How to Travel: On the cheap, like a local, and without a lot of luggage

Re:How to Travel: On the cheap, like a local, and without a ... by codalan on Friday October 14, 2022 @02:03PM (#33206797)

NYC, LA, and Chicago are bubbles. They are not reflective of the rest of the US in my experience. They are much more cosmopolitan and are the top destinations for tourists, migrants, and other people looking for opportunities. You can find a little bit of the rest of the world within 30 sq. miles in those cities. I can't really say the same for the rest of the major American metropolises. Boston, DC, SF, Seattle come pretty close, though.

Where I do diverge in opinion w/ the article (and agree with you on) is the whole idea of traveling "like a local", as a lot of traveloguers like to call it. I think the best most travelers can expect is maybe some curiosity from the community they're visiting, but they'll never have the full local experience. Only locals get that experience. You could live in a foreign city for years and even learn the language, but you will always be an outsider to the people in that community. You will never gain the years of culture and context that comes with having grown up in the area you are visiting. The best you could ever do in that situation is accept it and be gracious and courteous to the people in those communities.

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Re:How to Travel: On the cheap, like a local, and without a ... by cityzens on Friday October 14, 2022 @03:36PM (#33207898)

> NYC, LA, and Chicago are bubbles. They are not reflective of the rest of the US in my experience.

I'm from the US. Having lived for years in each of New York, LA, Seattle, and 6 other metro areas, towns, and census designated places in the US ranging from ~3000000 to ~300 people in the American South and West, I pretty strongly disagree. All places are bubbles to a degree - that's what makes them definable as places.

Having lived outside the US for the last decade, and for months-long stretches over the decades before my current (indefinite) expatriation, it could not be clearer to me that - as people within the larger place (bubble) of the USA - the median New Yorker, Angeleno, or Chicagoan each has more in common, culturally, with the median Dakotan, Alaskan, Alabamian, or Puertorriqueño than with the median Irish, Bedouin, Xhosa, or Punjabi.

And I cannot but reserve the deepest contempt - truly - for those who would exclude city dwellers from full citizenship within their national polities. The combined metro areas of New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago alone are about a sixth of the total population of the USA. Add your examples of Boston, DC, SF, Seattle and you're at 20%. As of the 2020 census, 55% of Americans lived in a metropolitan area of greater than 1 million people. The "real america" narrative is an 'othering' trope, used in the service of dehumanization for political ends.

America's cities are real America.

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