It's a lot about height + antenna selection. I've had better luck with Rak stuff than the more popular and super cheap Heltec V3 (but the V3 is a great little gateway into Meshtastic, and isn't too bad in certain areas).

I feel like Meshtastic is a lot like what ham radio felt like 50ish years ago. People experimenting with antennas and radios... dealing with the FCC and band allocations...

I do find there's proportionately more "prepper" types on the mesh, at least here in the Midwest, than I encounter online. Makes sense, though, considering how a lot of it is described.