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Comment by RugnirViking | Hacker News Reader

id probably add to that: Lots of hostile neighbors. Korea/japan (both koreas) relations aren't great, netiher are russia nor china. Meaning you gotta fly a long long way to get anywhere. Similar to how there are many people from american midwest whove never been abroad.

living in europe all my life, almost everyone has been abroad here, but much much fewer have ever left europe, which is essentially what japanese people would have to do to go anywhere that doesnt view them with suspicion

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The US is so huge that you literally cannot visit another country by land (save Canada, aka Diet US; or Mexico, aka California Sur) - and there are definitely regional variations but it’s all much more similar than even a couple hundred miles in Europe.

A common school trip in the USA is visiting Washington, DC; for some that’s a six+ hour flight. The same flight in most places in Europe would put you in Asia or Africa.

Mexico is culturally completely different than the US and definitely counts as another country lol. Canada mostly doesn’t except for a few regional chains and such but Mexico is very much not diet California in any way

You have to get pretty far into Mexico; Tijuana and LA are more similar than different. (This may be because LA is something like 50% Hispanic)

I wandered just a bit south on a whim with no destination and as you go even a bit past the first major city the roads are empty, people just leave the highway whenever, the city streets are dirt with massive pits, and the small towns can resemble permanent homeless camps with fences cobbled together from box springs. The experience feels quite lawless (or at least significantly different enforcement) than a drive at random in the United States.

I know the whole country is not like that, but it is not a vacation spot I would go without a plan unlike the US where you can do a cross country drive and rely there will be services almost everywhere.

I've been to places like that in the USA, and yes, Mexico is different, but it takes a decent distance to get that different.

But I'll grant that Mexico is another country, unlike Canada :D

bollocks. 10km from the border its going to look and sound pretty gringo -- since thats who its catering too -- but leave the tourist areas and its not the same at all.

plus only ~30% of LA is hispanic, which is roughly akin to all of the US, regardless of what Latin country or area they're from. peruvians ain't mexican, amigo.

No the comment is right, LA is almost 50% hispanic today. A lot of the development for certain neighborhoods honestly looks similar as parts of Mexico. (The more single story, working class, chicken wire and plaster parts of LA at least)

Some parts of Tijuana are similar to some parts of San Diego but for the most part no

A huge portion of socal is Hispanic but the culture overall is more American than Mexican IMO

I live Dallas area, Texas. The whole area is commonly referred to as "North Texas".

A common vacation is to drive to the mountains in Colorado, a state to the north west.

To even get out of Texas from my house is an 8 hour, 500 mile (800k km) drive. It is crazy how big the US is.

Texas is big even for the USA; and I believe you can find almost every possible biome there (except polar perhaps) without leaving the state. Whereas some Eastern states are so small that the majority of people leave and return every week.

California and Texas are big enough that you can drive for a whole day and never leave the state; Rhode Island is small enough that you can bike your way out of the state in a few hours.

http://emptypipes.org/2015/07/13/flight-times-map/ (centered on DC, you can not change location on mobile)

6 hours will get you to the US from EU.

> id probably add to that: Lots of hostile neighbors. Korea/japan (both koreas) relations aren't great, netiher are russia nor china. Meaning you gotta fly a long long way to get anywhere.

South Korea is one of the top international destinations for Japanese people. It has varied over time, but right now it actually may be the top destination.

Yeah, and K-pop and K-dramas are massively popular in Japan.

It's not like they have many other options.

Taiwan and Japan have friendly relations, and supposed to be a popular destination for Japanese tourists (this I couldn't find real stats on this).

There is also internal Japanese tourism - such as to Okinawa or Kyoto

Yes reasonably so, Guam and Hawaii are the go-to overseas destinations you hear people mention, but Taiwan is close and cheap. You can fly there LCC very cheap, and the Japanese view it as much more comfortable a visit than say visiting mainland China (because it is).

yep as I understand it taiwan is fairly common. Certainly I know a lot of people in taiwan speak some japanese

Europe is quite uniquely positioned as a starting point for travelling. There's a big diversity in a small amount of area, with cheap travel options (within Europe flights are cheap). If you want to travel farther, Europe is still "centrally located" relative to the land mass.

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