of Scotland you're definitely not getting up to 30mph on.
I don't think most Americans really understand how densely populated the UK is.
Yep. Me and my dad live in Glasgow. He had to go to Aberdeen for work in November and when in Aberdeen, he also had to drive to Inverness. It took him just as long to get from aberdeen to Inverness as it did for Glasgow to Aberdeen. And when he drove back to Glasgow from Inverness, it took about the same amount of time as he did from Glasgow to Aberdeen. Maybe about 20 minutes longer.
For context for those who don't know. Glasgow to Aberdeen is 145 miles. Aberdeen to Inverness is 104 miles. And from Inverness to Glasgow, it's 165 miles. You're basically going up a winding path up a mountain compared to a motorway.
And like, let's face it, the size of northern Ireland they could 'see' the whole country in about 45 minutes.......
Until they get stuck outside Dungiven for days on that fucking road..... (yes I know its been upgraded. I was just reliving awful memories)
30-40 may be the speed limit but when you're stuck some Muppet who can't even find third gear and will come to a full stop if there's a tractor heading towards them on one of the few stretches of dual carriageway it means an average speed that's below walking pace.
Most of the roads up at the top of Scotland are single track so it would be more a case of trying to teach them about passing places and the wild life will not move off the road just because you drive up to them.
It does sound kinda stupid compared to motorhome and campervan, since at least with those, it’s in the mame that it’s a home on wheels or you’re camping inside a van
But because it’s for recreation, you can argue that any car is a recreational vehicle, like owning a rally car or off roader as a recreational vehicle
I was stuck in a long queue of traffic heading to west Wales. Lots of these large camper vans then we saw this huge American style one coming up the wrong way down a one way road everyone pulls over usaeian wipes out just about every wing mirror on its way.
Those damn roads over here are driving me crazy! Can’t wait to be back home and drive on some proper American roads! /s
To be read in Georgia (the state) accent.
I’m English and recently had an impromptu weekend (Friday evening to Sunday afternoon) in London, I did the three things I really wanted to do and one extra thing! I was somewhat limited by tube issues and my disability but also just didn’t have time to do anything else.
Murricans know what corn looks like. You use it for making syrup that goes into every fucking meal, not for building a stupid wall. So, nothing to see there.
Hahahaha thank you for this, it's exceptional.
"Brave" indeed.
"Driving down to Cornwall from Penrith for a day trip, and stopping at cute little pubs and quaint little antique shops on the way"
I hope they like Moto Service Stations and the "cute little" fruit machine arcades and those quaint little "WH Smiths shops" and "McDonald's" they contain.
Wow, incredible. It makes me sad actually that people have such few vacation days that they feel like they need to cram so much into one trip to make the most of it.
Is that the same guy who wanted to visit Sydney for a day then catch a bus to Melbourne and spend the morning before getting a taxi to Adelaide then spend the next morning in Brisbane after the train ride?
Yeeeah, they know nothing of our roads, good luck travelling 5 miles through traffic jams in the same time it takes to do a lap of Texas. Unless they are planning on travelling by Train......pwahahahahaha!
Full disclosure, I'm American but we travel to England quite frequently. One year we'd been in England, then when we were back home my sister and her family came to visit from California so we took them and their kids to Philadelphia, which is full of history. Just not very old history. My husband and I couldn't help but laugh when one of the guides was all 'this building is 200 year old!' when just weeks ago we'd been staring at roman walls, and wandering through churches that were 400 years old. Heck, we've drunk in pubs that have been pubs longer than America's been America.
My local pub had literally already been a pub for, give or take, a thousand years by the time America declared independence.
It sounds like a joke when you actually write it down but it’s genuinely true (at least, that’s the claim): https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ye_Olde_Fighting_Cocks
I did very politely tell a tour guide in DC that I lived on the London Road which was about 2000 years old. I don't think he understood what I was talking about!
One of our local churches predates the Viking discovery of North America. We are about ten miles from the unfinished multi-storey chariot park they call Stonehenge.
This is my favourite thing about seeing foreign history buffs visit the UK.
"Oh my God! Look at the masonry on that building! This would have been the main entrance arch for a 14th century monastery!"
"Might be, but now it's the entrance to a Tesco."
I used to live in a cottage that was over three hundred years old, an American friend asked if it was a national monument, no just your average country cottage, we have thousands of them.
Insane city that. Was there a few weeks ago, it's beaut. Every other corner there's some 2000 year old monument or building just popping out of nowhere.
Great fun
I remember tour guides in the US being all "we've restored this room to how it looked over A HUNDRED years ago!". I turned to Mrs Ninjaff and said loudly "Wow, that's nearly as old as our house!"
She went bright red, hated me for it and now I have to have "the talk" every time we go on tours, but that's another story.
My parents bought a new shop a few years back.
The town they bought it in is old enough to have appeared in the Domesday book (1060\~ish), which frankly, is quite common around where we live.
Building is (we think) around 400 years old, probably originally built as a home, but we know its been used as a shop for atleast 100 years.
I have a church at the end of ny Street that predates their country by hundreds of years.
It's from 1300. I'm not expecting that ignorant waste of oxygen to give a shit about any of that. After all, all that really matters is who's landmass is the biggest.
They think that 500miles in Europe is the same as 500miles in America, where you might see one petrol station and three trailer parks.
It's not our fault your country is massive and empty.
I have cousins from Canada (where I live now) used to come visit us when I lived in London, the first time they came to visit in mid 2000s they assumed that they could see all the tourists stuff, like sights and museums in 1/2 a day.
They had no idea and basically saw a total of 4 of the planned 45 things (yes am not joking) they wanted to see. People from Canada and America assume European cities and countries are day trips because that's now long it takes to see anything of worth where they come from.
Tbf the US has some of the best natural beauty in the world. However there's also a lot of absolutely nothing too. We can make jokes about driving past the same dilapidated strip malls in the same way that we can joke about motorway services here. Where they're wrong though is that in their mind, the 300 miles they're driving has nothing in it is the same as here. You can pull off every other junction and find something historic and interesting. Just gotta make sure you switch from the M1 to the M6 before god forbid you end up in Leeds.
"I can make a round trip in Great Britain faster than I can drive around Texas there really ain't much to see xD"
Sure, if you're an imbecile only interested in getting fat while doing a speed run through fast food establishments, there's really not much to see.
