Bad US travel advice given to European visitors.

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jackiemac said:
I think that's mostly younger folks. I've never stayed in a hostel.
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I only know what I've seen on TV and things my daughter's friends say and they aren't all that young. We use each other to "fact check" movies and TV shows. I haven't figured out which is worse, the view Hollywood has of Brits or the view BBC/ITV/etc has of Americans. I watch enough brit shows to know they prefer Americans as cliches

The one thing we constantly have to clear up is distances. England is the size of Alabama and Oregon is the size of the UK. The length of time it takes to cross TX just floors them. About once a year, my daughter has to answer a distance question. One of my daughter's friends works on the railway. He doesn't understand why we have so few passenger trains.
 
jackiemac said:
We always warn folk about distances.
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We were planning a trip to Scotland (we lived in Great Wilbraham, a suburb of Cambridge), we were driving. The British that worked with me asked why we would drive to Scotland. It was less than a days drive. I told them Americans will drive two hours just to go out to eat. Maybe it’s the cost of gas.
 
Oldgator73 said:
We were planning a trip to Scotland (we lived in Great Wilbraham, a suburb of Cambridge), we were driving. The British that worked with me asked why we would drive to Scotland. It was less than a days drive. I told them Americans will drive two hours just to go out to eat. Maybe it’s the cost of gas.
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More likely the traffic. Poor flow. Its like driving all day in a big US city. You need full concentration for the whole drive. Gets tiring.
 
Oldgator73 said:
I had an American car in the UK so I drove on the left and sat on the left.
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On one trip, I and a German Coworker were going around training IBM techs on our new equipment. I flew to Frankfort, and we rented a car to drive around to various cities.
We took the ferry over to Dover and drove from there to London. So I am in a left hand drive car, driving in what my instincts insisted was the wrong lane.
It really screws with your senses. Except for a couple of close calls I did pretty well. I'm pretty sure that I would have done even worse had we been driving a British car on the Continent, though.
 
Following along in traffic helps to keep you on track...

When I first visited the US as a Brit in the 70's, I came out of a hotel driveway in a rental car on a quiet Sunday morning with no traffic around, and ended up on the wrong side of the road.

Years later, despite making numerous trips back to the homeland, while visiting the UK as a US resident/citizen, I had a couple of wrong-side events (different years):
  • Leaving a rental car lot at London HRW airport, a shuttle bus was trying to come in and blocked my exit. I sat there for a minute or two, then realized I was attempting to exit via the Entrance. Had the bus not blocked my way, the tires would have been shredded.
  • Leaving a car rental lot (in the correct lane), I drove around the first roundabout in a counter clockwise direction. A double decker bus coming the other way stopped to let me by. Chris made a 'dumb tourist' gesture, and the bus driver just laughed.
 
Tom said:
Following along in traffic helps to keep you on track...

When I first visited the US as a Brit in the 70's, I came out of a hotel driveway in a rental car on a quiet Sunday morning with no traffic around, and ended up on the wrong side of the road.

Years later, despite making numerous trips back to the homeland, while visiting the UK as a US resident/citizen, I had a couple of wrong-side events (different years):
  • Leaving a rental car lot at London HRW airport, a shuttle bus was trying to come in and blocked my exit. I sat there for a minute or two, then realized I was attempting to exit via the Entrance. Had the bus not blocked my way, the tires would have been shredded.
  • Leaving a car rental lot (in the correct lane), I drove around the first roundabout in a counter clockwise direction. A double decker bus coming the other way stopped to let me by. Chris made a 'dumb tourist' gesture, and the bus driver just laughed.
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My first trip to London was a lot like that.
I got to the rental Lot, signed the papers, got the keys and walked out to the car while talking to the Boss on my phone. Walked up and opened the door, and there was no steering wheel. Agh! Sure enough, the guys in the office had apparently been taking bets on whether I would do that. They were all laughing.
I went around the roundabout three times before daring the next step.
I took surface streets all the way out to Marlowe, where our office was, rather than venturing onto the Motorway.
 
LarsMac said:
My first trip to London was a lot like that.
I got to the rental Lot, signed the papers, got the keys and walked out to the car while talking to the Boss on my phone. Walked up and opened the door, and there was no steering wheel. Agh! Sure enough, the guys in the office had apparently been taking bets on whether I would do that. They were all laughing.
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LOL when my parents first visited from the UK, we picked them up at SFO. I deliberately stayed back and let my Dad get into the driver's side of the car.
 
The first time I drove in CA as a visitor from the UK, I picked up a (huge) Ford Ltd from the company carpool. A couple of CA colleagues laughed and said they wanted to see me drive 'a big American car on the wrong side of the road'.

I followed them onto the freeway and, as we approached the exit for my hotel, they were vigorously pointing for me to take the first exit. I ignored them, proceeded under the overpass and took the second exit, which my brain was telling me I needed to take in order to end up on the left side of the road.

Needless to say, I took the wrong exit on the clover leaf intersection and ended up going the wrong way on the connecting expressway. Didn't see my hotel which should have been right at the 'correct' freeway exit. Eventually turned around and found my way back to the hotel. My colleagues were eagerly calling my hotel room to see if I made it back.

Almost 50 years later, I remember that experience every time I approach a clover leaf on a freeway, and smile to myself.
 
LarsMac said:
My first trip to London was a lot like that.
I got to the rental Lot, signed the papers, got the keys and walked out to the car while talking to the Boss on my phone. Walked up and opened the door, and there was no steering wheel. Agh! Sure enough, the guys in the office had apparently been taking bets on whether I would do that. They were all laughing.
I went around the roundabout three times before daring the next step.
I took surface streets all the way out to Marlowe, where our office was, rather than venturing onto the Motorway.
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Our first couple of years camp hosting I had one of those right-hand drive Mitsubishi mini trucks as a work vehicle. Even after 2 years I couldn't keep track of the number of times I walked up to the left side of the truck to get in. This was also after several years of dealing with my boss's '61 Rolls Royce that was also right hand drive.
 
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