What’s the biggest culture shock you’ve experienced while traveling within the continental US?

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Gold_Telephone_7192@reddit

I did not realize it rains in the summer in pretty much all of the country until I moved away from California at 22. It’s been 10 years and I still can’t get used to it. It’s crazy to me that you can’t count on the weather to be nice in the summer and you can have your outdoor activities ruined year-round. Summer has always been my favorite season. I love the heat and being able to be outside and to be honest, the fact that the weather can still be shitty during the summer months pisses me off every year.

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PennyMarbles@reddit

I love the heat

recoils in horror

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TheMuffinMan-69@reddit

There's no humidity in most of California. It's still too hot to enjoy it during peak summer, but 105°F with 15% humidity is a cakewalk compared to being in 90°F with 85% humidity. I grew up in Cali, and let's just say my first few months in the South were pretty rough until my body acclimated.

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GOTaSMALL1@reddit

There's no humidity in most of California.

He he he… okay.

Well… if “most” is the entire right half then maybe.

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TheMuffinMan-69@reddit

Lol it's true that some parts have humidity a lot higher than 15%, but trust me. Even the parts of California that have higher humidity are nothing compared to the South. Also, CA has a lot more wind. Most humid places in CA either don't have too many trees, or they are near large bodies of water and/or mountains, which can all lead to wind. The worst part isn't necessarily the fact that it's 90°F with 90% humidity, it's that in most of the South there's ABSOLUTELY NO WIND. The air is incredibly still. Imagine living in a sauna filled with the devil's ballsweat, and you'll be pretty close to how it feels. It's flat as a pancake, and covered in so many trees that a decent breeze is an unheard of blessing from the Lord. This is actually a huge part of why they get deleted by hurricanes every few years, and it's usually during the summer.

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GOTaSMALL1@reddit

It’s just funny cause my wife and I are both originally from SoCal and when we go there and visit or whatever the humidity is fucking oppressive compared to what we’re used to now.

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TheMuffinMan-69@reddit

Rip that makes sense. Isn't the highest humidity in Utah like 10% or something?

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GOTaSMALL1@reddit

I live in St George so we're desert. Today it's whispy cloudiness getting heavier tomorrow... so it's a teensy bit humid... 8%

Summer rain in the PNW is the best (unless it’s part of a thunder storm, which tends to also be muggy versus our usual low humidity heat).

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Draconuus95@reddit

I work in an outdoorsy tourist business(hot air balloons). Several of the pilots I’ve worked with over the years have lived in California a good portion of their lives. If they want to fly there. There’s is relatively little thought that goes into it. They can basically go whenever as long as they have crew and passengers.

For example, white ppl are the minority in Macon and even towns south of it like Warner Robins, Hawkinsville, Byron, fort valley

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Pale_Consideration87@reddit

That doesn’t indicate segregation lok

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Alarmed-Extension289@reddit

Yeah there's an issue of time here and being from CA I'd like to think this was the 60's but these kind of shenanigan's likely happened into the late 80's in small pockets of America.

There's still restaurants in the south that might be having "private parties" to certain people. Younger brother experienced it last year while traveling through the south twice. He got the hint and just went somewhere else.

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Relative-Score4688@reddit

I 100% agree as someone from New York. We always hear that racism is a big issue in the South, and it definitely is, but I’ve also found that people in the South treat those of different races more equally than up North, especially in rural areas of the Northeast.

In the South, while institutionalized racism has certainly had a larger effect than up north, people seem to live in a much more integrated world than parts of the north. There is a lot of an “out of sight, out of mind” idea that white Northerners hold about race thar needs to be talked about more.

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ObsessiveAboutCats@reddit

My comment on this thread was about being a native Texan who visited a friend in upstate NY and we drove through a tiny little town just FULL of Confederate flags. In New York State. Flags in an amount that would have been a bit excessive for an ass-end-of-nowhere Texas town. This still confuses me.

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WhichWitchyWay@reddit

I went to the Czech Republic and we were kayaking down a river near the oldest town there. There was a beer stop on the route and I wanted a beer dangit. My friends kept paddling - they were in a hard canoe while my husband and I were in an inflatable canoe so we were slower.