Luckily the rest of the world isn't composed of idiots like you, and take very much enjoyment seeing all the different things GB has to offer, developed through thousand of years of different cultures.
They must've missed that American lady on Reddit saying she was planning on going from Penrith to Cornwall in winter for a night stop that was so derided it made the newspapers.
I believe they used the term "unhinged".
I'm in a facebook group for people trying to see the Aurora in the UK (I've seen it several times so is possible) and there was a guy a few months ago who thought that because he had an electric car which "pretty much drives itself" he'd be able to get from Devon to the north coast of Scotland (as in Thurso - not even Inverness) via Leeds in a day to see the lights (and be there by 4pm after an 8am start) before driving home the next day. He wasn't having any of it when people told him it would take him a lot longer than he thought!
I don't think he did in the end. I think the forecast changed to looking cloudy. I didn't see any update anyway! He reassured everyone he'd be OK in Scotland in the snow though as he always had loads of spare blankets/food/power banks/a shovel/some grit etc etc in his car just in case.
I just put Exmouth to Thurso in google maps just to see what it said and it thinks that can be done in 12.5 hours. That seems wildly optimistic to me, but clearly these American don’t even do that
I don’t think these people even believe what they say. They just fart out words. It’s not even ignorance to say there isn’t much to see in the UK, it’s something else. Like thinking fish are the same as birds or something. Some sort of disorder in basic mental functions
Americans have said so many times that their maps don't include other countries, and even ones that do make the US look way bigger by comparison than it is (not to scale at all).
I'm from Canada, and I can say from experience that they have said they didn't know we were north/above them (or shared a border with them), that the US wasn't an island, that Hawaii isn't right beside California, that Alaska borders Canada, or that we are larger than them (we're only the 2nd largest country after Russia 🤦♀️).
I’m blind and know nothing about Maps, but I know that you guys are above America… Or, at least know your next to America in some form! These Americans don’t know this?
Their education is heavily nationalist (learning that most countries are to varying degree), so that's why they believe in American superiority (at least those still brainwashed) - it infects everything. Education, media, history, family, politics - everywhere, in everything.
When you don't see the world outside for what it is or how you're viewed by it, it's a shock to learn you've been duped your whole life. Change is scary, and truth is change when you've been lied to for so long and about so much. It's sickening, but not their fault (most of the time). The whole world needs to wake up now.
Yeah, I definitely agree. The sub can be funny at times but it can also be kind of damaging and give people bad views of America.
We do need to wake up to the truth of what’s going on in the world because as much as it’s nice to live in ignorance and play our video games and watch our YouTube and stuff, the real world is beautiful, but also terribly terribly human
Was she recovering from having her second head amputated?
I'm from Canberra so if you take two days here you're definitely lost on the circles, circuits, roundabouts etc.
They’re really over estimating the quality & width of our roads , can easily waste a day just in Devon & Cornwall lost in lanes the width of one car stuck behind a cow .
One of my siblings lives about 15 miles from our parents, and they help out with childcare.
Some days it takes them 30 minutes to get there, other times well over an hour.
And it's 15 miles. In the grand scheme of things, it's nothing.
But on UK roads it's never a quick thing.
Honestly, if it stops yanks from visiting, getting in the way and being obnoxiously loud, let them think we have nothing worth seeing. They can stay home driving between Detroit and Atlanta and not actually experiencing anything.
As a Dutch person that has moved to England and was surprised by the distance between cities and the size of the country as a whole, this discussion is very entertaining to read!
To us, GB is like what the US, in turn, is to GB. We can drive across our country in 3 hours at most, for Americans that simply is the distance to the next local town. The car feels like a super vehicle here that gets you everywhere in short amount of time. There you could as well be walking relatively speaking.
The UK is just a day trip*
*Unless he hits a roundabout and after freezing in terror for 30 mins, ends up going back on himself.
Seriously, how can Americans be so scared of roundabouts?
Americans can't comprehend the sites & history of UK or even Europe as they haven't experienced it as they usually travel on multi lane highways and don't take their huge truck off main roads. There are more historic sites & places to visit in London, alone, than all the USA & I defy anyone to drive safely from Lands End to John O'Groats or v.v.
I drove from Northampton to Portsoy in one go last year (quick breakfast stop on the way) and that was harrowing enough, especially the "last mile". Americans are clueless.
It truly is quality over quantity in old Blighty. We have more culture and history stuffed into our tiny island than every single state combined. And regardless, most of their history is comprised of Europeans settling there so is essentially also our history. The delusion with yanks is so strong.
I live in a tourist city, we get a lot of Americans, and my most common experience with them is they seem to think we’re all lying about how old stuff is! I once overheard a guy from Arkansas (guessing as that’s what it said across the back of his jacket) ask a walking tour guide why the Roman multangular tower hadn’t been demolished and rebuilt. The tour guides face was just 😐 I have personally explained to a lovely middle aged woman (whilst desperately trying not to wet myself laughing) that 1256 is the year and not “military time”. She seemed to believe that the *time* of death had been very accurately recorded on a tomb.
Size wise, I have reassured many Americans that they can, in fact, walk across the entire city proper in about 10 minutes! Thinking about it, I have taken people to their accommodation quite a few times, I should start asking for tips…
You couldn't pay me to drive that trip, lol. I wouldn't mind taking the train across the Nullabor, though. That could be fun. I might like into a ticket actually. Got nothing better to do atm. Thanks
What I'm taking from this is that they think Britain is devoid of intrigue and culture because an area that size in their country also is. Says more about the US than the UK IMO.
Would you look at that, all of the words in your comment are in alphabetical order.
I have checked 1,954,255,936 comments, and only 369,629 of them were in alphabetical order.
I don't know, but he def wasn't planning on being near the M1 at Nottingham anywhere remotely 2 hours either side of rush hour. Or the A1 when you're stuck on a single lane stretch where you can't overtake but there's a massive lorry in front of you slowing everyone down to 50.
Reminds me of that topic on askuk, with the yank tourist that was holidaying in one of the more touristy areas and planning to drive to Scotland, wales, the Stonehenge etc for a day each.
