The big thing about the USA's land size is how often Americans traverse the country by both land and air. Plus we travel in between the coasts just as often.
A metropolitan area or metro is a region that consists of a densely populated urban agglomeration and its surrounding territories sharing industries, commercial areas, transport network, infrastructures and housing.
One example of this would be Madison, Wisconsin. Madison is a city of roughly 225,000 people. But it is surrounded by Middleton, Verona, Sun Prairie, Town of Madison, Fitchburg etc. There are no transitions between any of these municipalities, it just feels like one big city. The entire metro area is over 1 million people.
@@jariemonah I mean...if we're talking about NJ, it's a state that is pretty much split between two metro areas. North NJ is part of the NYC metro area and a good chunk of South Jersey is in the Philly metro area.
Also have a shared media market, radio stations, local TV stations, newspapers. I can be confusing as metropolitan areas start linking into conglomerations then into conurbantions then into Megalopolis then into Megaregions then eventually into an Eperopolis "continent city" and then eventually an Ecumenopolis "planetary city".
the biggest example of this I can think of is BosWash otherwise known as the Northeast Megalopolis, an 400 mile long area along the coast where the sprawl of Boston, New York, Philadelhia, Baltimore, Washington DC, and 35 other towns between them have just about bumped into eachother.
Being from the West US, and nestled in the Rockies, I struggled being in England with no place to get away from everybody, in my home city, I'm only 6 hours away from Yellowstone, and 6 hours to the grand canyon. And only an hour from relative solitude. The U.K. always felt small and crowded to me.
@@claregale9011 Ehh that may be technically true but how big are such spaces? We have national parks the size of literal countries. I suspect that your perspective of what is alot of green space. Is vastly different then what mine or most Americans is,perspective matters.
I once deliberately planned a route through Nevada, where I traveled on good, paved roads, for over 200 miles without passing through a single town, or village. it is not uncommon to see signs along the highway, warning that the next services (Fuel) are 70, 80, or 100 miles away.
I'm from Dallas, Texas, but our metroplex is called DFW (as in the DFW airport) which is Dallas / Fort Worth combined. Fort Worth is slightly smaller than Dallas, combined have just over 7-1/2 million people in 9,286 sq miles. The centers of both cities are only 37 miles apart, but there are over 200 incorporated cities inside the DFW metroplex area. Being in Texas, everything is spread out on a larger scale. FYI, driving from the East side (Texarkana or Galveston) over to the West side (El Paso) is over 800 miles, or in Texas speak, it's about a 14-15 hour drive. We talk distance in hours, not miles. Great video!
I live in northeast Kansas, I have had to drive to Pennsylvania and to Oregon. Each trip took about 2 days of steady driving. Basically 2000 miles in either direction. You really get a feel for how large this country is when you have driven from the middle of the country to each coast.
My parents and I were planning a trip to see my best friend and our family in Slovakia in 2020. When I found out the village my family lives in was five hours away from my friend I told her, “oh we can do a day trip!” and she looked at me like I was insane. In my defense, when she was here we drove almost 3 hours to our mountain house and she was fine! 😂
I’m reminded of a series of tweets I once read, about distances between different locations. Wyoming: If I drive for an hour, I’ll be in the next county. Texas: If I drive for an hour, I’ll be in the next town. Australia: If I drive for an hour, I’ll be at the end of my driveway. Ireland: If I drive for an hour, I’ll be 10 minutes into the sea.
8 or 9 years ago I helped an old friend drive a U-Haul truck from Louisiana to western Montana in under 71 hours (had to get there by Friday morning for a new job starting, was delayed 3 days leaving due to no rental trucks available even though he had a reservation), a distance of just over 2,200 miles. This was done mostly shift driving, while the other slept in the passenger seat, other than stopping for food and fuel our longest stop was for about 9-10 hours the night before reaching our destination when we were about 150 miles away (10 am appointment to pick up keys to his new apartment).
The only way you are seeing New York City, Las Vegas, San Francisco and the Grand Canyon in a weekend is if you fly. And even then, it’s still a long journey. New York City to San Francisco (JFK - SFO) is a 5.5 hour flight alone on American Airlines non-stop. SFO to Las Vegas is a 2 hour flight I believe on Southwest Airlines, and the Grand Canyon has air tours, possibly from Las Vegas, but that entire journey would cost more than British Airways or Virgin Atlantic from Heathrow to New York City (JFK) roundtrip. That’s why I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, but have never been to New York (not interested anyway), only once in the 1980s to Las Vegas (not impressed and never going back) and I’ve never been to the Grand Canyon (no interest really). I’d much rather fly to London, or Berlin and visit my relatives for a month.
In the 90s I remodeled furniture stores for Aaron's across the Midwest the south and east coast they kept in the south in winter and north in the summer I've spent the entire month of Mardi Gras in New Orleans working on a store then celebrating the 4th of July in Washington DC while working on a store in Maryland the same year or watching a carrier fleet return while working on a store in Norfolk VA or watching the planes return from the carrier fleet while working in Jacksonville Florida, lot more great memories from 1990-1996
@@torstenheling3830 I got paid quite well during that time period and got to really experience different cities and states some cities multiple times over the years usually 30 to 90 days a store and yeah New Orleans has been a cesspool of corruption almost as bad as Chicago but I still enjoyed my time in these locations
Metropolitan areas include core cities and any nearby counties that are economically and culturally tied to that city. What makes many of them so big is that they are crafted by whole counties, so if a small corner of a county is urban/suburban and tied to the city, the entire county, including its rural portions will be tacked on. Most of the San Bernadino metro area is desolate and sparsely inhabited desert.
I'm from the Inland Empire (I.E. for short) and it is indeed gigantic. It takes about 5 hours to drive to Las Vegas and most of that is through the desert wilderness of the Empire. Driving from my hometown of Ontario to San Diego takes about two hours. Mind you, that's basically a straight shot on the highway at 70mph. In America, we don't express how far away something is in miles, we use hours.
I've known a number of people here in MA and NH that use to have similar commutes from RI or CT to MA and could never understand why they would do it. With the pandemic this for the most part stopped with a lot of companies (the commute) but coming back a bit.
I don't know why we on the West Coast don't think driving 5 or more hours is a long trip. I, as a single adult female, have driven from the west coast to East coast and back and thought nothing of it. I travel 8 hours to visit my daughter and then another 4 hours to visit friends. A lot of us drive/travel like that. I guess we're used to it.
I live in Salt Lake and can definitely relate. I've driven to St. George, in the extreme southwestern corner of Utah, and back (600+ miles round trip) in the same day on several occasions. I lived in St. George for 10 years and one night my bored buddies and I drove two hours to Vegas, walked up the strip for 10 or 15 minutes, walked back to the car and drove home. Meanwhile, my friend in western Connecticut thinks driving to New York City for a concert is sheer lunacy, ha. And Boston might as well be Anchorage as far as she's concerned. What a wuss.
@@MikeP2055 If you consider the time to drive from point A to B on the East Coast, it’s not quite as wussy. I can drive 75 miles in the same time I might make 40 or less on a crowded East Coast highway.
Don't feel bad; people who live in the east US also have no idea how large the states are out west. They are surprised that out west we can't drive through four states in an afternoon. Our cousins from Japan were flying to Vegas and asked my Mom to drive up and meet them for the weekend to show them around. They had no idea that Vegas is 900 miles away and we had never been there and were not familiar enough with it to show them around. Also it was winter and many mountain passes had closed for blizzards. Denver by itself is not large, but when you add in the surrounding areas that it has grown attached to it is huge. It includes 10 counties, 15 cities (quickly becoming attached to Golden, Castle Rock, and Boulder), and 153 square miles (will about double when it engulfs the other three cities).