Anyway, I heard banjo music, which was odd and a red flag, but we paddled up to where they were waiting for us and were like "why aren't we stopping?" Then they pointed and we saw a Confederate flag flying high above the place. And that's when I learned confederate flags were used in Europe because they couldn't fly Nazi flags anymore. We were shopping in Prague during a nationalist protest and saw so many Confederate flags.

I've honestly seen more flags outside of the south than in the south - like Europe and rural Midwest. It's been so weird and eye opening to me.

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Valcyor@reddit

Realizing that 75% or more the population of the country lives in areas I would call unbearably humid and/or hot. California, Texas, anywhere east of the Mississippi and/or south of the Ohio. Even places where it rains, it's way worse rain than anything I experience at home.

The Pacific Northwest has the best weather of the entire country and it's not even close.

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Dragonfly-fire@reddit

It really does. If you can lewrn to embrace the gray blanket sky in the winter, you'll be rewarded. Rain here is usually so gentle compared to elsewhere. The hail is too - it's just cute little pellets compared to the life-threatening baseball size hail thst Texas (my home state) can get. 😄 And tornadoes are super rare, thankfully!

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Valcyor@reddit

Literally the only problems are the long-term looming threat of a volcano going off or a magnitude 7+ earthquake hitting, neither of which has happened in my lifetime, or an out-of-control wildfire, which can happen almost anywhere anyway.

brian11e3@reddit

You should try Illinois during corn sweat season. For about 2 weeks in July, everyone wishes they had gills.

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Valcyor@reddit

I was in Indiana in August. Hot and humid as hell, which surprised me for being so far inland. Maybe it's Lake Michigan.

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Annie-Snow@reddit

SSSSHHHHHHHH!!!!

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wormbreath@reddit

I grew up in rural Wyoming, everything was a culture shock. lol

Food. Weather. People. Transportation. Language.

People opening the car doors at the same time!? What!?

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Icy_Ad7953@reddit

>> People opening the car doors at the same time!? What!?

Please explain this sentence. What's wrong with opening the car doors at the same time? Did you grow up somewhere really windy, so that two doors open makes a dangerous draft?

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I toured a small college in the PNW and almost the entire population of students appeared to be white. I simply hadn't been in a situation like that been in before and was too naive to anticipate that in the PNW so it really stood out. It was a very bizarre experience for me.

I'm white and I grew up in a very demographically diverse area of California, attending public schools. Varied by school, but student bodies varied around 25-50% Caucasian with various Latino, Asian, Black, and Pacific Islander ethnicities composing the rest of the student body.

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nakedonmygoat@reddit

This reminds me of my experience in Vermont. I hadn't been to New England since I was a teenager, and my husband was a dark-skinned third generation Mexican-American. I thought nothing of signing us up for the Covered Bridges Half Marathon in VT.

We had a great time and were treated wonderfully wherever we went, but it didn't take long before we were both uneasy. For me, it was just that I had grown up in a very diverse culture, and seeing people with skin as white as mine in every direction began to feel weird. My husband later admitted that he'd gotten the side-eye a lot. He wasn't picking up on any hostility, it was just a sense that people were puzzled by him.

Live in Fort Worth, TX, now. Around here it's not all that unusual to see people riding horses in the middle of the city. There is a river trail that winds through the city, sometimes see people riding horseback on the trail. There's also a big equestrian arena facility just west of downtown, still in the big city, and I see people riding their horses between buildings, sometimes across busy University Drive. And something that goes with that: people dressed up in cowboy gear, not for the style but for the functionality.

Growing up in Buffalo, you just wouldn't see that kind of thing.

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Relative-Score4688@reddit

Also from New York and now in Texas most of the time.

I always thought cowboy attire, pickup trucks, and all the Texas stuff had to be exaggerated and mainly just in the movies. I was wrong, and it’s very real, but it’s still definitely more urban and modern than I think some may realize.

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nakedonmygoat@reddit

It's very much dependent on which Texas city you go to, as well.

In Houston, street signs in some areas are in both English and Chinese. Workplace safety posters are in English, Spanish, and Vietnamese. You can get amazing Indian food, made by first generation Indians. And Houston has one of the top ten Pride festivals in the US.

San Antonio prides itself on its Spanish/Mexican heritage, and is one of the oldest cities in Texas. The annual Fiesta in April is a very big deal.

Austin used to have a very laid-back, hippie vibe. But they became a victim of their own success, in a way. I understand from friends who live there that it's not that way anymore, except in specific pockets of the city.