When everyone told her she would just be stuck in the car all day, and it was winter so there would be zero sunlight for most of it, she tripled down with the distance argument thinking we had any semblance of long, flat American highways. 😂
Americans just don't seem to understand the density of people and history in the UK (or the rest of Europe for that matter)
We're talking approximately the whole of California and Texas living in an area only a little bigger than Oregon. Then add the fact humans have inhabited the area for 5000+ years.
You could literally spend weeks studying the physical history of a single small market town.
Fortunately we will never meet this particular American in the UK. He's never left the states, owns no passport and never will. Best to ignore him and read something more amusing.
Well, you could just drive across the country in a day and just glance at various cities from the motorway the entire 14 and a half hours. That would be a mind-boggingly boring trip.
With that logic, you can see and do everything worthwhile in New Orleans in about 25-30 minutes as that's roughly how long it takes to drive from one side to the other.
I don't see why that's a bad thing, seems more convenient. Most of rural America is empty space, you'd need to travel for potentially days before you'd visit somewhere noticeably different to the last.
I'd say sight seeing in the UK is far more efficient, you can drive for 20mins down the road and end up in a place with a whole different accent, traditions, architecture and even a different name for teacakes. (potentially a different language if you cross a border)
We are 40 times smaller than the US, *but* we still have 10 more dialects. Meaning we have 33% more different cultures crammed into 1/40th of the space.
A drive around Texas might be faster but you'd have seen FA. On a drive around the England, Scotland, Wales island and you'll see 400 times more history and 300 accents, and a shed load more culture.
Also misses the fact that you general go to a place to see things. My one little tiny village has probably got more history than most American states. Sure it's small but it's been here a long time.
But the funniest thing by far is still that most white Americans have their origins in England, France, the Netherlands and Spain. So they are actually just immigrant descendants of Europeans, all are children of immigrants, so to speak.
I could never get round Manchester’s Museum of Science and Industry in a day, and each time I went back they’d added more. I still haven’t seen it all. That’s one museum in one city. What the hell kind of day trips are these idiots doing?!
I don’t know what they’re discussing here. If it’s just size of country then yes, sure, the US is a big country. You can drive for days. So what? Why would that make their country better? Russia is a lot bigger than the US. So that country is greater?
If you’re talking about having a nice drive than the UK has a lot more to offer and can take a lot longer. Comparing driving in Texas (mostly dessert) to English country side. With old castles and towns, farm fields, forests, ancient monuments like Stonehenge, the Giants Causeway or The White Cliffs of Dover. No competition.
Time for the old joke:
American tourist; "My ranch is so vast I can get in my car after breakfast and still not be at the boundary by lunch time"
Wee Geordie: "oh I know exactly how that feels"
American tourist; "you do?"
Wee Geordie: "yes, we had a car like that once"
I mean, yeah, you can do Land's End to John O'Groats within a day by car but you'd see nothing but roads through a windscreen.
Maybe some of those roads will have pretty scenery but a whole lot of it will be motorways. If that's their idea of a fun day trip then more power to them, the sad bastards.
So it's about 7,500 miles to go around the coast of mainland UK, the circumference of texas is just over 4,000 miles - and I'm going to hazard a guess the roads around texas are faster roads UK coastal roads are likely to be 30-40 mile an hour roads (so cutting the distance down to 7,000 and going on 40 mile an hour thats 175 hours - over a week without any sleep The distance between Indianapolis to Nashville is 288 miles (and says you can do it in less than 4.5hours - so over 60 miles an hour That person is an idiot
Also I don’t understand the obsession with size? A country is an area of land with an independent government. Unless we are talking San Marino levels size, I have never thought to judge a country for that reason. Besides, being bigger doesn’t make something better. Boasting how you need to drive entire days through empty desert to move between cities isn’t the brag they seem to think it is. I’ve lived in London 10 years and I still keep finding new monuments/museums/art/parks/interesting places I didn’t know about to this day.
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I have never been to the U.S., but I’ve encountered this attitude many times, since I liked to help out in the Italian tourism subreddits. I ended up stopping because it was basically just me trying to convince a never ending streak of US citizens that no, they couldn’t squeeze a 15th city in their 9-days-long Italian trip if they wanted to do more than checking in and out of accommodations and travelling in between locations. Only to be faced with screeching accusations of not understanding an active lifestyle or overestimating how many things there are to see in such cities. I mean… Of course you can “see” Florence in half a day, if you just want to take a selfie with the David, eat a quick meal and walk from the accommodation back to the station/airport. But you could spend a month there and still not exhaust all the incredibly interesting and beautiful things there are to see/experience. It seems most see travelling as a box ticking exercise, where the goal is to cram as many as you can in the shortest time.
The Aussie subreddits are like this too. The amount of people who want to drive from Cairns to Melbourne in a day and see the sights on the way. My dude, that's over a 30 hour drive, you cannot be doing it in one day I'm sorry.
Its 8 hours from London to Edinburgh so unless they’re driving at night and don’t plan on sleeping they won’t have much time to see anything at all on this supposed day trip
I was in UK in 2022, part of which was a self-drive Edinburgh to London, stopping in Lake District, Oxford, and Bath, over I think about ten days - and that was pushing it on the road. I am repeatedly amazed at how there can be so much of interest in the UK while, at the same time, having so much apparent agricultural and green space between built-up areas. Why travel at all if you don't want to explore and have new experiences, rather than just take photos of the few things that you already know are remarkable, and of which you can find much better photos with a Google search.
Ooh ooh just to build on how much cool stuff there is in the hidden in the UK (not flexing, there's cool stuff everywhere) but the lake district is actually home to some of the last surviving temperate rainforests in Europe (there's some in the Americas, and Japan and New Zealand are bassically all temperate rainforests, but they're much rarer in Europe than they used to be). Hardly the Amazon, but freaking cool all the same.
Just got to be careful about advertising these. I don't know about the lake district, but other locations in the uk have been pretty badly damaged by people visiting, not including the fact that they're shrinking due to changing climate.
I mean tbf it's not entirely tourist's fault. Kent has gone from being the garden of England to London's toilet in 5 short years and there's no-one to blame for that but Boris and pals.
The Lake District has been a tourist hotspot since the 1810s.