I’m in Highlands Ranch and my ex flew in from Japan for my 21st birthday back in 2012 and since my parents and I have family in Vegas and in California and normally drive out there every summer anyway, we thought we’d take him along. He soon found out he gets car sick and slept the whole time! When I first met him in ‘08 he asked me how close the beach was and he was shocked by my answer haha.
I live in NY State. I have to drive roughly an hour to get to an Interstate - west or east. And if I start heading south, it'll take me about two hours to get to a town larger than 500 people. Admittedly, if I take a wrong turn in town, I might end up in Canada ...
Texan here. It is 894 miles from the eastern-most city in Texas (Bon Wier, TX) to the western-most city (El Paso, TX). It takes 13 hours to make that trip. During that trip, you will see pine forests, grasslands, hill country, and desert… and a crap-load of towns and cities of all sizes. It’s a hell of a road trip!
Generally true, it's often defined around where the economic centers are. Will add that the American census also defines a combined statistical area (CSA) for certain groups of metropolitan areas where the urban areas have, in simple terms, significant overlap. So for instance, the Inland Empire area is often grouped into the larger LA area, and also Washington and Baltimore are often considered as a single combined area.
As a teen in the 90's, I spent time in my dad's truck/Lori. One week, we entered El Paso TX about 6am, passed through Dallas about midnight, and exited Texas at Texarkana about 4am. (Only about 1 hour stopped as it was a hot load)
About San Bernardino, what used to be separate towns in southern California grew together into one big one. Local people still use their old names, but when driving and not familiar with the area, you can't tell when you move from one to the other ... maybe the street signs changed color, or you run into another mall. Each one seems to have their own mall, but the malls also look pretty much alike. In other less populated parts of the country there are spaces between cities, and usually large spaces.
DFW (Dallas / Fort Worth) is a good example of a metro area. Its comprised of many large cities and a number of smaller ones that all run together, basically when you drive on the highways your still in the city and not out in the countryside. Dallas itself is small, but when you factor in the whole metro area then it becomes quite large. Included in that are 11 counties that total 9200 square miles or 24,000 sq km. That is why its called the Metroplex. Dallas itself is only 385 sq miles in size of that total.
I live in the “Inland Empire” in San Bernardino County. It is huge! But it doesn’t seem huge after living here. Except when you have to drive across the whole county that takes hours.
This is one of the reasons why reacting to even difference in speech or dialects or phrases from state to state, annoy some U.S. citizens, because even within in the same state there are a lot of differences. Great video!
I recently retired from a job, where I lived 55 miles from work, going across some of the most congested roads in our area. That was 110 miles A DAY, 5 days a week (before the pandemic -- thank you, COVID!). Thank God I shared that commute with 4 or 5 other people in a vanpool. While that's a long commute even by American standards, there are much longer commutes that people make here.
As someone that lived in Texas, it is routine to drive 2 or 3 hours on any given day to travel between towns solely for recreational purposes. Never give it a second thought
My son and daughter have both been to Philmont Scout Ranch in Raton, New Mexico. I went on a trek there with my son. Philmont is 140,171 acres, or 220 square miles. It is the largest Scout camp in the US, and each year over 22,000 Scouts and adult volunteers take 12 day hiking treks through the property.
Fun video! I think you both now understand why you can't see multiple places around the country in one week! And why most Americans go on trips to other areas of the US, instead of going to other countries. We have plenty to see here!
Part of the Metropolitan area like Riverside\San Bernardino\Ontario is that they have a lot of shared utilities and services that benefit all three areas. For instance, every city has a police department and each county has it's Sherriff's department for outlying areas but there is a lot of general cooperation between departments when there is a general need or emergency. They share the same watershed and water supplies for the most part and they generally occupy a plateau and valley in the same geographic region so there are economic reasons to share resources. In the same way, there is Los Angeles the city but also the Los Angeles Metropolitan area which includes several small cities with mutual resource interests.
I used to have to drive from Grand Rapids to Marquette, a 393 mile drive that took 7 hours without leaving Michigan. You can go further North to Copper Harbor which is 537 miles. From Detroit it's 600 miles and from New Buffalo in the southwest its quicker to drive through Chicago and Wisconsin than to stay in Michigan.
My family lived in St Paul MN. My mother's sister and family from England were visiting Florida. They were going to be there for a week or so, and asked my parents if they could "pop by". 1600 miles!!
Born in America and I've only personally been to about a dozen states. It's huge. Big reason why us Americans really don't feel the need to travel outside of the US much. We have every climate and landscape to visit here and it takes so long to travel out of the country if one lives in the middle/Midwestern area like I do.
I used to drive tractor/trailers cross country. During one trip traveling from Kentucky to California, I started the day in Dallas Texas at 10:00am, and by 10:00pm was just entering El Paso Texas. 12 hours of driving at highway speed and completely in one state! Yes, I really have a good idea just how large the U.S. is, lol!
Before I retired I lived in Lincoln, NE. When I worked in Gillette, WY it was about a 700 mile drive the took between 9 and 11 hours depending on traffic and weather.
I just did a quick search, but 2 Londons could fit in the Big K Ranch (Texas's largest Ranch). 1 City of London could fit in my "small farm" with room to spare, and just walking my driveway, I walk the equivalent to traverse the city in any direction. The two largest Ranches in Texas can hold the entire metropolitan area of London.
We moved from Las Vegas to Central Florida, and it was 2258 miles (approx 3363 km). We drove it in 3 days and probably could have made it in two, but we would have arrived in the middle of the night and we couldn't get the keys, so we made a last stop and rested. I was driving a Truck with a 32' toy hauler trailer and my wife was driving a truck with a 12' trailer. And we had our two dogs with us. It was not fun. That was a long drive.
Also, I'm from Jacksonville and it is much like many small towns blended together because there is no hard line or clear separate of towns, there is no stop to how far it expands except the actual county lines, it's all busy and neighborhoods and businesses all chucked in and filling almost every area. Certain areas are well known for being very dangerous while others very safe, no matter which direction I drive I am a minimum 45 minutes from the dangerous area where I live. But pretty much everything in Jacksonville that isn't right around the corner is 45 minutes away.
My dad took us on 2 vacations, both 2weeks in consecutive years... I live in NY, near Buffalo. Our first trip was along the east coast to Florida then west to California and then thru the middle. Second year we went SW to Texas then NW to Washington state then across the northwest going into Canada. ... 4 weeks, 30states, 22 nation parks. 100 peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches, 80 kids meals, 16gallons of TANG. ... It was surreal and something that I remembered my entire life !!
Well, don't know if you got to actually enjoy the National Parks since you were on the road so much. But definitely an experience to remember. And you know just how big the country is.
I knew my state of Michigan was pretty large, but I was surprised to learn we are larger than the UK. I never really considered we would be that large.
When my family first immigrated to the US in 2000, my dad before we got settled closer to LA Downtown, was commuting from my aunt's place daily which was 65 miles away.
On the last bit : los Angeles county is responsible for 1/4 of all American oil production. San Bernardino is however a larger by square milage county.
I live in East Central Alabama and it's just under 300 miles just to get to the beach on the golf coast. It's pretty well a straight shot too. Takes right at 5 hours to drive it.
