[oneneptune]

This is great unless you live in an area of almost absolute geographic and social homogeny in a 100 mile / 160 km radius. "Yo friends, want to drive an hour and see if the fast food in a strip mall is the same as our fast food in a strip mall" just doesn't quite land or "Want to drive 45 minutes and walk in a park that was built in the early aughts and lacks proper shade and had all it's benches removed just like ours?"

[geraldcombs]

You might want to take a look at Atlas Obscura Places map: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/all-places-in-the-atla.... For the US at least, it shows a variety of interesting and quirky sights in most parts of the country.

[pretzellogician]

Verified that Turkey Run State Park in Indiana is in there. Nice!

[jubilanti]

Yeah, not everybody lives in Switzerland or the San Francisco Bay Area.

I've been in many a road trip up, down, and across the Great Plains of the US, where I spend a full day driving only to arrive in a town and geography that looks the exact same as the one I woke up in that morning. Only the signs are different.

[Loughla]

I love driving around the Midwest and in the plains in the States. If you get away from the large 4 lane highways, there's all kinds of stuff.

I found a strawberry festival and ate enough strawberry things to make myself sick. I found an artists commune and stayed with those weird old hippies for two days..I found a diner with a waitress who was in her 90's and had worked the same job for like 70 years.

We happily spend our vacations just driving around in the middle of the country with no plan.

Drive side roads.

[BowBun]

I lived in Texas for ~20 years and am well-versed in the plains+midwest, I just don't agree here. If all you do is drive through highways in these states, yes those are truck stops. However I'm fully confident in saying everywhere has the places the author is talking about. Like he said, it's about creativity.

[arcticfox]

OP living in Switzerland is a comically poor messenger for this though. I follow a few accounts on Instagram of people that are good messengers in relatively boring places. A Japanese lady that lives in Texas and always has the nicest things to say about things I wouldn't usually even notice. And another lady from the Midwest that used to travel globally but cannot anymore because of her family and yet still seemingly enjoys her local sights.

[brewdad]

I randomly picked Jamestown ND as an overnight stop on a recent trip. The next morning we went into the downtown and were pleasantly surprised. Even found a Seattle themed coffee shop with gluten-free options for my travel companion.

Completely unexpected.

[eastof]

Would you mind sharing the general region where you are? Based on your criticisms it sounds like the US, but my experience is quite different. I have only lived on the West coast though, and we're quite spoiled with amazing natural beauty around every corner here. I had a great time road tripping around small towns in the northeast around Vermont and Maine though.

[packetlost]

The Midwest in particular is extremely homogeneous and flat, mostly plains and farmland for hundreds of miles. The West cost has more in 15 miles than the Midwest has in 100, on average. There are pockets here and there, but not enough to warrant the several hour drive it will take to get there.

Honestly, most of the US is like this. It's huge and very, very sparse.

[pretzellogician]

"extremely homogenous and flat" is a common sentiment, but.. it's just not true.

Flat for example. The southern portion of the Midwest can be quite hilly (the northern portion not as much, due to glaciers).

But even there, the definition of "flat" gets confused with "not mountainous". If the topography varies a lot, but there aren't mountains, is it flat? (Max/min vs variance)

[packetlost]

The driftless area certainly has some truly beautiful parts, but my statement is less about the homogeneity across the entire region and more about the distance between any notable landmarks. Hills alone aren't really that interesting either and I stand by my statement that most of the Midwest is boring and flat.

[allknowingfrog]

I've hiked in the mountains and I've swam in the ocean, and I'm perfectly content to live amongst the hills and streams of the Midwest. I suppose it's relative. I live on the east end of the state, and I find the west end pretty flat and boring. :)

[eastof]

Yeah that makes sense, that's too bad. The coasts are the most interesting places for local travel, but the elites living there don't seem to have the time of day for it. More for me I guess.

[radpanda]

If you’re an American, I highly, highly recommend the book American Ramble by Neil King, Jr. The one-sentence summary is “a guy walks from Washington to New York” but he connects with history (and the present) at a walking pace along the way, experiencing much more than the typical Washington->NYC traveler.

[whall6]

I live in Texas, which is probably very similar to where you’re thinking of, and I could list off at least 10 different places within a 1 hour radius that should be visited.

[brewdad]

I grew up in Michigan farm country and have lived in the desert SW and Pacific NW as an adult.

The outdoor attractions out west are world class compared to the attractions closer to where I grew up. Still, there are plenty of places I enjoy when I get back to Michigan to see family and friends. Even the Plains states have some great outdoorsy places, you might have to work a little harder to find them.

[squidsoup]

What you're describing is really why the Backrooms is resonating with the kids today - the homogeneity of an environment and culture devoured by capitalism.

[ericmay]

You are generally correct, despite the rebuttals in the reply comments to yours.

But I think the challenge here is that we can have great places if we do the following:

1. Focus on transportation and ways of living that focus on walking or taking a tram.

2. Create and support medium-density, mixed-use neighborhoods

3. Require good, sound architectural principles. When you think of Paris and those narrow streets or the apartment complexes in the best neighborhoods, we need those. None of this modernist bullshit or 5-over-1s made with recycled concrete. Use bricks, stone, and more. Incorporate design elements requiring skilled craftsmen, and pay for it.

Those 3 alone should get you most of the way there.

My final comment would be, when you're thinking about spending $5,000 - $10,000 or whatever on a big international trip to go look at some nice stuff in some other country, consider spending that money instead on your own home, or garden, or donate to organizations that maintain those things for you. It also doesn't have to be all or none, you can still travel, and still invest locally. Make where you live the kind of place you would have wanted to travel to. Gardens in Great Britain, for example, can happen where you live too you just need to spend the money and build and maintain those things... like they do.

The transit and transportation stuff is much more difficult to fix. Most Americans want a Jeep and suburban house and to wait in line and beep their horn at the Costco gas station and that's a tough hill to climb, but the 3 items I highlighted above are guaranteed to increase quality of life and lower costs long-term.

[m463]

somehow I think of pickleball.