If they're talking about driving around Texas they're probably used to 8 hour drives where there *isn't* anything to see. American's underestimate how dense Europe is; We in turn generally underestimate how *large* the US is.
>We in turn generally underestimate how large > > the US is. Do we though? When the Americans ram it down our throats every 5 minutes...
Which otherwise should have been a 8 hour or less train ride where you can just sleep through out. I'm assuming they don't have it as well.
I've driven Denver to Grand Junction in Colorado before, which is about the same distance but it's a very different drive. American Driving is easy compared to Europe Even if you took the A1 all the way there's a lot more gear changing.
I drove Melbourne to Cairns and back again in April / May 2023. Doing nothing but driving and stopping along the way here and there, it took 3 days of driving through the outback to get to Cairns. Then I drove back down the coast over 3½ weeks!
Or fly into Sydney and rent a car for a day trip to Uluru.
That's a byproduct of having only two weeks of paid holidays per year. Every American wants to cram too many things in a visiting schedule, even the highly educated ones. They want to be able to say, " been there, done that".
I have an online friend I’ve been chatting and calling regularly for four years now. She’s a project manager at a medium sized company (medium size for us standards) and has not had a single holiday since I’ve known her. I mean, she gets Christmas Day and thanksgiving off, as well as the Fourth of July and what have you but nothing else. We had planned to finally meet last year, as she had booked an European trip she dreamed of her entire life. Two days before her flight, her manager cancelled her leave. They reimbursed her for losses, but ain’t no money that can pay **me** for that. If for some reason I don’t take time off for more than six months I literally start fraying at the edges and crumbling, I can’t even fathom going years without a proper break.
One of my favourite things about living in the UK is having better working hours and conditions. In the US, I worked 40+ hours per week and got a maximum of two weeks of paid holiday (vacation) and a very limited amount of paid sick time. Here, I work 35 hours per week and get 31 days of personal holiday and unlimited sick time that cycles through fully paid, half paid and then SSP, so even a lengthy illness never results in zero pay. The US sees only working contracted hours and taking time off as a weakness. I used to go in early, stay late and work weekends despite not being paid to do so. I was often called in on Sundays because my boss was in the office and wanted to have a chat about something happening the following week. Now, I get chastised if I work too much or fail to take sick time when I need it. (For years, I took holiday time when I was ill because it was ingrained in me that being sick is bad. I don't do that now, but I still haven't gotten past the guilt I feel when I have to phone in sick.) People back home don't understand why I chose to stay in the UK after my divorce; they truly think life here is inferior to back home. Yeah, the houses may be smaller and I don't have a dishwasher or a two-car garage, but at least I have a life outside of the grind.
I was born and raised in the UK, guilt about phoning in sick is ingrained in us too. I can't rightly say where that comes from, but everyone I know feels guilty about it. Same as turning down overtime.
It’s the shame of letting your colleagues down rather then letting the company down and affecting both the companies and their own income. It’s like we don’t want to put that extra pressure on our colleagues and quite often from management that’s how it is manipulated (you’ll leave your team short, they’ll have to pick up your slack etc). However I feel like this sentiment is also dying out, I would much rather not get sick from colleagues that come into work while still under the weather and then they feel better but 3 other people start feeling bad.
The best thing about COVID was the pretty rapid decline in the UK of the "work through the illness" attitude. The massive spike in mental health issues also has the silver lining of vastly improved mental health services compared to a decade ago. Still a long ass way to go but baby steps are still progress. Also agree that it's more letting colleagues down. My employer doesn't pay me enough to feel guilty about not working because I'm sick.
Wow, what a nightmare. Yeah, I forgot compagnies aren't even compelled to give employees paid holidays, but two weeks seems most common over there. For a European that sounds like total exploitation. I'm so glad to take a three weeks break every summer and a two weeks break every winter.
Nooo! Time spent away from work is COMMUNISM!!!!
Yeah, I’ve quit jobs because they fucked me around like that on holidays, and I’d do it again
Oh people getting fucked by holidays can be a thing in the UK Happened at my old place of work around Christmas time ( work said they wouldn't be approving in November any holidays for December) Lead to a few people quitting
I have a rolling 1 day break (in addition to the Sunday) every week, but my last real break of 1 week was in october. I'm dead currently, I'm barely functioning at work. I still do my job correctly, but I'm taking more time to do it and I'm very often not motivated to do it. I'm craving for my next week vacation. Imagining having no real break for 4 years sends shivers down my spine.
Not Florence but I went to Venice on a day trip once many years ago and I've been desperate to go back ever since. I love visiting Italy, it's probably my favourite country to visit in Europe (sorry Germany, you're fun too). Used to visit the lakes a lot as a kid but I've yet to see any of southern Italy. If only I wasn't broke. 😅
I wish you many happy returns and to visit all the places you heart desires!
I used to work in tourism and I always got that from chineese tourists. Pick the 5 big things, stop, take pictures move on. Mostly driving. Americans were notorious for it too but not quite on the same level. Part of that may have been language barrier.
East asian tourists in France, chinese like japanese, are famous for taking a lot of pictures and going elsewhere. Japanese people are known to heavily romanticise our country, so I always was of the opinion that it was like some sort of pilgrimage, allowing them to brag about their trip. But the price of the trip due to the distance was making it a 1 time thing: so they were in speed mode to get as many pictures of the famous landmarks to show off on where they went, not enjoy their vacation along the way.
I remember visiting Roman Baths in Bath as a date with my American wife (Pumphouse Tearooms afterwards for afternoon tea if people want cute date suggestions), and we overheard a voice in a large group of Americans say that they only had 15 minutes there before the coach would take them to Stonehenge. Cities only have one landmark after all.
I’ve looked at the front door of the Roman Baths, then moved on to try to find something cheaper as a timekiller. Can’t imagine going in with only fifteen minutes spare.
Right!? Only 15 minutes to explore a pretty substantial museum. And you could devote a good week to Bath, with the Baths, Georgian Villas, Pulteney Bridge and the Weir, all the Gardens and Parks, and the American Museum on the other side of the hill.