Okay, so I live a mile from the San Bernadino county line (hubby works in SBC). But there's a TON of desert around here and it's about 2 hours before you hit what he's talking about "The Inland Empire." The rest of the area is EMPTY. Like totally empty. There's even a bit of Death Valley in SB County. Fun fact. Charles Manson and his cronies used to wander onto the land where my husband works (Naval Air station here). Anyway, when you get down to the Inland Empire, you're talking about an area so packed with cities running together that you don't even know when you've left one and entered another. It goes on for ages (much like the greater Los Angeles area. Massive freeway interchanges, 8 or more lane freeways... the works. It's enormous and only slightly better to drive in than LA at certain times of the day.
I've been to England and the longest journey I took while I was there was London to Liverpool on the train. Think it was 220 miles, but only took 2 1/2 hours. Seemed like a short trip to me. I really didn't leave my home state of California until I was in my early 20s and drove from there to Iowa. That's when I fully understood how huge the US is. Took me three long days of driving through mostly empty high desert and plains. That's when I also realized how isolated California is from the rest of the country.
When I first moved to Canada from the UK I thought it might be cheaper to fly to Eastern Canada and then catch the train the rest of the way - as well as giving me a chance to look at the 'countryside'. The train journey turned out to take 5 days.
Ha, California is isolated from the rest of the country in many ways besides distance! We're all waiting to celebrate when it cracks off and slides under the Pacific.
@@jeffmorse645 I know, it's actually being pushed together with the continent. I have relatives there and they're just as nuts as everyone else living in cali. It must be in the water.
As someone from Rhode Island I'm pretty much in the same boat as you when seeing how big my own country is. My entire state is like 45 miles and you're out of it. lol
I'm retired now but I did work in Lawton Oklahoma which was about 50 miles away. I'm so happy I don't have to worry about making that trip during the winter or having a large fuel bill. I use to fill up my tank every three days. Thanks for what you do.
Small world. I grew up around Frederick, OK until I was in 2nd grade and we would go to Lawton to do big shopping trips (it was late 80s and Lawton had a Walmart lol). Moved back in 2001 to Vernon, TX which is just south of Altus, OK. I still pass through Lawton several times a year going back to visit family as I now live in Tulsa.
@@psycho42069 Hey Psycho.....it's funny but I worked at Taliaferro in Lawton which is a behaviour health center so I'm quite familiar with people who are, "psycho' LOL As you know then that our winters are pretty mild but on those occasional foggy or snowy days it's not fun driving 50 miles and going through the Gap to get to Lawton. Lawton did have a mall but it's mostly empty but they do have 2 Walmart shopping centers and another small one just for groceries. ....Yep it's a small world. Nice to meet you
metropolitan area also tend to include Suburb and Exurb cities. Over time two or more metropolitan areas can grow together. Some good examples of this are Dallas-Fort Worth-Denton (Waco to the south is slowly growing northward and will likely join in to the conglomeration in the next 60 years, when that happens it will most likely make it the largest Metro in the world); another few good examples are Raleigh-Durham, Milwaukee-Chicago (which crosses state boundaries), Denver-Fort Collins with only a small green belt preventing Colorado Springs growing northward to join in, Seattle-Tacoma, and several more in California.
Wilderness in Wyoming. Beginning @11:20 the mapping shows the metropolitan area of where I live. I've always believed that the "Metro. Area" of a City was where a great many people commuted to/from work/shopping/living leading them to effectively be one large community.
My county in NM is about 5500 square miles. About 130,000 peeps, but a big land mass. It is a high desert, so supporting a big population would be difficult. Peace, Love!!
When Los Angeles county was formed back in 1850, it covered an area from the coast, east to the Nevada line, and from San Diego, north into what is today Kern County, covering 34,520 square miles. The population was only 3530.
I'm thankful that I'm now a full-time remote worker and I don't have to drive an hour into work each morning and one and a half hours home each day (more traffic). I left my house at 4:30 in the morning and usually got home between 3:30 and 4:00. This was in good weather. In the winter, tack on at least another half hour each way. The closest decent grocery is 20 minutes away, while our favorite is 30. You've mentioned in previous videos the size of our refrigerators. I do my shopping for two weeks at a time! Living a life of preparedness, I also buy a whole cow and whole hog each year, so I also have two huge upright freezers. I have a 1500 square ft. garden, so I preserve my own vegetables. I grind wheat berries into flour and corn for my own corneal. Yes, we bake our own bread! When you have to drive such long distances, you tend to become more self-sufficient. You end up with a pantry that's 14x16; larger than some master bedrooms! Trust me when I say that city life and country life in the USA is completely different?
I have a friend in Alaska, he's flying to Florida next month and discovered it is the same distance flight from Anchorage to Oslo, Norway as it is to Miami.
As someone said metro is including other cities that basically run into the core city. I am from Portland, Oregon and while Portland is it's core you literally can't tell unless you know when you've stepped into Gresham, Beaverton, and the other smaller cities that are connected to Portland. I didn't realize how I viewed travel until I went to Germany for a month. Being from America but also especially from the west I don't notice long travels and my boyfriend at the time who I was visiting had another view all together. I mean I am use to throwing the kids, a cooler, and few changes of clothes plus some toys and driving 3 hours to a beach and deciding to be home by dinner or little bit past but when you are raised like that I didn't see an issue.
Probably one of the hardest size issues - even for people in the US to wrap their heads around, is the actual size of the Great Lakes. To put it in a UK context, The largest lake, Lake Superior, by itself, is larger than Scotland in area.
I always think of how hard it must have been for the Conestoga wagons during the 1800's people went days and months to go from east to west. Thats why the transcontinental railway was such a big deal.
A few years ago my wife and I had to go to a funeral in Arizona. We live in Illinois. We left on a Thursday afternoon and drove straight though, arriving on Friday afternoon. The funeral was on Saturday and we started the drive back on Sunday afternoon, arriving back in Illinois on Monday night. In all, we drove about 3200 miles in about 106 hours.
I regularly drive 350 miles at a go to see family in the next state. Alone. Takes me about 7 hours with stops. It is no big deal. I think London to Edinburgh is that distance. So many foreigners do not get our distances.
I told y'all I was in the Seabees. The Seabee base in Gulfport,Ms has more people on that one base than my home town of Chase City,Va. Even though Chase City is probably 4 times the size of the base
I was born and raised in Atlanta, GA to parents from St. Helens, and relatives who come to visit will often make requests such as having a run out to the Grand Canyon BEFORE LUNCH!! From our house it's 1750 miles and 25 hours driving non-stop. When told this their jaws drop.Other desired "day" trips involved leaving in the morning to visit Miami, FL and returning home in time for supper. We would joke that our U.K. relatives think a day out here is like a drive to Blackpool and back.
As a former citizen of Southern California, the Inland Empire (a.k.a. The IE) has the anchor cities of Ontario, Riverside, and San Bernardino. The area known as the IE, not only has those three cities but with all the other smaller cities surrounding each of them but also connects them together to appear to be one huge urban conglomerate. Most of the major traffic arteries in the area are our freeways (think of the M5 but much wider, like up to 5-6 lanes each direction wider). Not to mention the the side streets where the largest are 2-3 lanes either direction with a full lane, in the middle, just for making cross-traffic turns. Most of those large side streets are long enough to interconnect the major regional urban areas, and some even connect to neighboring counties. For example, there is one called Foothill Boulevard, and is part of the historic "Route 66". On the eastern end it starts in San Bernardino city, heading west to the city of Irwindale, CA at the riverbed of the San Gabriel River (estimated length east to west is approximately 70 miles (112.7 km)).
