I had an aunt who lived all of her married life in Brooklyn and visited Manhattan only once. To be sure, she was born and grew up in Philly and visited there regularly, at least while her parents were alive.
My parents never traveled further from Philly than Atlantic City or Wildwood until my uncle moved to suburban VA when they were in their 40s. After that they got around more, until they visited me in Montreal, but those visits were the only time they left the US.
Holy crap, I’ve heard of that place! I remember my high school English teacher telling us about it. Supposedly the name means “you fish on your side, we fish on our side, nobody fishes in the middle”.
Me: Well, I’ve only left the US for a couple of brief visits to Canada, and only the furthest I’ve been from home is Hawaii, but I’ve travelled enough in the 48 states that I don’t qualify for the OP any more. Though growing up (central PA), we went to Ocean City (MD and NJ) a handful of times, and once to Florida, so my first 18 years were not well-traveled.
Actually, probably the most provincial person I’ve encountered grew up in Manhattan. He was 18 and didn’t have a driver’s license or plans to get one and barely seemed to know that even the rest of the U.S. existed.
Excellent point - there are a LOT of New Yorkers like that. I mean, not really the driving thing - I guess it just isn’t part of the culture there, because it’s so inconvenient, but the whole “New York is the world and everybody else wants to be here and why should I ever go there?” mindset is IMHO very, very common.
My friend lives in St John New Brunswick Canada.
Never been anywhere else and now due to debilitating arthritis doesn’t plan to go anywhere.
She has worked for the same place for 25 years and has only changed housing 3 times.
I am trying to get her into travel mode, she’s just so afraid it will be a hassle for everyone concerned due to her health issues.
She’s such a fun person I hate that she’s missing out on what can be some wonderful experiences.
Some people think only NYC and LA exist. The rest of the US is “flyover” country.
I’ve been to:
Peoria, ILL (lived there a couple of years, hated it)
Mid-MO (born and raised, living here now) - I’ve only been to St. Louis and Kansas City a couple of times.
Pikes Peak, CO (when I was 3 - does it count if I don’t remember it?)
Iowa (don’t remember the town - we were visiting family friends and pheasant hunting)
Milwaukee
Jacksonville and St. Augustine (saw the ocean for the first time when I was 25)
Memphis, TN
I’m always amazed by people who live in Hoboken, NJ who almost never go into New York.
“We never go to the City.”
“Why not?”
“It’s too far.”
“It’s right there. I can see it over the river. There are buses, several ferries and the PATH subway train that can take you there in 30 minutes.”
“It’s too much of a pain.”
"I take the bus there every single day for work! I mean what’s wrong with you people?! Don’t you get sick of going to FUCKING ‘BLACK BEAR’ AND ‘GREEN ROCK’ EVERY NIGHT!!? YOU LIVE 2 MILES FROM THE GREATEST CITY IN THE WORLD AND YOU NEVER GO!!
Back in my hometown I knew not one, but three women in their thirties who’d never travelled more than ten miles from their home (and that ten miles was to the nearest hospital to give birth), and rarely travelled more than a mile. This was a smallish urban town 20 miles from London and 20 miles from the seaside (it didn’t have that much going on in the town itself), and they’d never been to either. That I did find mind-boggling. One of the women suddenly changed and started going on occasional holidays to Spain, but still never went into London or anywhere else.
I’ve traveled quite a bit in my life, but I’ve never lived more than about 30 miles from the city in which I was born.