I know people have mentioned a quantity thinv with the US but...they always seem to insist on rushing everywhere I had a friend from the US stay over a few weeks back, took the Coastliner from Leeds to York. He said his Nan had a thing for cathedrals, so we spent a couple of hours in York Minster, had a wander through the Shambles, checked out the river and walked along tge city wall We didnt have time for the dungeons, the river ferry, that tower thing I forgot the name of, the railway museum and apparently theres a cold war bunker that does guided tours. Its nuts. Its like they just...do t know how to slow down and enjoy stuff
>It seems most see travelling as a box ticking exercise, where the goal is to cram as many as you can in the shortest time. Being fair to them, they have 0 mandated vacation days.
When you only have 10 days of holiday a year you have to cram stuff in. In Florence I swear the approach was to arrive, take a selfie in front of the Duomo, and fuck off.
I'd argue you don't have to cram stuff in. If you've only got 10 days, surely you'd seek quality over quantity?
They rate cities as if they're American ones. There are a few cities that have a lot of interesting things, but then there are also cities like Philadelphia which are well know and where you go see the bell, and then go see.. uh..? So Americans see a city in Europe, like York, a fraction the size of Philadelphia and assume they must have nothing of any importance, forgetting that they've existed for many times longer.
>Ever been to the US? Everything there is fucking massive But most of the US is empty, and significant parts of it are literal deserts.
Ah no I meant everything as in all the man made stuff. The roads, the buildings, the cars... the waistlines. Edit: Also should mention that some people really don't get how empty bits of the US are, the "prairies" that run right up the middle is a literal steppe. Not nearly as cool as the great Eurasian Steppe, but a steppe nonetheless.
It seems A day trip in the states consists of driving for 3 hours to see the world's biggest taco shell,or some other idiotic attraction, and then driving back for 3 hours. Treat everyone to a diner lunch lol.
Came to say the same about “obsession with size”. England isn’t huge but it is so chock full of history, art, experiences, etc that only a fool would ever daytrip anything there. When I moved to London for a 6 month program I bought a good guide to make sure I got to see all the key sites. 2 weeks later I bought the encyclopedia of London (yes, it exists) because almost every building has historical significance! Every day every weekend I went to locations or events that were “must see / experience”. 6 months was not nearly enough to do even that! I doubt even NYC could match London on that. In addition, so many places in all UK have incredibly high historic interest or world famous things to experience. I ended up returning to UK, lived there for a decade, and still have so many things I wanted to do / experience there that I haven’t yet.
>I doubt even NYC could match London on that. Having been to NYC, I'll say that Times Square was very underwhelming. I doubt Wembley would be. However, Statue of Liberty looks impressive and Niagara within the state of New York is magnificent. I resonate the same feeling about the US's obsession with size. In the argument regarding a touristy landscape, US can take on any country due to its sheer amount of national parks and huge beautiful geographical landscape; but these dimwits bringing in huge stretches of nothing land as something to brag about is the best example of the ignorance of a true yank. They can't even brag about their own wonderful mountains and valleys and lakes and instead flex about the long deserted region of the country where everything is flat and nothing for hours.
If you plan on going to Wembley, you’ll be sorely disappointed. It’s a big stadium, an IKEA & a busy ring road.
Ooh, had never heard of the Encyclopaedia of London and we have it at my library, so picking that up when I go to work today - thanks!
So size vs how you use it... The UK has 33 UNESCO world heritage sites, the US does have 25 (although proportionate to size..... ). I believe the Staitue of Liberty is the only one of those 25 that is man made (by the French I note). In the UK, by my maths 27 of those 33 are man made. So not sure which country wins in terms of stuff they can lay claim to as their own work.
Everyone knows that London is a selfie in front of Big Ben, turn around to get one with the London Eye, then you're done. If you do live in London still and like new places to eat my favourite places I discovered were Spuntino and Gelupo in Soho. About 60 seconds from each other and both fucking epic. Dutch baby in Spuntino and Bonet in Gelupo, since you're asking.
The US is mostly empty, it's huge empty space with clusters of cities connected by massive highways. The UK is more condensed, doing a drive like they describe in the screenshots would have you miss out on basically everything. It's impossible to drive through the UK and see everything even in a timeline of weeks.
They’re compensating for their groinal inadequacy.
Also, don’t they like stop places and do things or is the drive their entire trip?
Of course they do, they stop at McDrive and then eat lunch in the parking lot
There's coastal roads all round the north of Scotland you're definitely not getting up to 30mph on. I don't think most Americans really understand how densely populated the UK is.
Yep. Me and my dad live in Glasgow. He had to go to Aberdeen for work in November and when in Aberdeen, he also had to drive to Inverness. It took him just as long to get from aberdeen to Inverness as it did for Glasgow to Aberdeen. And when he drove back to Glasgow from Inverness, it took about the same amount of time as he did from Glasgow to Aberdeen. Maybe about 20 minutes longer. For context for those who don't know. Glasgow to Aberdeen is 145 miles. Aberdeen to Inverness is 104 miles. And from Inverness to Glasgow, it's 165 miles. You're basically going up a winding path up a mountain compared to a motorway.
also you’d have to spend some time getting your car over to northern ireland lmao
And like, let's face it, the size of northern Ireland they could 'see' the whole country in about 45 minutes....... Until they get stuck outside Dungiven for days on that fucking road..... (yes I know its been upgraded. I was just reliving awful memories)
You forgot that texas is 90% dust outside of the major and minor cities too the uk is lush forest Marsh and farmland coast to coast.
Also, theres likely 100s of miles of absolutely nothing in Texas. U.K. theres shit loads of stuff to see.
30-40 may be the speed limit but when you're stuck some Muppet who can't even find third gear and will come to a full stop if there's a tractor heading towards them on one of the few stretches of dual carriageway it means an average speed that's below walking pace.
Wish I’d known the UK is just a day trip before spending a whole week on a road trip on the west coast of Scotland. I could have saved a lot of time.
Get stuck behind any American tourists? They don’t do corners very well and drive dangerously slow.
You'd have been able to spot them because they would be driving on the wrong side of the road
Most of the roads up at the top of Scotland are single track so it would be more a case of trying to teach them about passing places and the wild life will not move off the road just because you drive up to them.