When I lived in Ithaca, in upstate New York, I used to regularly drive to NY City for day trips...5 hours each way. Sometimes in heavy snow. No biggie. I have also driven from LA to the Grand Canyon for a day trip. And I once drove from LA to Omaha (1,600 miles) and back, 2 days each way. First stop was Denver, 1,000 from LA, an impossible point to point distance in Britain. 16 hours, including refueling/rest stops.
If you would like another way to judge the sheer size of America, there is a wonderful series that I still believe you can find on CZcams. It's called "Stephen Fry in America". It's an old series (2008, I believe), where the comedian drove to all 50 states, hitting some off-beat areas along the way. He can't do every state justice, but it's still a wonderful show. It's a six-part series. I'd recommend taking a look.
I took my kids to college it was roughly Flint to Marquette, all in Michigan. It took 8 to 9 hours. I could only think, thank God it wasn't Michigan Tech( add three hours). This is also snow central. Roughly 21 feet of snow per winter. Yes, feet, not inches.
According to Wikipedia, metropolitan area is A metropolitan area or metro is a region that consists of a densely populated urban agglomeration and its surrounding territories sharing industries, commercial areas, transport network, infrastructures and housing.
We don’t really use miles when discussing car trips but rather hours. For example when I was younger I traveled from southeast Michigan the mid Illinois to visit family by car. It took 9 hours to get there one way.
I used to have to do specialist doctor trips fortnightly as a kid from Colorado Springs to Denver which is 70 miles (112 km) one way, 142 miles round trip (228 km). That's about 5 hours in the car every 2 weeks.
Considering I drive 80 miles one way to do my grocery shopping, 100 miles is pretty much the norm. I only shop about 3 times a year because I hate to shop, and it is an all-day affair. I've driven across the country alone (from Washington state to Florida) 5 times. It is about 5 long days of driving.
The easiest way to think of a 'Metro Area' is that it is an area that's centered on a urban center (or sometimes 2 or 3 centers that are close enough that they 'blend together'), and which also includes that surrounding area that is tied into the urban center by a system of commercial organizations (Co.'s & the like) and a well knit-together system of transportation (most especially roads) and residential areas, all essentially 'working together' as a unified whole. For instance, in North Carolina there is the Tri-Cities Region, which is centered around three medium-to-large cities ... Greensboro and Winston-Salem and High Point. But the Metro-region includes some additional small cities and a good-sized area around them. They are bound together both historically/culturally (the whole area was a hub for the textile industry 'back in the day') and is also bound together today as a 'tech-center', with a goodly number of tech-oriented companies, as well as a decent number of colleges and universities in the area. In the last 20+ years a very thorough system of roads/expressways have been built that have cemented the area together.
We used to drive 96 miles (one way) to go to the pediatrician. We'd see him, go to HEB (grocery store), then drive home again. Just a quick trip in Texas!
A couple of decades ago, I drove from eastern Washington state to Las Vegas in one day. 1100 miles. Left at 4am and arrived at 10pm. I would have made better time but it was October and I wasn’t expecting to get stuck behind a snowplow for several miles.
I am a maker of handmade wooden spoons and someone recently suggested a store in New Hampshire that might carry my spoons, but only carried items made by local producers. I asked the store to define what they meant by "local," and the answer was "within 100 miles."
I live in the Inland Empire of San Bernardino, California. Fun to here it in your reaction videos. Did you know you have fans who subscribe to you that live in Southern California? I am about a 45 minute drive to Hollywood.
My state Nevada has one of the largest counties (Nye) in the lower 48. It's bigger than Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Jersey, and Delaware combined but only has around 51,000 people and no incorporated cites.
When you're flying into LA from the east, you'll notice people starting to get ready, thinking they're about to land, because they see urban sprawl outside the window. 20 minutes later, at 4-500 mph, still seeing urban sprawl as you fly over the City of LA on final approach to LAX. Driving to Las Vegas from Downtown LA, going 65, it's at least an hour before you pass San Bernardino and hit the desert. It's all urban sprawl til you get there. From Santa Monica, on the Pacific Coast, you can add another 30 minutes if there's no traffic (which never happens).
The metro Atlanta area included 7 counties when I was growing up. Now, it includes almost 15 counties. At it's most northern point you are less than an hour from Tennessee. At it's western most point, you are less than 45 minutes from Alabama. Eastern most, you're less than an hour from South Carolina. Going south, it's still a long drive to Florida, but Atlanta IS in the upper third of the state.
I drove, and rode a bus to and from college many times. It was 880 miles across only 3 states. Also my bus stop (for the cross country bus services) was 100 miles from my school.
When I traveled in Europe, it just felt like traveling between countries was like traveling between states here.
It's the most accurate way to compare
The big thing about the USA's land size is how often Americans traverse the country by both land and air. Plus we travel in between the coasts just as often.
It’s why are gas has to be subsidized so much. If we didn’t we couldn’t travel like this.
A metropolitan area or metro is a region that consists of a densely populated urban agglomeration and its surrounding territories sharing industries, commercial areas, transport network, infrastructures and housing.
One example of this would be Madison, Wisconsin. Madison is a city of roughly 225,000 people. But it is surrounded by Middleton, Verona, Sun Prairie, Town of Madison, Fitchburg etc. There are no transitions between any of these municipalities, it just feels like one big city. The entire metro area is over 1 million people.
This is why Northern NJ is considered part of the NYC metro area. Technically, the Statue of Liberty is within NJ state's waters.
@@jariemonah I mean...if we're talking about NJ, it's a state that is pretty much split between two metro areas. North NJ is part of the NYC metro area and a good chunk of South Jersey is in the Philly metro area.
Also have a shared media market, radio stations, local TV stations, newspapers.
I can be confusing as metropolitan areas start linking into conglomerations then into conurbantions then into Megalopolis then into Megaregions then eventually into an Eperopolis "continent city" and then eventually an Ecumenopolis "planetary city".
the biggest example of this I can think of is BosWash otherwise known as the Northeast Megalopolis, an 400 mile long area along the coast where the sprawl of Boston, New York, Philadelhia, Baltimore, Washington DC, and 35 other towns between them have just about bumped into eachother.
Being from the West US, and nestled in the Rockies, I struggled being in England with no place to get away from everybody, in my home city, I'm only 6 hours away from Yellowstone, and 6 hours to the grand canyon. And only an hour from relative solitude. The U.K. always felt small and crowded to me.
We have plenty of green spaces , lots of national parks and countryside all in between towns , villages and in cities .
@@claregale9011 Are you speaking of the US or Britain ?
@@victorwaddell6530 britain
@@claregale9011 Yes you do, and loads of parks, but for folks like where I'm from, I'm an hour away from being ablto wander for days in isolation.
@@claregale9011 Ehh that may be technically true but how big are such spaces? We have national parks the size of literal countries. I suspect that your perspective of what is alot of green space. Is vastly different then what mine or most Americans is,perspective matters.
I once deliberately planned a route through Nevada, where I traveled on good, paved roads, for over 200 miles without passing through a single town, or village.
it is not uncommon to see signs along the highway, warning that the next services (Fuel) are 70, 80, or 100 miles away.
