I love the U.S.A.
Our country, and the world, since my grandparents' generation (post WWII) through today has undergone a tremendous rise in living standards incomparable to any other period in the history of the world. There are many factors but it's no coincidence that the U.S.'s reign as the world's superpower has coincided with this rise. Whenever I travel I am always thankful for the power my U.S. citizenship brings me and realize that the wealth our nation affords me the opportunity to travel around the world. This is not a similar opportunity afforded to the citizens of many of the location I visit.
I have been virtually everywhere in the U.S. and it's quicker to just list the gaps in my U.S. adventures: at this point it's down to Glacier National Park, and Hawaii although I'd like to return to places like Boston and take deeper dives in the deep South (Mississippi and Alabama) and the Midwest (Nebraska and cities like Detroit, Indianapolis, and Cincinnati). Through family vacations, a 2003 six week cross country road trip, a 2020 road to California and back to see family, and two smaller cross country road trips I've managed to see most of the country.
The U.S.'s greatest strength is its diversity, in terms of culture, economics, thought, geography, cuisine, etc., etc., etc., and for creating an environment in which that diversity is allowed to thrive. I think that diversity can best be seen on a cross-country trip where the diversity is stack on top of diversity from one city to one city and one state to one state. If you visit any country, there's differences between big cities and small towns. There's differences between the North of a country and the South of a Country. But if you go from Tokyo to Kanazawa or from Beijing to Guangzhou or from Bangkok to Chiang Mai, you know you are still in Japan, China, and Thailand, respectively. The British jammed forty-plus subcultures together to form India, and yet it all feels like India. City to City, State to State, the U.S. feels different. Heck, I cross over the Delaware River into New Jersey and I'm scratching my head at their road system while searching for diners. Most Americans struggle with the country's diversity thinking that one-size-fits-all policies will solve all the countries issues or worse, that diversity is the issue. The only consistent, shared thought throughout the country is that healthcare costs are too high.
I wish Americans traveled more and lived internationally but then with so much to explore in the U.S. and with it having such a great quality of life you'd have to be crazy to leave. While many world reports do not list the quality of life, education, and healthcare in the U.S. as the best, I do feel like there is an intangible aspect not covered in those reports - that's not to say we couldn't improve, there's certainly fairness, cost, and efficiency issues, and a growing political polarization that hinders changes - but with the U.S. there is always an opportunity.
My plan for this page is to build this out into a massive Americana site that goes beyond travel and includes the history, politics, pop culture, food, and other aspects that make America great from a rest of the world perspective. The pages will serve as a primer for someone who wants to learn more about the U.S. when they travel in the same way I try to learn about a Japan, China, Cambodia, etc. For now, I'm struggling to complete background on the states, I've traveled through so turning this page into something more is purely aspirational. I'm from and live in Pennsylvania, so the Pennsylvania page has the most info. The content on other state pages varies significantly from - I drove through here once to a few subpages in the case of New Jersey.
Our country, and the world, since my grandparents' generation (post WWII) through today has undergone a tremendous rise in living standards incomparable to any other period in the history of the world. There are many factors but it's no coincidence that the U.S.'s reign as the world's superpower has coincided with this rise. Whenever I travel I am always thankful for the power my U.S. citizenship brings me and realize that the wealth our nation affords me the opportunity to travel around the world. This is not a similar opportunity afforded to the citizens of many of the location I visit.
I have been virtually everywhere in the U.S. and it's quicker to just list the gaps in my U.S. adventures: at this point it's down to Glacier National Park, and Hawaii although I'd like to return to places like Boston and take deeper dives in the deep South (Mississippi and Alabama) and the Midwest (Nebraska and cities like Detroit, Indianapolis, and Cincinnati). Through family vacations, a 2003 six week cross country road trip, a 2020 road to California and back to see family, and two smaller cross country road trips I've managed to see most of the country.
The U.S.'s greatest strength is its diversity, in terms of culture, economics, thought, geography, cuisine, etc., etc., etc., and for creating an environment in which that diversity is allowed to thrive. I think that diversity can best be seen on a cross-country trip where the diversity is stack on top of diversity from one city to one city and one state to one state. If you visit any country, there's differences between big cities and small towns. There's differences between the North of a country and the South of a Country. But if you go from Tokyo to Kanazawa or from Beijing to Guangzhou or from Bangkok to Chiang Mai, you know you are still in Japan, China, and Thailand, respectively. The British jammed forty-plus subcultures together to form India, and yet it all feels like India. City to City, State to State, the U.S. feels different. Heck, I cross over the Delaware River into New Jersey and I'm scratching my head at their road system while searching for diners. Most Americans struggle with the country's diversity thinking that one-size-fits-all policies will solve all the countries issues or worse, that diversity is the issue. The only consistent, shared thought throughout the country is that healthcare costs are too high.
I wish Americans traveled more and lived internationally but then with so much to explore in the U.S. and with it having such a great quality of life you'd have to be crazy to leave. While many world reports do not list the quality of life, education, and healthcare in the U.S. as the best, I do feel like there is an intangible aspect not covered in those reports - that's not to say we couldn't improve, there's certainly fairness, cost, and efficiency issues, and a growing political polarization that hinders changes - but with the U.S. there is always an opportunity.
My plan for this page is to build this out into a massive Americana site that goes beyond travel and includes the history, politics, pop culture, food, and other aspects that make America great from a rest of the world perspective. The pages will serve as a primer for someone who wants to learn more about the U.S. when they travel in the same way I try to learn about a Japan, China, Cambodia, etc. For now, I'm struggling to complete background on the states, I've traveled through so turning this page into something more is purely aspirational. I'm from and live in Pennsylvania, so the Pennsylvania page has the most info. The content on other state pages varies significantly from - I drove through here once to a few subpages in the case of New Jersey.