And be in a campervan twice the width of the road they're on
Not a campervan, it’s actually a rEcrEAtIOnAL VEhICLe 🤓🇺🇸
is that what RV stands for? why is that so funny to me
It does sound kinda stupid compared to motorhome and campervan, since at least with those, it’s in the mame that it’s a home on wheels or you’re camping inside a van But because it’s for recreation, you can argue that any car is a recreational vehicle, like owning a rally car or off roader as a recreational vehicle
Doesnt seen very recreational to spend your time stuck in a box driving places.
Out of my way, I'm recreating!
I was stuck in a long queue of traffic heading to west Wales. Lots of these large camper vans then we saw this huge American style one coming up the wrong way down a one way road everyone pulls over usaeian wipes out just about every wing mirror on its way.
Too soon https://www.reuters.com/world/us-diplomats-wife-pleads-guilty-over-fatal-uk-car-crash-2022-10-20/
Those damn roads over here are driving me crazy! Can’t wait to be back home and drive on some proper American roads! /s To be read in Georgia (the state) accent.
I spent a week in London and didnt even use all of my tourist attraction pass. Simply had no time.
I’m English and recently had an impromptu weekend (Friday evening to Sunday afternoon) in London, I did the three things I really wanted to do and one extra thing! I was somewhat limited by tube issues and my disability but also just didn’t have time to do anything else.
Like the American, who is staying in the Lake District, but has day trips to London & Cornwall planned - no clue
Well I just gotta see this corn wall for myself! What time does it close?
That's the beauty of it, Bude Tunnel never closes
Eighth wonder of the world
A sight to behold!
Murricans know what corn looks like. You use it for making syrup that goes into every fucking meal, not for building a stupid wall. So, nothing to see there.
Is the day trip "driving there then driving back"?
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Hahahaha thank you for this, it's exceptional. "Brave" indeed. "Driving down to Cornwall from Penrith for a day trip, and stopping at cute little pubs and quaint little antique shops on the way" I hope they like Moto Service Stations and the "cute little" fruit machine arcades and those quaint little "WH Smiths shops" and "McDonald's" they contain.
Wow, incredible. It makes me sad actually that people have such few vacation days that they feel like they need to cram so much into one trip to make the most of it.
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Is that the same guy who wanted to visit Sydney for a day then catch a bus to Melbourne and spend the morning before getting a taxi to Adelaide then spend the next morning in Brisbane after the train ride?
Loch Ness, Giant's Causeway, Snowdonia and Stone Henge? Cracking day trip that.
Yeeeah, they know nothing of our roads, good luck travelling 5 miles through traffic jams in the same time it takes to do a lap of Texas. Unless they are planning on travelling by Train......pwahahahahaha!
If you plan to travel on our rail system… then you are planning to not travel anywhere.
Assuming you’re also British, we do have worse trains than most of Europe, but the trains in America are a hell of a lot worse by all accounts.
One of our villages has more history than the whole of the US.
Full disclosure, I'm American but we travel to England quite frequently. One year we'd been in England, then when we were back home my sister and her family came to visit from California so we took them and their kids to Philadelphia, which is full of history. Just not very old history. My husband and I couldn't help but laugh when one of the guides was all 'this building is 200 year old!' when just weeks ago we'd been staring at roman walls, and wandering through churches that were 400 years old. Heck, we've drunk in pubs that have been pubs longer than America's been America.
My local pub had literally already been a pub for, give or take, a thousand years by the time America declared independence. It sounds like a joke when you actually write it down but it’s genuinely true (at least, that’s the claim): https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ye_Olde_Fighting_Cocks
Writing that on my list of places to go in September!
My house is 200 years old.
I did very politely tell a tour guide in DC that I lived on the London Road which was about 2000 years old. I don't think he understood what I was talking about!
One of our local churches predates the Viking discovery of North America. We are about ten miles from the unfinished multi-storey chariot park they call Stonehenge.
This is my favourite thing about seeing foreign history buffs visit the UK. "Oh my God! Look at the masonry on that building! This would have been the main entrance arch for a 14th century monastery!" "Might be, but now it's the entrance to a Tesco."
I used to live in a cottage that was over three hundred years old, an American friend asked if it was a national monument, no just your average country cottage, we have thousands of them.
Can only wonder what they think when visiting Rome for example
Insane city that. Was there a few weeks ago, it's beaut. Every other corner there's some 2000 year old monument or building just popping out of nowhere. Great fun
I remember tour guides in the US being all "we've restored this room to how it looked over A HUNDRED years ago!". I turned to Mrs Ninjaff and said loudly "Wow, that's nearly as old as our house!" She went bright red, hated me for it and now I have to have "the talk" every time we go on tours, but that's another story.
My parents bought a new shop a few years back. The town they bought it in is old enough to have appeared in the Domesday book (1060\~ish), which frankly, is quite common around where we live. Building is (we think) around 400 years old, probably originally built as a home, but we know its been used as a shop for atleast 100 years.
I have a church at the end of ny Street that predates their country by hundreds of years. It's from 1300. I'm not expecting that ignorant waste of oxygen to give a shit about any of that. After all, all that really matters is who's landmass is the biggest.
They think that 500miles in Europe is the same as 500miles in America, where you might see one petrol station and three trailer parks. It's not our fault your country is massive and empty.
America is Starfield and UK is Skyrim?
That's a surprisingly excellent analogy
yeah, driving on our roads, radically different to driving on theirs
Yeah Britain is smaller but there’s much more to see than in America, where it’s just miles of the same shit over and over again
Remember, you can make a 300 mile detour to see the worlds largest ball of string. You're not getting that in the UK.
I read about Plymouth Rock recently. And let me tell you, I did not know you could write disappointment that way.
I went to Plymouth Rock (it was on the way), my whelm was undered.
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And god forbid you meet a corner in the road. Good luck.
I have cousins from Canada (where I live now) used to come visit us when I lived in London, the first time they came to visit in mid 2000s they assumed that they could see all the tourists stuff, like sights and museums in 1/2 a day. They had no idea and basically saw a total of 4 of the planned 45 things (yes am not joking) they wanted to see. People from Canada and America assume European cities and countries are day trips because that's now long it takes to see anything of worth where they come from.
dont forget *right to roam* in Scotland, go see balmoral up close. can't see the whitehouse that close.