I'm from Dallas, Texas, but our metroplex is called DFW (as in the DFW airport) which is Dallas / Fort Worth combined. Fort Worth is slightly smaller than Dallas, combined have just over 7-1/2 million people in 9,286 sq miles. The centers of both cities are only 37 miles apart, but there are over 200 incorporated cities inside the DFW metroplex area. Being in Texas, everything is spread out on a larger scale. FYI, driving from the East side (Texarkana or Galveston) over to the West side (El Paso) is over 800 miles, or in Texas speak, it's about a 14-15 hour drive. We talk distance in hours, not miles. Great video!
I'm from Texas too lol Pasadena Texas though, where the USS Texas has been until drydock
Hello. 👋 I live in Lewisville. I wish your comment was pinned; you've provided great information.
@@grondhero Hey Neighbor, I lived in The Colony for 30 years, retired in 2019 and moved to Lake Fork 🚣. I do NOT miss the traffic at all.
I hitchhiked across Texas when I was young. From the Louisiana border to Lubbock took about 18 hours altogether. Good thing I wasn't in a hurry. 😂😂😂
From South of Dallas here. With traffic, getting downtown Dallas is about an hour
I live in northeast Kansas, I have had to drive to Pennsylvania and to Oregon. Each trip took about 2 days of steady driving. Basically 2000 miles in either direction. You really get a feel for how large this country is when you have driven from the middle of the country to each coast.
Exactly, this place is huge. I love how each state feels a little bit like its own country. But we're all USA.
@@joshjones6072 Well theoretically each state is a separate country,afterall that's what Federalism is supposed to be.
A large part of San Bernardino county is open dessert
Greetings from Omaha!
@@Rtsoodle is it a cake or pie?
My parents and I were planning a trip to see my best friend and our family in Slovakia in 2020. When I found out the village my family lives in was five hours away from my friend I told her, “oh we can do a day trip!” and she looked at me like I was insane. In my defense, when she was here we drove almost 3 hours to our mountain house and she was fine! 😂
I’m reminded of a series of tweets I once read, about distances between different locations.
Wyoming: If I drive for an hour, I’ll be in the next county.
Texas: If I drive for an hour, I’ll be in the next town.
Australia: If I drive for an hour, I’ll be at the end of my driveway.
Ireland: If I drive for an hour, I’ll be 10 minutes into the sea.
8 or 9 years ago I helped an old friend drive a U-Haul truck from Louisiana to western Montana in under 71 hours (had to get there by Friday morning for a new job starting, was delayed 3 days leaving due to no rental trucks available even though he had a reservation), a distance of just over 2,200 miles. This was done mostly shift driving, while the other slept in the passenger seat, other than stopping for food and fuel our longest stop was for about 9-10 hours the night before reaching our destination when we were about 150 miles away (10 am appointment to pick up keys to his new apartment).
I drove from San Francisco to Dallas in 32 hours, by myself. The speed limit was 55 mph at the time. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. 😂
The only way you are seeing New York City, Las Vegas, San Francisco and the Grand Canyon in a weekend is if you fly. And even then, it’s still a long journey. New York City to San Francisco (JFK - SFO) is a 5.5 hour flight alone on American Airlines non-stop. SFO to Las Vegas is a 2 hour flight I believe on Southwest Airlines, and the Grand Canyon has air tours, possibly from Las Vegas, but that entire journey would cost more than British Airways or Virgin Atlantic from Heathrow to New York City (JFK) roundtrip. That’s why I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, but have never been to New York (not interested anyway), only once in the 1980s to Las Vegas (not impressed and never going back) and I’ve never been to the Grand Canyon (no interest really). I’d much rather fly to London, or Berlin and visit my relatives for a month.
In the 90s I remodeled furniture stores for Aaron's across the Midwest the south and east coast they kept in the south in winter and north in the summer I've spent the entire month of Mardi Gras in New Orleans working on a store then celebrating the 4th of July in Washington DC while working on a store in Maryland the same year or watching a carrier fleet return while working on a store in Norfolk VA or watching the planes return from the carrier fleet while working in Jacksonville Florida, lot more great memories from 1990-1996
@@JustMe-gn6yf that’s great, but Louisiana is the most corrupt State in the Union. I’d sure never go there.
@@torstenheling3830 I got paid quite well during that time period and got to really experience different cities and states some cities multiple times over the years usually 30 to 90 days a store and yeah New Orleans has been a cesspool of corruption almost as bad as Chicago but I still enjoyed my time in these locations
Metropolitan areas include core cities and any nearby counties that are economically and culturally tied to that city. What makes many of them so big is that they are crafted by whole counties, so if a small corner of a county is urban/suburban and tied to the city, the entire county, including its rural portions will be tacked on. Most of the San Bernadino metro area is desolate and sparsely inhabited desert.
I'm from the Inland Empire (I.E. for short) and it is indeed gigantic. It takes about 5 hours to drive to Las Vegas and most of that is through the desert wilderness of the Empire. Driving from my hometown of Ontario to San Diego takes about two hours. Mind you, that's basically a straight shot on the highway at 70mph. In America, we don't express how far away something is in miles, we use hours.
100 miles? Yeah, my daily commute is 134 miles round trip.
Wow ahah! That's a long daily commute!
I've known a number of people here in MA and NH that use to have similar commutes from RI or CT to MA and could never understand why they would do it.
With the pandemic this for the most part stopped with a lot of companies (the commute) but coming back a bit.
I drive 20 miles to work but while working I drive upwards of 100 miles a day 5 days a week. I do security work.
My commute is 10 miles one way, in Southern California. I can't imagine yours! ♡♡
Before I retired, I had U.K. relatives who couldn't believe my job was 30 miles from home. "How do you stand being in your car for that long?"🤔
I don't know why we on the West Coast don't think driving 5 or more hours is a long trip. I, as a single adult female, have driven from the west coast to East coast and back and thought nothing of it. I travel 8 hours to visit my daughter and then another 4 hours to visit friends. A lot of us drive/travel like that. I guess we're used to it.
I live in Salt Lake and can definitely relate. I've driven to St. George, in the extreme southwestern corner of Utah, and back (600+ miles round trip) in the same day on several occasions. I lived in St. George for 10 years and one night my bored buddies and I drove two hours to Vegas, walked up the strip for 10 or 15 minutes, walked back to the car and drove home.
Meanwhile, my friend in western Connecticut thinks driving to New York City for a concert is sheer lunacy, ha. And Boston might as well be Anchorage as far as she's concerned. What a wuss.
I've done the same thing. My record is driving over 900 miles in one day.
@@MikeP2055
If you consider the time to drive from point A to B on the East Coast, it’s not quite as wussy.
I can drive 75 miles in the same time I might make 40 or less on a crowded East Coast highway.
Don't feel bad; people who live in the east US also have no idea how large the states are out west. They are surprised that out west we can't drive through four states in an afternoon. Our cousins from Japan were flying to Vegas and asked my Mom to drive up and meet them for the weekend to show them around. They had no idea that Vegas is 900 miles away and we had never been there and were not familiar enough with it to show them around. Also it was winter and many mountain passes had closed for blizzards. Denver by itself is not large, but when you add in the surrounding areas that it has grown attached to it is huge. It includes 10 counties, 15 cities (quickly becoming attached to Golden, Castle Rock, and Boulder), and 153 square miles (will about double when it engulfs the other three cities).
I’m in Highlands Ranch and my ex flew in from Japan for my 21st birthday back in 2012 and since my parents and I have family in Vegas and in California and normally drive out there every summer anyway, we thought we’d take him along. He soon found out he gets car sick and slept the whole time! When I first met him in ‘08 he asked me how close the beach was and he was shocked by my answer haha.
