A country music artist from the United Kingdom spent months traveling the United States, and one of his biggest takeaways is that his home country has been ruined by it. Not as in literally destroyed, but rather he found his own view of the U.K. forever altered by the experience.
Shane O’Reilly explained to his Instagram audience that traveling America for months on end is different than visiting for two or three weeks. “That is what I’ve just done,” he said, “and I have arrived home back in the U.K., which is where I’m from, and the U.S. has ruined the U.K. for me. Ruined.”
The size and scope of America is ‘mind-blowing’
“Everything here is so small,” he continued. “The cars are small, the roads are small, the houses are small. And the craziest thing that I find is, when I was traveling the U.S., I went to four or five different states. Home base was Tennessee. I went to Wyoming, I went to Utah, North Carolina, Vegas, and L.A. Everywhere was so, so different. It was mind-blowing how different each state was. And now I understand why you Americans do not really leave the U.S. that much.”
He said he came home and found the U.K. to be “one depressing place.”
“No one talks. No one brings you up. It’s very, very small. I can drive from the top of the U.K. to the bottom of the U.K. in 10 hours. I was sometimes driving six or seven hours in one day in the same state. The same state, nevermind from one end of the country to another. And it just blows my mind.”
He said it’s only the visa issues that keep him from moving to the U.S. It’s difficult to immigrate to the U.S. as a self-employed person, but if he could, he would make America his home “tomorrow.”
“America, thank you for ruining my home, cause you truly have,” he laughed. “All of you guys, you are the nicest, welcoming people I have ever met, and I’ve made more friends in America in the last three months than I’ve made in 10 years in the U.K.”
For Americans, the U.K. has its own awe-inspiring elements
On the one hand, yes, the U.S. is pretty incredible to travel around. Each of our states is almost like a separate country, so in terms of seeing and experiencing new and different things, it’s almost equivalent to traveling around Europe. (Of course, without the vastly different languages and histories.)
However, the U.K. has pretty awesome elements Americans might wish we had. We don’t have a countryside dotted with castles built 800 or 900 years ago; an extremely old building in America is like 200 years old. We don’t have quaint villages where the locals meet up at the pub. (There are small-town versions of that, but they wouldn’t be described as “quaint.”) Our cities aren’t nearly as walkable. Universal healthcare is nothing to sneeze at, too.
And as one commenter shared, even the largeness of everything in the U.S. isn’t always appealing:
“Interestingly, being from Utah, it’s the closeness in the UK that I crave.
The depression I feel being beholden to needing a big vehicle to ride a big highway to get anywhere I need to go. People are so far away from each other. Parking is a nightmare. The entitlement to excess is…a lot. It’s overwhelming. There IS such a thing as too much.”
However, even that person added, “I agree the geographic and cultural diversity of America, and its neighborliness, is its best beautiful feature. 🥰”
The grass is always greener across the pond, perhaps. The real secret is finding the good aspects and beauty of each place and reveling in it while you’re there.
Americans greatly appreciate the kudos
The U.S. has gotten a bad rap in recent years, for some understandable reasons. But political ridiculousness aside, there’s a lot to love about America and her people. The U.S. is often touted as the most geographically diverse nation on Earth, with nearly every kind of climate and topographical feature. Going from one state to another can sometimes feel like traveling to entirely different planets. Even if someone just visited our national parks, they’d be seeing dozens of completely different landscapes, each more stunning than the last.
We don’t have a song called “America the Beautiful” for nothing.
But our people also stand out as friendly, optimistic, and open. Obviously, a nation of 365 million people can’t be painted with a broad brush, but we hear this observation about us over and over. Americans often feel like we don’t have a distinct culture because we’re a comparatively new nation largely made up of immigrants from other lands. But time and again, visitors marvel at the kind, welcoming attitude they find here.
In fact, the comment section is filled with Americans inviting O’Reilly to come to where they live next. No matter how many places you go in the U.S., there’s always more to see and friendly people who are happy to show you around.