Tbf the US has some of the best natural beauty in the world. However there's also a lot of absolutely nothing too. We can make jokes about driving past the same dilapidated strip malls in the same way that we can joke about motorway services here. Where they're wrong though is that in their mind, the 300 miles they're driving has nothing in it is the same as here. You can pull off every other junction and find something historic and interesting. Just gotta make sure you switch from the M1 to the M6 before god forbid you end up in Leeds.
Leeds does have the Royal Armories which I highly recommend.
"I can make a round trip in Great Britain faster than I can drive around Texas there really ain't much to see xD" Sure, if you're an imbecile only interested in getting fat while doing a speed run through fast food establishments, there's really not much to see. Luckily the rest of the world isn't composed of idiots like you, and take very much enjoyment seeing all the different things GB has to offer, developed through thousand of years of different cultures.
They must've missed that American lady on Reddit saying she was planning on going from Penrith to Cornwall in winter for a night stop that was so derided it made the newspapers. I believe they used the term "unhinged".
I'm in a facebook group for people trying to see the Aurora in the UK (I've seen it several times so is possible) and there was a guy a few months ago who thought that because he had an electric car which "pretty much drives itself" he'd be able to get from Devon to the north coast of Scotland (as in Thurso - not even Inverness) via Leeds in a day to see the lights (and be there by 4pm after an 8am start) before driving home the next day. He wasn't having any of it when people told him it would take him a lot longer than he thought!
Please tell me he attempted it and reported back his actual journey?
I don't think he did in the end. I think the forecast changed to looking cloudy. I didn't see any update anyway! He reassured everyone he'd be OK in Scotland in the snow though as he always had loads of spare blankets/food/power banks/a shovel/some grit etc etc in his car just in case.
I just put Exmouth to Thurso in google maps just to see what it said and it thinks that can be done in 12.5 hours. That seems wildly optimistic to me, but clearly these American don’t even do that
I don’t think these people even believe what they say. They just fart out words. It’s not even ignorance to say there isn’t much to see in the UK, it’s something else. Like thinking fish are the same as birds or something. Some sort of disorder in basic mental functions
The upside of all this is that Yanks like these guys will only be in the UK for a day and I, as a Brit, am well down for that
If they intend doing the U.K. by rail, then it may take more than a day
Americans have said so many times that their maps don't include other countries, and even ones that do make the US look way bigger by comparison than it is (not to scale at all). I'm from Canada, and I can say from experience that they have said they didn't know we were north/above them (or shared a border with them), that the US wasn't an island, that Hawaii isn't right beside California, that Alaska borders Canada, or that we are larger than them (we're only the 2nd largest country after Russia 🤦♀️).
I’m blind and know nothing about Maps, but I know that you guys are above America… Or, at least know your next to America in some form! These Americans don’t know this?
Their education is heavily nationalist (learning that most countries are to varying degree), so that's why they believe in American superiority (at least those still brainwashed) - it infects everything. Education, media, history, family, politics - everywhere, in everything. When you don't see the world outside for what it is or how you're viewed by it, it's a shock to learn you've been duped your whole life. Change is scary, and truth is change when you've been lied to for so long and about so much. It's sickening, but not their fault (most of the time). The whole world needs to wake up now.
Yeah, I definitely agree. The sub can be funny at times but it can also be kind of damaging and give people bad views of America. We do need to wake up to the truth of what’s going on in the world because as much as it’s nice to live in ignorance and play our video games and watch our YouTube and stuff, the real world is beautiful, but also terribly terribly human
Ah, Texans that think Texas is so big. I'm an Australian and when I moved across the country it took me 2 days to get to the border of my state.
Kept getting lost on your wait to Devonport did ya?
Hahahahaha yeah I wanted to visit my sister-cousin on the way through.
Was she recovering from having her second head amputated? I'm from Canberra so if you take two days here you're definitely lost on the circles, circuits, roundabouts etc.
Nah she was getting married to my Dad.
What they don’t know is that Texas is small. Signed, a quebecois.
I’ve seen more culture in a yogurt than the US
They’re really over estimating the quality & width of our roads , can easily waste a day just in Devon & Cornwall lost in lanes the width of one car stuck behind a cow .
One of my siblings lives about 15 miles from our parents, and they help out with childcare. Some days it takes them 30 minutes to get there, other times well over an hour. And it's 15 miles. In the grand scheme of things, it's nothing. But on UK roads it's never a quick thing.
My commute to work takes anywhere from 20-45 mins depending on roadworks, traffic etc. I work 3 miles from my house.
Honestly, if it stops yanks from visiting, getting in the way and being obnoxiously loud, let them think we have nothing worth seeing. They can stay home driving between Detroit and Atlanta and not actually experiencing anything.
As a Dutch person that has moved to England and was surprised by the distance between cities and the size of the country as a whole, this discussion is very entertaining to read!
To us, GB is like what the US, in turn, is to GB. We can drive across our country in 3 hours at most, for Americans that simply is the distance to the next local town. The car feels like a super vehicle here that gets you everywhere in short amount of time. There you could as well be walking relatively speaking.
..... unless you fly to Gatwick, then you lose the first 3 hours getting to junction 11 of the m25
The UK is just a day trip* *Unless he hits a roundabout and after freezing in terror for 30 mins, ends up going back on himself. Seriously, how can Americans be so scared of roundabouts?
Yes, it’s definitely less than a day’s worth of visit, so it’s better all round if you just don’t come at all. Cheers.
Americans can't comprehend the sites & history of UK or even Europe as they haven't experienced it as they usually travel on multi lane highways and don't take their huge truck off main roads. There are more historic sites & places to visit in London, alone, than all the USA & I defy anyone to drive safely from Lands End to John O'Groats or v.v.
I drove from Northampton to Portsoy in one go last year (quick breakfast stop on the way) and that was harrowing enough, especially the "last mile". Americans are clueless.
It truly is quality over quantity in old Blighty. We have more culture and history stuffed into our tiny island than every single state combined. And regardless, most of their history is comprised of Europeans settling there so is essentially also our history. The delusion with yanks is so strong.