I live in NY State. I have to drive roughly an hour to get to an Interstate - west or east. And if I start heading south, it'll take me about two hours to get to a town larger than 500 people. Admittedly, if I take a wrong turn in town, I might end up in Canada ...
The U.S. is so vast that millions of Americans in the East are not aware that "New Mexico" is a U.S. State.
Texan here. It is 894 miles from the eastern-most city in Texas (Bon Wier, TX) to the western-most city (El Paso, TX). It takes 13 hours to make that trip. During that trip, you will see pine forests, grasslands, hill country, and desert… and a crap-load of towns and cities of all sizes. It’s a hell of a road trip!
In my knowledge, a metropolitan area is mostly city limits, plus the surrounding suburbs that commute into the city, excluding rural areas
Generally true, it's often defined around where the economic centers are. Will add that the American census also defines a combined statistical area (CSA) for certain groups of metropolitan areas where the urban areas have, in simple terms, significant overlap. So for instance, the Inland Empire area is often grouped into the larger LA area, and also Washington and Baltimore are often considered as a single combined area.
As a teen in the 90's, I spent time in my dad's truck/Lori. One week, we entered El Paso TX about 6am, passed through Dallas about midnight, and exited Texas at Texarkana about 4am. (Only about 1 hour stopped as it was a hot load)
About San Bernardino, what used to be separate towns in southern California grew together into one big one. Local people still use their old names, but when driving and not familiar with the area, you can't tell when you move from one to the other ... maybe the street signs changed color, or you run into another mall. Each one seems to have their own mall, but the malls also look pretty much alike. In other less populated parts of the country there are spaces between cities, and usually large spaces.
I used to drive 80 miles round trip every day to work.
DFW (Dallas / Fort Worth) is a good example of a metro area. Its comprised of many large cities and a number of smaller ones that all run together, basically when you drive on the highways your still in the city and not out in the countryside. Dallas itself is small, but when you factor in the whole metro area then it becomes quite large. Included in that are 11 counties that total 9200 square miles or 24,000 sq km. That is why its called the Metroplex. Dallas itself is only 385 sq miles in size of that total.
Wyoming and a lot of the surrounding states are known for their grasslands. So she was actually on the right track with the grass comment.
I think the word she was really looking for is _mountains._
Mountains
I live in the “Inland Empire” in San Bernardino County. It is huge! But it doesn’t seem huge after living here. Except when you have to drive across the whole county that takes hours.
This is one of the reasons why reacting to even difference in speech or dialects or phrases from state to state, annoy some U.S. citizens, because even within in the same state there are a lot of differences. Great video!
I recently retired from a job, where I lived 55 miles from work, going across some of the most congested roads in our area. That was 110 miles A DAY, 5 days a week (before the pandemic -- thank you, COVID!). Thank God I shared that commute with 4 or 5 other people in a vanpool. While that's a long commute even by American standards, there are much longer commutes that people make here.
Yeah, mine is Flint to Detroit, 74 miles each way. And my commute isn't even the longest on my team!
As someone that lived in Texas, it is routine to drive 2 or 3 hours on any given day to travel between towns solely for recreational purposes. Never give it a second thought
My son and daughter have both been to Philmont Scout Ranch in Raton, New Mexico. I went on a trek there with my son. Philmont is 140,171 acres, or 220 square miles. It is the largest Scout camp in the US, and each year over 22,000 Scouts and adult volunteers take 12 day hiking treks through the property.
In South Florida, we would drive 60 miles just to go to our favorite restaurant.
Fun video! I think you both now understand why you can't see multiple places around the country in one week! And why most Americans go on trips to other areas of the US, instead of going to other countries. We have plenty to see here!
One of my fave funny things about Laurence is how he looks back and forth just with his eyes. 😂
Went to college in Portland, OR…635 miles north of my home in the SF Bay Area. A day-drive of 11 hours. Thought nothing of it.
Fairbanks, Alaska here.....yep, we are grand! Hearty folk, in a wondrous state!
Part of the Metropolitan area like Riverside\San Bernardino\Ontario is that they have a lot of shared utilities and services that benefit all three areas. For instance, every city has a police department and each county has it's Sherriff's department for outlying areas but there is a lot of general cooperation between departments when there is a general need or emergency. They share the same watershed and water supplies for the most part and they generally occupy a plateau and valley in the same geographic region so there are economic reasons to share resources. In the same way, there is Los Angeles the city but also the Los Angeles Metropolitan area which includes several small cities with mutual resource interests.
I used to have to drive from Grand Rapids to Marquette, a 393 mile drive that took 7 hours without leaving Michigan. You can go further North to Copper Harbor which is 537 miles.
From Detroit it's 600 miles and from New Buffalo in the southwest its quicker to drive through Chicago and Wisconsin than to stay in Michigan.
My family lived in St Paul MN. My mother's sister and family from England were visiting Florida. They were going to be there for a week or so, and asked my parents if they could "pop by". 1600 miles!!
Born in America and I've only personally been to about a dozen states. It's huge. Big reason why us Americans really don't feel the need to travel outside of the US much. We have every climate and landscape to visit here and it takes so long to travel out of the country if one lives in the middle/Midwestern area like I do.
I used to drive tractor/trailers cross country. During one trip traveling from Kentucky to California, I started the day in Dallas Texas at 10:00am, and by 10:00pm was just entering El Paso Texas. 12 hours of driving at highway speed and completely in one state! Yes, I really have a good idea just how large the U.S. is, lol!
Hey there Millie and James!
Hey!
Before I retired I lived in Lincoln, NE. When I worked in Gillette, WY it was about a 700 mile drive the took between 9 and 11 hours depending on traffic and weather.
I just did a quick search, but 2 Londons could fit in the Big K Ranch (Texas's largest Ranch). 1 City of London could fit in my "small farm" with room to spare, and just walking my driveway, I walk the equivalent to traverse the city in any direction. The two largest Ranches in Texas can hold the entire metropolitan area of London.
We moved from Las Vegas to Central Florida, and it was 2258 miles (approx 3363 km). We drove it in 3 days and probably could have made it in two, but we would have arrived in the middle of the night and we couldn't get the keys, so we made a last stop and rested. I was driving a Truck with a 32' toy hauler trailer and my wife was driving a truck with a 12' trailer. And we had our two dogs with us. It was not fun. That was a long drive.
Also, I'm from Jacksonville and it is much like many small towns blended together because there is no hard line or clear separate of towns, there is no stop to how far it expands except the actual county lines, it's all busy and neighborhoods and businesses all chucked in and filling almost every area. Certain areas are well known for being very dangerous while others very safe, no matter which direction I drive I am a minimum 45 minutes from the dangerous area where I live. But pretty much everything in Jacksonville that isn't right around the corner is 45 minutes away.
That’s exactly how the DFW area is! My belief is by 2050-2060 you’ll be able to drive from Austin to Oklahoma and never “leave the city”😂
Your Beesleys channel is lots of fun, thanks 😊
What?! First is MI? My home state!! Joined the Army in 2007, haven’t lived there since cause I have standards lol
My dad took us on 2 vacations, both 2weeks in consecutive years...
I live in NY, near Buffalo. Our first trip was along the east coast to Florida then west to California and then thru the middle. Second year we went SW to Texas then NW to Washington state then across the northwest going into Canada.
... 4 weeks, 30states, 22 nation parks.
100 peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches, 80 kids meals, 16gallons of TANG.
...