El Paso might as well be New Mexico, and I should know, since most of my extended family is in NM and I've spent a lot of time out there.

Go to some of the smaller cities near the border with Mexico and it's helpful to know Spanish. Go to the small towns of Central Texas, and you'll see a heavily German-inspired culture.

But yes, there's nowhere in Texas where you won't find pickup trucks and a bit of cowboy culture, even though outside of Fort Worth, small towns, or just about anywhere in West Texas, it's mostly cosplay.

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koknbals@reddit (OP)

To be fair, I don’t think you’d see that in just about any major US city. Lol I flip on the rare occasion I see police on horseback, I can only imagine how cool that part of the FW culture would be to experience.

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Neuvirths_Glove@reddit

And you think okay, cowboys, but just like any big city there's a lot of other cultures mixed in. Lots of Thai and Vietnamese restaurants. Literally taco trucks on every corner, including a lot where they speak little or no English and the tacos are super cheap and really good.

Sometimes we'll be eating in a restaurant and notice three or four different ethnic identities among the patrons: Asians, Hispanics, people of color (including native Africans, not just African Americans).

Growing up in Buffalo of Polish descent, I heard my share of waltz and polka music. Tejano music incorporates a lot of similar roots drawn from the many Germans who settled in the area, so the music I hear in the barrio actually reminds me of home in a way. I feel a kinship with the Hispanic community through their music. It feels Polish but it's not.

Another thing... I ride a bicycle quite a bit around the city, and the smells of food cooking in the barrio is amazing. Better than the best Mexican restaurants.

And there are Mexican groceries. Nowadays most stores are full blown large supermarkets. You don't see small-to-medium grocery stores anymore. Mexican groceries are the exception. In them you'll see employees cutting the thorns off prickly pear cactus (which is actually quite a tasty vegetable), the butcher department will have whole legs of goats, hooves and all, they sell whole lengua (beef tongue). A lot of this stuff seems gross but it can be delicious if you know how to cook it.

Also, there are tamale ladies. They make tamales and sell them by the dozen. It's the kind of thing where you have to know someone, and they hook you up. Tamales are a traditional holiday food at Christmastime and that's when you see the tamale ladies the most.

Mexican food in a lot of cities is Taco Bell and On The Border, but that's nothing like some of the food you get at the good, traditional Mexican restaurants around here. The neighborhood I live in is about 2/3 Hispanic and when I'm out walking my dog, on some blocks I won't hear anyone speaking English.

AnAppleBee@reddit

I was going to post this, except opposite. I moved from Kentucky to Utah. Utah is soooooo white that it’s almost shocking.

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Pluto-Wolf@reddit

utah is SO white.

i’ve had so many debates with current citizens of utah about this, but when i lived there, it was almost all white people, all the time. besides my own family & a close friend, i didn’t really see other POC.

That is horrifying.

Going to the south and seeing a church literally every block.

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PandaPuncherr@reddit

Im from Michigan. Live in Denver.

ssk7882@reddit

The first time someone in the south asked me, totally out of nowhere: "What church do you go to?"

I grew up in the northeast, where that is simply not considered a polite thing to ask a stranger out of the blue. Not least because assuming that any random stranger you meet must be a Christian would in and of itself be considered kind of rude.

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MarbleousMel@reddit

About how mundane news (to me) can be a front page headline for a newspaper that covers the entire state.

My ex and I were in Wyoming for his brother’s graduation. We flew into Denver and drove to Laramie. On one our stops, I noticed the statewide newspaper had a headline that Casper was getting a third Starbucks.

I lived in Texas which has three cities on the top 10 largest cities of the US, and I have traveled extensively since then, including to very rural locations. That headline still blows my mind.

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lawanddisorderr@reddit

My sister worked on a ranch in Wyoming one summer & when we visited, my dad got a speeding ticket. The next week she sent him a copy of the newspaper with a story about Man from NJ Speeds Through Wyoming, lol.

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Kevincelt@reddit

For me, coming from around Chicago/Great Lakes area, it was probably visiting Meridian, Mississippi. The impact of Baptist and evangelical Protestantism on the culture made it feel a bit foreign since I have more Jewish relatives than baptist or evangelical relatives and I’m a cradle Catholic. Wonderful nice people and did appreciate how many people integrate their faith positively into their lives, just felt like a different culture. Felt more foreign than Ontario to me.