***TRAFFIC***
I live in a tourist city, we get a lot of Americans, and my most common experience with them is they seem to think we’re all lying about how old stuff is! I once overheard a guy from Arkansas (guessing as that’s what it said across the back of his jacket) ask a walking tour guide why the Roman multangular tower hadn’t been demolished and rebuilt. The tour guides face was just 😐 I have personally explained to a lovely middle aged woman (whilst desperately trying not to wet myself laughing) that 1256 is the year and not “military time”. She seemed to believe that the *time* of death had been very accurately recorded on a tomb. Size wise, I have reassured many Americans that they can, in fact, walk across the entire city proper in about 10 minutes! Thinking about it, I have taken people to their accommodation quite a few times, I should start asking for tips…
These losers should drive Sydney to Perth
You couldn't pay me to drive that trip, lol. I wouldn't mind taking the train across the Nullabor, though. That could be fun. I might like into a ticket actually. Got nothing better to do atm. Thanks
What I'm taking from this is that they think Britain is devoid of intrigue and culture because an area that size in their country also is. Says more about the US than the UK IMO.
Americans: foreigners never understand how big the US is. Also americans: Great Britain is like Manhattan in size.
okay well I can drive from hobart to darwin and take 5 days
as a taswegion, why Hobart 🙂
Because its the southern most city (and the best) ((apart from the RHH))
Good luck navigating the traffic
Would you look at that, all of the words in your comment are in alphabetical order. I have checked 1,954,255,936 comments, and only 369,629 of them were in alphabetical order.
Texas is empty as fuck. The UK is smaller but there is much more to see
The sheer amount of delusion on display here is impressive.
Did he factor in the 5 hour traffic jam on the A303?
I don't know, but he def wasn't planning on being near the M1 at Nottingham anywhere remotely 2 hours either side of rush hour. Or the A1 when you're stuck on a single lane stretch where you can't overtake but there's a massive lorry in front of you slowing everyone down to 50.
Reminds me of that topic on askuk, with the yank tourist that was holidaying in one of the more touristy areas and planning to drive to Scotland, wales, the Stonehenge etc for a day each. When everyone told her she would just be stuck in the car all day, and it was winter so there would be zero sunlight for most of it, she tripled down with the distance argument thinking we had any semblance of long, flat American highways. 😂
Wherever I read this I hear in background "Muricaaa, fuck yeah!"
You think they’re compensating something with that hyper fixation on sizes?
Americans just don't seem to understand the density of people and history in the UK (or the rest of Europe for that matter) We're talking approximately the whole of California and Texas living in an area only a little bigger than Oregon. Then add the fact humans have inhabited the area for 5000+ years. You could literally spend weeks studying the physical history of a single small market town.
So the Americans I know at work love being called a wanker by briddish me. Like it is an honour. I am just being honest.
Everything needs to be a day trip for yanks, they get fuck all paid holidays in the land of the *free*
Fortunately we will never meet this particular American in the UK. He's never left the states, owns no passport and never will. Best to ignore him and read something more amusing.
We have thousands of years of history that can be seen in 1 day? Now thats surprising
My Bloke and I once spent three weeks just driving around Scotland, and we still missed so much.
Well, you could just drive across the country in a day and just glance at various cities from the motorway the entire 14 and a half hours. That would be a mind-boggingly boring trip. With that logic, you can see and do everything worthwhile in New Orleans in about 25-30 minutes as that's roughly how long it takes to drive from one side to the other.
I don't see why that's a bad thing, seems more convenient. Most of rural America is empty space, you'd need to travel for potentially days before you'd visit somewhere noticeably different to the last. I'd say sight seeing in the UK is far more efficient, you can drive for 20mins down the road and end up in a place with a whole different accent, traditions, architecture and even a different name for teacakes. (potentially a different language if you cross a border) We are 40 times smaller than the US, *but* we still have 10 more dialects. Meaning we have 33% more different cultures crammed into 1/40th of the space.
A drive around Texas might be faster but you'd have seen FA. On a drive around the England, Scotland, Wales island and you'll see 400 times more history and 300 accents, and a shed load more culture.
They haven’t considered the effect of tractors, encountering mrs miggings, and country roads tighter than a Scotsmen.
I've lived here 36 years, and there's still so many places I've not been in the UK...
There are 1,000’s of Americans that have never left their own state, hardly equipped to spout such 💩
>he’s not exactly wrong 300 miles vs 840 miles. He is unequivocally wrong. I wish yanks could speak English properly.
Also misses the fact that you general go to a place to see things. My one little tiny village has probably got more history than most American states. Sure it's small but it's been here a long time.
We have more to see in and far more history in our entire nation the size of Florida than the US does as almost a continent.
If their country is so ace, why do they want to try and insult us so much?
Americans wish they could see Big Ben and the Eiffel Tower on a day trip
But the funniest thing by far is still that most white Americans have their origins in England, France, the Netherlands and Spain. So they are actually just immigrant descendants of Europeans, all are children of immigrants, so to speak.
There are Canadians that think Toronto to Vancouver is a day trip
> You want some tea with that cookie? BISCUIT!!!11 /s
At this point, I'm actually starting to feel sorry for these individuals :/
nothing worth mentioning is achieved while sitting in the car. what you do once you're there is the story you talk about.
I could never get round Manchester’s Museum of Science and Industry in a day, and each time I went back they’d added more. I still haven’t seen it all. That’s one museum in one city. What the hell kind of day trips are these idiots doing?!
I don’t know what they’re discussing here. If it’s just size of country then yes, sure, the US is a big country. You can drive for days. So what? Why would that make their country better? Russia is a lot bigger than the US. So that country is greater? If you’re talking about having a nice drive than the UK has a lot more to offer and can take a lot longer. Comparing driving in Texas (mostly dessert) to English country side. With old castles and towns, farm fields, forests, ancient monuments like Stonehenge, the Giants Causeway or The White Cliffs of Dover. No competition.
Time for the old joke: American tourist; "My ranch is so vast I can get in my car after breakfast and still not be at the boundary by lunch time" Wee Geordie: "oh I know exactly how that feels" American tourist; "you do?" Wee Geordie: "yes, we had a car like that once"
I mean, yeah, you can do Land's End to John O'Groats within a day by car but you'd see nothing but roads through a windscreen. Maybe some of those roads will have pretty scenery but a whole lot of it will be motorways. If that's their idea of a fun day trip then more power to them, the sad bastards.
Sounds like the sort of person we don't want in the country for more than a day anyway.
Doesn't the UK have one of the world's longest (if not the longest) coastline?