I'm visiting Isle Royale National Park, and I bumped into a hiker who's in his late 20s or early 30s. The conversation turned to travel, when he mentioned the largest city he has ever been to in his life was Grand Rapids, Michigan.
I was pretty shocked to hear this. I asked him, "so you've never even been to Detroit? Not for a best friend's wedding or a road trip or anything like that?" and he said no.
He clearly wasn’t some poor, rural town kid. He had very expensive camping gear and was traveling to a pretty remote national park.
I don’t mean to be judgmental, but how do you make it to your late 20s or 30s in the U.S. and never end up in a large city even once? Not for school, work, a wedding, a trip, or just passing through?
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Michigan surprises me, but it won’t shock me if people in some more rural states have never been to a large city
It’s a big country. You don’t have to go where you don’t want to.
Last time I counted there were 306,138.
According to the interwebs 70-75% of the US population lives within 25 miles of a city center of a top 50 metro. The population density drops off after metros 20-30 but still. The baseline you’re starting with has to be less than half.
Probably a good number.
And for those who have, its probably only been a small number of times. A huge number of Americans hate big cities so go into them as little as possible.
Our country is absolutely massive. Some people have their job and friends/family in their town. For some people, there’s no reason to be in the closest large city
Most Americans have been to a major city.
That’s very rare. Even the most rural people need to go to a city for medical care or something else.
I’ve been to Detroit numerous times, but mostly for sporting events and a concert. I guess if I wasn’t a sports fan or a Kendrick Lamar fan, I would’ve never been to Detroit either.
If going to big cities isn’t your goal, then you don’t go if you don’t have to.
My in-laws met a man in Ireland who lived 10 miles from the ocean and had never seen it (or so he claimed). I’ve met people who have never left their county.
That just one guy, this is not common, depending on what you consider a large city, almost every American has been to a large city in their lives most Americans have been to 8 or more states and have been to a major city in thier own state or a state they traveled to.
It’s tiring when foreigners can’t comprehend just how big the US actually is. While Grand Rapids is not the size of Detroit, it definitely is big enough to have everything that guy probably wants and needs. In fact, Grand Rapids is the second largest city in Michigan.
Many many many Americans don’t need or don’t want to go to the big cities. It’s that simple.
I know quite a few people in WV who’ve never been to a big city.
For a lot of other people, the biggest city they’d been to would be Cincy, Columbus, or Pittsburgh.
I’ve never been to a city larger than Columbus Ohio. Overall not a fan of them, but I do get why people live in them.
The access to well. Anything you ever want within a 10 mile radius is pretty practical.
If only the US also was setup to drop the near requirement to have a car, because in my experience the Bus system in Cbus is… Lacking.
I knew someone who was afraid of Lexington, KY and thought it was a massive city so yeah, they exist.
I have family members in Idaho who believe that Boise is a “huge, dangerous, liberal cesspool.”
These people don’t know anything about the world beyond their town of 1500 people
Rural and poor are not synonymous in the US.
Some states don’t even have large cities, and if they do that doesn’t mean you’re ever going to have a strong reason to visit. In many cases, they’re multipe hours away.
I lived in Pennsylvania for years and never visited Philly or Pittsburgh. Never wanted to, never had a reason to. They were both several hours away.
What do you consider to be a “large city”?
How are you at Isle Royale? The park is closed for another week. Trails are probably buried in snow still.
Anyway, I’d imagine folks from more remote areas would be less likely to go to major cities. How many or what percentage? We’re all just guessing and giving anecdotal information.
What do you consider a large city? I’ve been to San Francisco and Tulsa and Knoxville and Long Beach (the California one) and oh yeah, Nashville. But many people wouldn’t consider those major cities in terms of population or actual city geographical spread. I think I’ve actually driven past more large cities than visited, on my way to more scenic and interesting places.
City living is overrated. I like trees more than people. I’ve been to numerous large cities but I’ve never wanted to stay for more than a day or two.
On the contrary, there are a lot of New Yorkers who almost never leave the five boroughs and have never been to the country.
First off, what do you consider a “large city”?
>Not for school, work, a wedding, a trip, or just passing through?
I don’t know why you would think that school would involve large cities. And most people will get married near where they live, and if you aren’t already close to a city, the people you know probably aren’t living in a city either. Work highly depends on your job. Most people do not travel at all for work.
And as to passing through – does that really count as having been there, though? If I don’t stop and experience the city, I wouldn’t say that I have been there when listing places I have been to.
I grew up in the rural Ozarks, and the largest city I went to as a kid was St Louis. I went to St Louis because our school had a field trip. If it wasn’t for that, the largest city would have been Springfield, Missouri.
A lot of people in this country, they don’t have much time or money or both.
What many non-Americans sometimes fail to understand is that the United States is a vast country which spans the entire width of the North American continent. One maybe doesn’t appreciate the scale until you’ve experienced driving from coast to coast in a car. So if a person is born in a less populous state (like Wyoming or Alaska, for example) it’s not implausible that they may not be exposed to a large city for a first 2 or 3 decades of their life. But with that said, about 80% of the US population lives in what can be classified as an urbanized area. So I’d guess that those who have never experienced a larger city by age 30 likely are a minority of the 350 million Americans who populate the country.
No one ever asks if people who live in a big city ever go to rural areas or an undeveloped natural area like a national forest. It goes both ways.
I have met many Americans who have never seen the ocean, which makes me very sad.