It was surreal and something that I remembered my entire life !!
Well, don't know if you got to actually enjoy the National Parks since you were on the road so much. But definitely an experience to remember. And you know just how big the country is.
I knew my state of Michigan was pretty large, but I was surprised to learn we are larger than the UK. I never really considered we would be that large.
When my family first immigrated to the US in 2000, my dad before we got settled closer to LA Downtown, was commuting from my aunt's place daily which was 65 miles away.
On the last bit : los Angeles county is responsible for 1/4 of all American oil production. San Bernardino is however a larger by square milage county.
I live in East Central Alabama and it's just under 300 miles just to get to the beach on the golf coast. It's pretty well a straight shot too. Takes right at 5 hours to drive it.
The Houston metroplex in Texas is larger than the state of New Jersey.
Okay, so I live a mile from the San Bernadino county line (hubby works in SBC). But there's a TON of desert around here and it's about 2 hours before you hit what he's talking about "The Inland Empire." The rest of the area is EMPTY. Like totally empty. There's even a bit of Death Valley in SB County. Fun fact. Charles Manson and his cronies used to wander onto the land where my husband works (Naval Air station here).
Anyway, when you get down to the Inland Empire, you're talking about an area so packed with cities running together that you don't even know when you've left one and entered another. It goes on for ages (much like the greater Los Angeles area. Massive freeway interchanges, 8 or more lane freeways... the works. It's enormous and only slightly better to drive in than LA at certain times of the day.
I've been to England and the longest journey I took while I was there was London to Liverpool on the train. Think it was 220 miles, but only took 2 1/2 hours. Seemed like a short trip to me. I really didn't leave my home state of California until I was in my early 20s and drove from there to Iowa. That's when I fully understood how huge the US is. Took me three long days of driving through mostly empty high desert and plains. That's when I also realized how isolated California is from the rest of the country.
When I first moved to Canada from the UK I thought it might be cheaper to fly to Eastern Canada and then catch the train the rest of the way - as well as giving me a chance to look at the 'countryside'. The train journey turned out to take 5 days.
Ha, California is isolated from the rest of the country in many ways besides distance! We're all waiting to celebrate when it cracks off and slides under the Pacific.
@@tobystevens3109 You're going to be worm food long before that happens.
@@jeffmorse645 I know, it's actually being pushed together with the continent. I have relatives there and they're just as nuts as everyone else living in cali. It must be in the water.
As someone from Rhode Island I'm pretty much in the same boat as you when seeing how big my own country is. My entire state is like 45 miles and you're out of it. lol
I'm retired now but I did work in Lawton Oklahoma which was about 50 miles away. I'm so happy I don't have to worry about making that trip during the winter or having a large fuel bill. I use to fill up my tank every three days. Thanks for what you do.
Small world. I grew up around Frederick, OK until I was in 2nd grade and we would go to Lawton to do big shopping trips (it was late 80s and Lawton had a Walmart lol). Moved back in 2001 to Vernon, TX which is just south of Altus, OK. I still pass through Lawton several times a year going back to visit family as I now live in Tulsa.
@@psycho42069 We moved to Wichita Falls in the mid 80s, actually Iowa Park, so I'm familiar with Vernon and Frederick.
I lived outside Wichita Falls for 7 years and did my Artillery Officer training at Fort Sill.
@@bretcantwell4921 Hey there. Fort Sill is still thriving. My Dad did his basic training at Fort Sill for WWII. Nice to meet you.
@@psycho42069 Hey Psycho.....it's funny but I worked at Taliaferro in Lawton which is a behaviour health center so I'm quite familiar with people who are, "psycho' LOL As you know then that our winters are pretty mild but on those occasional foggy or snowy days it's not fun driving 50 miles and going through the Gap to get to Lawton. Lawton did have a mall but it's mostly empty but they do have 2 Walmart shopping centers and another small one just for groceries. ....Yep it's a small world. Nice to meet you
Lol! It's a 174 miles from my house to my sister's. A drive we make over the Cascades, AND back, several times a year. Even in the snow!
metropolitan area also tend to include Suburb and Exurb cities. Over time two or more metropolitan areas can grow together. Some good examples of this are Dallas-Fort Worth-Denton (Waco to the south is slowly growing northward and will likely join in to the conglomeration in the next 60 years, when that happens it will most likely make it the largest Metro in the world); another few good examples are Raleigh-Durham, Milwaukee-Chicago (which crosses state boundaries), Denver-Fort Collins with only a small green belt preventing Colorado Springs growing northward to join in, Seattle-Tacoma, and several more in California.
Wilderness in Wyoming.
Beginning @11:20 the mapping shows the metropolitan area of where I live.
I've always believed that the "Metro. Area" of a City was where a great many people commuted to/from work/shopping/living leading them to effectively be one large community.
My county in NM is about 5500 square miles. About 130,000 peeps, but a big land mass. It is a high desert, so supporting a big population would be difficult. Peace, Love!!
When Los Angeles county was formed back in 1850, it covered an area from the coast, east to the Nevada line, and from San Diego, north into what is today Kern County, covering 34,520 square miles. The population was only 3530.
I'm thankful that I'm now a full-time remote worker and I don't have to drive an hour into work each morning and one and a half hours home each day (more traffic). I left my house at 4:30 in the morning and usually got home between 3:30 and 4:00. This was in good weather. In the winter, tack on at least another half hour each way.
The closest decent grocery is 20 minutes away, while our favorite is 30.
You've mentioned in previous videos the size of our refrigerators. I do my shopping for two weeks at a time! Living a life of preparedness, I also buy a whole cow and whole hog each year, so I also have two huge upright freezers.
I have a 1500 square ft. garden, so I preserve my own vegetables. I grind wheat berries into flour and corn for my own corneal. Yes, we bake our own bread!
When you have to drive such long distances, you tend to become more self-sufficient. You end up with a pantry that's 14x16; larger than some master bedrooms!
Trust me when I say that city life and country life in the USA is completely different?
I have a friend in Alaska, he's flying to Florida next month and discovered it is the same distance flight from Anchorage to Oslo, Norway as it is to Miami.
As someone said metro is including other cities that basically run into the core city. I am from Portland, Oregon and while Portland is it's core you literally can't tell unless you know when you've stepped into Gresham, Beaverton, and the other smaller cities that are connected to Portland.
I didn't realize how I viewed travel until I went to Germany for a month. Being from America but also especially from the west I don't notice long travels and my boyfriend at the time who I was visiting had another view all together. I mean I am use to throwing the kids, a cooler, and few changes of clothes plus some toys and driving 3 hours to a beach and deciding to be home by dinner or little bit past but when you are raised like that I didn't see an issue.
Probably one of the hardest size issues - even for people in the US to wrap their heads around, is the actual size of the Great Lakes.
To put it in a UK context, The largest lake, Lake Superior, by itself, is larger than Scotland in area.
I have an 8.5hr drive on Monday and it only involves 3 States. 8.5hrs back home Wednesday.
I always think of how hard it must have been for the Conestoga wagons during the 1800's people went days and months to go from east to west. Thats why the transcontinental railway was such a big deal.
A few years ago my wife and I had to go to a funeral in Arizona. We live in Illinois. We left on a Thursday afternoon and drove straight though, arriving on Friday afternoon. The funeral was on Saturday and we started the drive back on Sunday afternoon, arriving back in Illinois on Monday night. In all, we drove about 3200 miles in about 106 hours.
