Road Trip in the USA — an American Expat’s Reflections
Being a tourist in your own country is the kind of title I would expect to see on a blog post waxing poetic about some undiscovered small East Coast coastal town in Maine. Instead, I find myself using it to talk about a two week road trip that my then-fiancé, now husband, took across large swaths of the Western United States. As a Virginia native, I haven’t seen much of manifest destiny that many of our forefathers discussed. We naturally learned about Thomas Jefferson’s Louisiana Purchase and about Lewis and Clark’s treacherous journey from coast to coast in school.
But seeing it and hearing about it are two entirely different things. Especially given that I’ve been living as an expat in Europe for the past four years. Perhaps you expect me to now immediately jump into prose that praises the natural wonders of America’s West. I won’t lie. We saw some utterly beautiful sights, but there were a few more observations that as an expat, I didn’t expect to make.
- Why does it take so long to get to anywhere?
Okay. This one I was expecting. When you live in a country like the Netherlands or Germany, places simply don’t take that long to reach. The furthest amount of travel I’ve ever had to undertake in the Netherlands is three hours. In the USA, however, we did some drives of 9–10 hours and the majority of those trips were full of desert.
- This country still doesn’t use VAT?! How am I supposed to know how much anything costs?
Funnily enough, I had forgotten about the different taxing approaches in Europe and the US. In fact, I had gotten so used to taking the price tag for granted, that I assumed a 20 dollar bill would be enough for $16.00 worth of fudge and a patch worth $4.99 in Utah. Nope.
- People are really nice.
This isn’t to say that people in the Netherlands and Germany aren’t nice. But… I found myself really appreciating the kind nature of so many people in the US. There was no need for every gas station attendee and hotel clerk to smile and ask us how our day was but they did it anyways.
- The dying out of small towns is a real issue.
As someone who has always lived on the East Coast, I had heard politicians talk about the struggles that so many small towns in the West Coast and center of the country are experiencing. But I hadn’t expected to see it. As we drove through the country, I couldn’t count the amount of towns we drove through with four stores, three of them shuttered. It was confronting in a way that I didn’t expect and reminded me how much there still is to work on within my own country.
- Backyard junkyards are real!
I thought it was myth and it was not!
- Beautiful scenery
Kind of a gimmick but accurate. I’ve never seen so many different landscapes in such a condensed format.
- Road trip food was not nearly as bad as I thought it would be
Despite my concern that my husband and I would subsist on an unhealthy diet of chocolate, candy and other food easily found and maintained at a gas store — that ended up not being the case! It turns out you can get fairly healthy food at Dennys (I know) and always find healthy options wherever you go.
- 80 mph is a ridiculous speed limit
In a small Nissan Versa, 80 mph does not feel exactly safe.
- San Francisco and Los Angeles are neither safe nor fun places to drive
This isn’t something that I was expecting but talk about some stressful moments in the car.
- What makes America special isn’t our scenery, it’s the diversity of people within our borders.
Call me a sentimentalist if you’d like but the biggest takeaway from this whole road trip to me was what an incredible diversity of people there are in the United States. It’s one of the things that I personally believe makes our country so strong and resilient. My favorite moment from the trip was the simple act of getting coffee at a local cafe before heading into Yosemite. As we waited for our coffee, I just looked around, watching as big families, small families and couples from all around the world coexisted together bonded by their love of caffeine. There’s nothing more heartening as an expat to come home and be reminded that despite the political partisanship, the heart of what makes America America, is still alive and breathing.
