Gary’s Q&A

Listener question & Gary’s response · Transcript passage

Oleg Ulogov asks, As a person from the USA traveling all around the world, what do you think people who had never been [there] get the most wrong about USA and people who live there? Do you have stories of funny stereotypes or misconceptions you faced around the world?

This is actually a great question, Oleg.

The thing with being an American traveling is that everyone you encounter is aware of the United States, at least to some degree. Their knowledge of the United States almost exclusively comes from what they’ve seen in movies or on television.

As such, most people think they know more about the country than they really do.

For example, I got into a big argument with a guy from England about how many states there were. I explained to him that there were 50 states, and he was adamant that there were 52 states because Washington, DC, and Puerto Rico were states.

I tried explaining to him that those were not, in fact, states, and if he wanted to verify the number of states, all he needed to do was to count the number of stars on the flag.

I’ve met many people who, when I said I was from the United States, would then ask…. California? New York? That was all they asked because they didn’t know about anything beyond those two places. Maybe they might be aware of Texas or Florida.

There are also people who assume that everyone carries guns around and that there are police shootouts and high-speed chases all the time.

The vast majority of people I met who had been to the United States usually only visited a few places. New York City, Disney World, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, or San Francisco. Maybe Washington, DC, if they worked for some organization. Very seldom would I meet people who visited the country and actually went beyond major coastal cities.

I was on the road during four different US presidential elections. I saw local coverage of it pretty much everywhere I went. The problem with everyone paying attention to American politics is that they view everything on reciprocal terms with their country.

They would say, “I know who the leader of your country is, why don’t you know who the leader of my country is.” That sounds reasonable at first, but that same thing can be said by someone in almost every country.

My response would be to ask them who the president of South Korea or Switzerland was, to which almost no one had an answer. Everyone I encountered has a similar level of ignorance once you turned the spotlight to some other third country.

Many people also don’t realize just how big the United States is. Many US states are on par with many countries in Europe, with economies and populations that are just as large or larger.

I met one British couple that was planning to fly to New York and then drive to Chicago for the day. I had to explain to them that wasn’t going to work.

There is a stereotype that Americans aren’t that well-traveled. It really depends on how you ask the question. If you ask people how many countries they’ve been to, the average American will have been to fewer countries than the average European.

However, if you just look at the distance people travel, Europeans and Americans travel about the same distance. The difference is what you can find in that distance.

If you draw a circle with a radius of 1,000 kilometers centered on Prague, within that circle, you will find 32 different countries.

If you draw a circle with a radius of 1,000 kilometers centered in Kansas City, Missouri, every point in that circle is still within the United States, and it only touches 23 states.