I regularly drive 350 miles at a go to see family in the next state. Alone. Takes me about 7 hours with stops. It is no big deal. I think London to Edinburgh is that distance. So many foreigners do not get our distances.
I live in the west - Oregon - and a drive of 100 miles each way can be a daily commute.
I told y'all I was in the Seabees. The Seabee base in Gulfport,Ms has more people on that one base than my home town of Chase City,Va. Even though Chase City is probably 4 times the size of the base
For some more perspective. The drive across the entire island north to south of Britain. Is equal to driving from Atlanta to Miami.
I was born and raised in Atlanta, GA to parents from St. Helens, and relatives who come to visit will often make requests such as having a run out to the Grand Canyon BEFORE LUNCH!! From our house it's 1750 miles and 25 hours driving non-stop. When told this their jaws drop.Other desired "day" trips involved leaving in the morning to visit Miami, FL and returning home in time for supper.
We would joke that our U.K. relatives think a day out here is like a drive to Blackpool and back.
As a former citizen of Southern California, the Inland Empire (a.k.a. The IE) has the anchor cities of Ontario, Riverside, and San Bernardino. The area known as the IE, not only has those three cities but with all the other smaller cities surrounding each of them but also connects them together to appear to be one huge urban conglomerate. Most of the major traffic arteries in the area are our freeways (think of the M5 but much wider, like up to 5-6 lanes each direction wider). Not to mention the the side streets where the largest are 2-3 lanes either direction with a full lane, in the middle, just for making cross-traffic turns. Most of those large side streets are long enough to interconnect the major regional urban areas, and some even connect to neighboring counties. For example, there is one called Foothill Boulevard, and is part of the historic "Route 66". On the eastern end it starts in San Bernardino city, heading west to the city of Irwindale, CA at the riverbed of the San Gabriel River (estimated length east to west is approximately 70 miles (112.7 km)).
When I lived in Ithaca, in upstate New York, I used to regularly drive to NY City for day trips...5 hours each way. Sometimes in heavy snow. No biggie. I have also driven from LA to the Grand Canyon for a day trip. And I once drove from LA to Omaha (1,600 miles) and back, 2 days each way. First stop was Denver, 1,000 from LA, an impossible point to point distance in Britain. 16 hours, including refueling/rest stops.
If you would like another way to judge the sheer size of America, there is a wonderful series that I still believe you can find on CZcams. It's called "Stephen Fry in America". It's an old series (2008, I believe), where the comedian drove to all 50 states, hitting some off-beat areas along the way. He can't do every state justice, but it's still a wonderful show. It's a six-part series. I'd recommend taking a look.
I took my kids to college it was roughly Flint to Marquette, all in Michigan. It took 8 to 9 hours. I could only think, thank God it wasn't Michigan Tech( add three hours). This is also snow central. Roughly 21 feet of snow per winter. Yes, feet, not inches.
According to Wikipedia, metropolitan area is A metropolitan area or metro is a region that consists of a densely populated urban agglomeration and its surrounding territories sharing industries, commercial areas, transport network, infrastructures and housing.
It takes an hour to drive through Houston. 2 hours if there traffic 😂
We don’t really use miles when discussing car trips but rather hours.
For example when I was younger I traveled from southeast Michigan the mid Illinois to visit family by car. It took 9 hours to get there one way.
I used to have to do specialist doctor trips fortnightly as a kid from Colorado Springs to Denver which is 70 miles (112 km) one way, 142 miles round trip (228 km). That's about 5 hours in the car every 2 weeks.
Considering I drive 80 miles one way to do my grocery shopping, 100 miles is pretty much the norm. I only shop about 3 times a year because I hate to shop, and it is an all-day affair. I've driven across the country alone (from Washington state to Florida) 5 times. It is about 5 long days of driving.
The easiest way to think of a 'Metro Area' is that it is an area that's centered on a urban center (or sometimes 2 or 3 centers that are close enough that they 'blend together'), and which also includes that surrounding area that is tied into the urban center by a system of commercial organizations (Co.'s & the like) and a well knit-together system of transportation (most especially roads) and residential areas, all essentially 'working together' as a unified whole. For instance, in North Carolina there is the Tri-Cities Region, which is centered around three medium-to-large cities ... Greensboro and Winston-Salem and High Point. But the Metro-region includes some additional small cities and a good-sized area around them. They are bound together both historically/culturally (the whole area was a hub for the textile industry 'back in the day') and is also bound together today as a 'tech-center', with a goodly number of tech-oriented companies, as well as a decent number of colleges and universities in the area. In the last 20+ years a very thorough system of roads/expressways have been built that have cemented the area together.
Metropolitan area is defined by cities that touch and basically when you drive "out" of the city you have open land or farmland .
Zip codes/postal codes are the way of defining the boundaries of incorporated cities/suburbs.
We used to drive 96 miles (one way) to go to the pediatrician. We'd see him, go to HEB (grocery store), then drive home again. Just a quick trip in Texas!
Hi from Michigan
I still think it would be an awesome one day if Millie and James drove across Route 66 together in that vastness.
A couple of decades ago, I drove from eastern Washington state to Las Vegas in one day. 1100 miles. Left at 4am and arrived at 10pm. I would have made better time but it was October and I wasn’t expecting to get stuck behind a snowplow for several miles.
It will take you about 7 days to drive from Baltimore/Washington DC on the east coast to San Diego, CA on the west coast.
I am a maker of handmade wooden spoons and someone recently suggested a store in New Hampshire that might carry my spoons, but only carried items made by local producers. I asked the store to define what they meant by "local," and the answer was "within 100 miles."
I live in the Inland Empire of San Bernardino, California. Fun to here it in your reaction videos. Did you know you have fans who subscribe to you that live in Southern California? I am about a 45 minute drive to Hollywood.
My state Nevada has one of the largest counties (Nye) in the lower 48. It's bigger than Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Jersey, and Delaware combined but only has around 51,000 people and no incorporated cites.
Hey James and Millie. Greetings from Pensacola Beach Florida ❤
Hey from Jersey CI
When you're flying into LA from the east, you'll notice people starting to get ready, thinking they're about to land, because they see urban sprawl outside the window. 20 minutes later, at 4-500 mph, still seeing urban sprawl as you fly over the City of LA on final approach to LAX. Driving to Las Vegas from Downtown LA, going 65, it's at least an hour before you pass San Bernardino and hit the desert. It's all urban sprawl til you get there. From Santa Monica, on the Pacific Coast, you can add another 30 minutes if there's no traffic (which never happens).
I used to work 65 Miles away... drove 130 Miles to work and back every day (nearly 3 1/2 hours of driving) for 5 1/2 years.
I often drive 150 miles per day for work. 20 miles at the least ,150 at the most.
100 miles?? ...LOL that's literally a day trip for us. We would commute both ways just to see something of interest over the weekend
Ive driven from coastal WA to Washington DC several times. One driver takes 5 days. Rotating drivers day and night driving 2 and a half days.
The metro Atlanta area included 7 counties when I was growing up. Now, it includes almost 15 counties. At it's most northern point you are less than an hour from Tennessee. At it's western most point, you are less than 45 minutes from Alabama. Eastern most, you're less than an hour from South Carolina. Going south, it's still a long drive to Florida, but Atlanta IS in the upper third of the state.
I drove, and rode a bus to and from college many times. It was 880 miles across only 3 states. Also my bus stop (for the cross country bus services) was 100 miles from my school.
As a long haul trucker I got a huge chuckle 😃 at the statement 🤣 💯 miles being a long way.:)