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Courtaud@reddit

just hearing regional accents.

pulled off the highway to get food in west virginia once and the cashier, this poor young black girl, hit me with the most sweet, hilltop West Virginian accent i'd ever heard in my life i almost laughed in her face. i genuinely thought she was joking, i'd never heard someone speak with a swing like that outside TV. i thought it WAS a tv accent.

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eyetracker@reddit

I moved to the DC area for a short time when I was in my 20s. I asked someone the time and they ignored me. I had never had that happen. And when I held the doors open for the next person to catch sometimes they'd walk right through and not say than you.

Wild stuff

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Champsterdam@reddit

Driving through rural areas of the Deep South and seeing the extreme poverty all around was completely mind blowing. We went into a few grocery stores and people just stared and looked so destitute.

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Just the one?

Annie-Snow@reddit

That changed recently. Stations are now supported to have half and half. As an Oregonian, I’m annoyed. It was all the people from out of state that pushed for that change.

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sickostrich244@reddit

Moving to Utah and well... Mormons

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NecessaryPopular1@reddit

None, no culture shock in the US, have seen it all and continue seeing. It is what it is.

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Glum-System-7422@reddit

People in Pittsburgh are short. I was 5’10 in my shoes and at a packed stadium, only a handful of people were taller than me.

I also experienced the first active sabotage of my job by someone who was worried about theirs. I learned to do the opposite of what was suggested. People are so cutthroat. It was a really difficult adjustment but I got smarter, but also more cynical and untrusting. Hard lessons when one is young.

I also was amazed at how many families did cool stuff together. Just going snowboarding and surfing with their parents, or hiking in the wilderness. My childhood was so boring and I felt cheated lol.

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zero_and_dug@reddit

Growing up in the suburbs of Dallas and Austin, and traveling to a very small town (700 people) in Tennessee to visit some of my extended family for the first time. Everyone had very thick accents, and clearly lived a very different life in such a small town.

I remember one relative and her young adult age kids were just hanging out in their carport when we pulled up. It made an impression on me because I was in college at the time and used to being go-go-go and surrounded by a diverse group of people. And these young people were isolated in this small town with probably not many opportunities for them.

I remember feeling thankful that my grandparents had moved an hour and a half away from that town to the city of Memphis for better opportunities back in the 40’s. It set my branch of the family on a brighter trajectory.

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Miserable-Lawyer-233@reddit

I've lived in a very white state in the north all my life, then I flew into Atlanta.

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Native NYer here. First time south of the Mason-Dixon line on a road trip to Florida was a huge shock. I mean, I'd seen Deliverance but I didn't realize it was real.

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1029394756abc@reddit

The homelessness of San Francisco.

And while I haven’t personally been to this one, the videos of Kensington Pennsylvania haunt me.

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TheRealRollestonian@reddit

I did not like the New Jersey Turnpike at all. I grew up in Virginia, which is populated. But, all the weird one-way roads that seemed to go everywhere and nowhere at the same time confused the fuck out of me.

I checked in at a hotel in the evening, then went to find food, and literally couldn't find my way back. I had to get a second room. Fortunately, I didn't bring in my luggage.

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itds@reddit

Native midwesterner here. Visiting South Texas as a young man and discovering how solidly Hispanic the Valley is. Such warm and hospitable people! I’ve gone back many times since.

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HerdingYaps@reddit

The state of Missouri. All of it. The state, the people, the climate, the contdition - and I even love some of the people dearly. It's just another world that tends to induce my panic attacks.

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UrLittleVeniceBitch_@reddit

I moved from the northeast (suburbs of nyc) to the Bay Area and was SHOCKED to find out how many people liked to go camping for fun.

Iowa has several Sikh temples. Grew up here and didn't find that out until I was in my 20's.

Next closest would be seeing North Carolina basically shut down for, by my standards, a light frost. You could tell who was used to driving in winter. They weren't driving like the roads had turned to ice.

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AToastedRavioli@reddit

What a great question. As a Midwest guy that’s seen the rest of the country, I think the thing that struck me as craziest was what our snowbound people put up with just to go to work. And I learned that from my gaming buddy in Minnesota, he’d bitch about how much earlier he’d get up for work just to free his car. And now as an adult with responsibilities I totally get it