No. of Recommendations: 4
I'm pretty sure that I've seen statistics like "99+% of drives are under 40 miles", so what do you mean by "norm" here? The norm is a road trip (100+ miles) once or twice a year.
The norm, here in the USA, is wide open spaces and the independence of seeing it all on your schedule. From an AI query: Yes, Americans are driving more and many prefer it over flying for vacations and holidays, citing cost savings, flexibility, comfort, and the experience of seeing new scenery as key reasons, especially with high airfare and airport hassles. While flying is faster, surveys consistently show a majority prefer road trips, with recent data indicating rising vehicle miles driven and strong interest in driving for holiday travel in late 2025 and 2024.
I lived in Europe for a couple of years, where the price of gasoline resulted in absolute restraint over going any distance at all. Gasoline is much cheaper here and that economic restraint is less prominent. We are outliers even here in the US, no doubt, as retirees who travel extensively by car, often in areas we know nothing about, often in other countries. We think nothing of driving an hour away for a pickleball game. Much of our driving is rural, and beyond the range issue, the idea of a still unconventional vehicle breaking down in an area that doesn't broadly implement electric vehicles, concerns me for emergency repairs. Our working son does not hesitate to drive 90 minutes one way just to go hiking, fishing, biking, rock climbing in the nearby mountains. Often that is just a day trip, and often he drives deeper into the mountains, or spends multiple days in this rural area where electric charging stations are no where to be found. His friends do the same. My parents spent the first 10 years of their retirement living full time traveling extensively in a motorhome. From Alaska, Canada, all of the continental USA, to Mexico. As a kid we would hitch up the tent trailer to the station wagon, pile in the 6 kids and a dog, drive all vacations and summers long, as my parents were educators with a generous vacation schedule. Covered the whole USA and much of Canada in my childhood. I lived for a year in a 17' motorhome with my brother and parents, traveling all throughout Europe. From Norway to Portugal/Spain, over to Greece and as far east as what was then Yugoslavia. Parents were on a sabbatical getting materials for their classroom. This fact was almost unbelievable to my European friends when I later lived there on my own.
It goes beyond range anxiety. Currently while driving long distances, which I simply don't think twice about, I won't let my vehicle or it's support options if something happens, limit me.
IP,
modern day gypsy
