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Comment by jansan | Hacker News Reader

My personal (European) view of what places are of the USA are considered "cool" has completely changed in the last 10 years or so. Before this year I had only been once to the USA, which was as a teenager in Detroit's suburbs many years ago. This year I decided to travel the USA with my wife and kids, but places like San Francisco and New York, which I would have sacrificed a leg to visit not too many years ago, were quite at the bottom on our ranking of places to see. We instead decided to go to Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia, which friends of us described as "boring", which we decided may actually be what we want in these turbulent times. So we went there, had a great time, met wonderful people, and certainly did not regret not going to the "progressive" parts of the USA.

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My personal (American) view is that you made a great decision visiting the South. It's super underrated. I grew up in my little corner of America (New England) and it wasn't until my twenties that I realized just how many amazing places to visit there are in this country with deceivingly friendly people and interesting culture. Americans certainly do not present themselves that way to the rest of the world, but people are usually amazed at how welcoming they can be face-to-face. I think you would have had a good time in NY or SF as well, but it would certainly be different, and probably less memorable, than being pleasantly surprised by "simpler" places in America.

It sounds like you are aging & also perhaps leaning a bit too heavily on the media in deciding where to go.

That said, many areas of the South are among the most underrated parts of the country so I agree with you there.

The age factor certainly played a role, but I do not think the media influenced in my decision a lot. Judging from European mainstream media the southern red states are full of retards, which I cannot confirm from our visit. Quite the opposite, Huntsville seems to be packed with bright engineers, Savannah is full of "weird" (in a very positive way) people, and Nashville is not just the capital of corny country music, but a concentration of musical talent that you will not find anywhere else in the world. I think the main influence was anecdotes from friends. One friend said that New York has lost a lot of its appeal while still being outrageously expensive, another claimed that you cannot stay in lower priced hotels in California anymore unless you are fine with seeing drug addicts in the lobby and bulled proof glass in front of the reception desk. Not sure if all this is true, but I did not feel like finding out.

> Not sure if all this is true, but I did not feel like finding out.

It is most definitely not true

Oh yes, Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia are great as long as you don't need to get an abortion, aren't religious, gay, or non-white.

I'm curious have you been to many of these areas or are you just repeating the things you've read on reddit?

I lived in Vicksburg MS for four years. Mississippi is as bad as everyone says it is, at least. No idea about the other states.

I'd wager that most rural places about the size of Vicksburg (~20k population) are "bad" in that same way. I'm sure there are a few exceptions, but none come to the top of my head.

I really wouldn't call Vicksburg rural, it is actually small town urban serving a county with around 50k people (outside of Vicksburg like in Bovina is rural, however). Also, Vicksburg is fairly close to Jackson (40 minute drive?), but we all know things are much better over there.

I live in one of those states and am visibly nonwhite and haven't stepped inside a church in a long while. Life is great here.

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