OneWanderingJew

I came across this travel-related quote and thought it might make some of you laugh, cringe or maybe even cry , "Don't lie to me. I looked on the map and Florida is a very thin state!"

Apparently a certain congressman (I wish I knew which one!) complained to his travel agent who booked his Florida vacation. He was expecting an oceanview room in Orlando for he and his TV star girlfriend(expecting to see the Gulf of Mexico and the
Atlantic?).

And this guy got elected?! No need to comment on the intelligence of our fellow Americans...

Have you ever had any misconceptions about a place you visited, good or bad?

TopMan

Yes, that people who read that "quote" about the "congressman" actually believed it was true.

OneWanderingJew

I read it in Tuesday's Clark Howard travel e-letter. For those of you who may not know who he is, Clark is a very respected consumer/travel reporter with his own daily radio show. He's based out of Atlanta but is now syndicated in numerous markets.

Yes, I can be gullible, Topman--it wouldn't be the first time--but maybe this guy didn't know the state well enough to know that Orlando is in Central Florida and it made for a funny quote.

At any rate, ever find out a place you visited was different than your expectations?

For example, when college friends visited me back when I lived in Northern NJ, they were surprised at how pretty and green and hilly it was. They liked the main streets like in towns like Ridgewood, NJ. When we drove up to West Point, they the loved the scenic drive and the campus itself on the Hudson River. Seems most of them knew about the smokestacks of Elizabeth and Newark, the skyscrapers of NYC, and couldn't picture anything else!

Samsaf

OneWanderingJew: I totally believe you, because a friend of mine was talking about going to Orlando for the first time, and she did ask me if she would be able to see the ocean from her hotel. Another time, my husband and I were thinking about moving to New Mexico (from Tennessee). Several neighbors and friends warned us about moving 'down there.' They thought we were talking about the COUNTRY OF MEXICO.

Anonymous

TopMan was alluding (too indirectly, apparently) to the fact ath that comment about Florida being a "thin state" is one of a dozen or more comments on a list that has been circulating on the itnernet forever, originally as a copendium of general comments and later evolving into allegedly being from a congrssional travel agent who heard all the comments from congressmen. Here's a discussion of hte list, from snopes.com, my favorite Urban Legends web site. Hence, TopMan's comment about YOUR misconceptions.

http://www.snopes.com/travel/trap/congress.htm

MarthaB

LOL! Don't worry OWJ, they used to call me Gully in high school b/c I was so gullible. It makes life more fun.

But, back to your question... My college roommate, who is now a pediatrician, thought Montana (where I grew up) was on the Pacific Ocean. I wish!

I have misconceptions about almost all new places I visit. I usually can't believe how nice most of them turn out to be, so I guess it's in my favor.

Syv

My friend asks, "do you go through Oregon" to get just about anywhere west of Michigan.

annesherrod

When I lived abroad for college, many of my new freinds had never heard of St. Louis MO. When I tried to explain where it was they just I lived in a middle of corn field. They had no desire to visit as I "lived in a corn field".
SAdly, I have met people from the US who have no idea where MO. I have heard "Is that near Montana?" Isn't that the city with the "arc" is another comment. No, but it is the city with the arch.

I actually was talking with a man, 42, who had thought his whole life that Switzerland and Sweden were the same country>

PaulRabe

A running gag in my former residence of Iowa was the number of people who confused the state with Idaho or Ohio, simply because they all sounded (somewhat) alike. Local humorist Dan Hunter wrote a book titled, "The Search for Iowa (and We Don't Grow Potatoes)"

GoTravel

I'll tell you why the above quote does not surprise me.

I have found people to be quite lacking when it comes to simple geography.

I read a study where 1000 high school seniors were given a blank map of the world and were asked to name the continents.

75% were unable to correctly identify four.

Ryan

I think most people believe there is a great deal of diversity in this country and that many places are unique.

I can tell you that is a myth. I've traveled fairly frequently for business and pleasure to many, many parts of the country. Big towns, little towns you name it. New York, live here. Bentonville, Arkansas been there. North Wilkesboro, North Carolina, been there. Seattle, LA, Vegas, Cleveland, Detroit, Phoenix, Salt Lake, Boise, Muskegon, Charlottesville, Knoxville, Joplin, Amarillo, etc, etc, etc.

Thanks to the spread of big box, mass market category killers, we're a nation of ubiquity.

ccolor

When our daughter got married on the island of Jamaica we were amazed at how many people asked us if we were going to fly or drive there from Ohio.

nytraveler

The story in the original post is obviously apocryphal. What's scary is that it could be true - the absolute lack of knowledge of anything even vaguely resenbling geopgraphy is incredibly scary - see the latest poll from National Geographic magazine. An awful lot of people seem to think than penguins come from Panama or is it pandas? Apparently beause they all begin with P.

What ever happened to geography in school? When I was in fifth grade - granted the last ice age - every student had to do a verbal report on a specific country - with maps, economy, major products, animal life, language, culture etc. (Mine was Argentina - and I visited the office of the Argentine embassy to the UN to collect info - a lot of fun - I was amazed at the time they gave me.) But with the internet this is probably aobut 1/2 the work it used to be.

Does this not happen anymore? Is this just further evidence of the stupiding of America?

JJ5

If you are a person who travels, maybe less than most on this board, but still travels a bit and are an American- you will never cease to be amazed at the lack of knowledge of geography by those who live here. It often increases by increments in relationship to decending age, for the most part. People who travel quite a bit are the exceptions. That is one of the reasons I like this board so much. You don't have to "explain" that San Francisco is not as warm as San Diego or why.

One of the reasons is that they do not teach geography as a separate subject in many of the USA grammar schools.

In my own experience I have found that many of the people who live east of the Mississippi clump their knowledge of the West into a kind of category
"thing" and either they think everything is like California TV programs or TV western ranches. I have had educated friends act very surprised when I told them about different climates in California or in Arizona.

The biggest travel misconception I have come across in my life, is that almost every person I have ever told about my trip to East Berlin and East Germany in 1985, doesn't understand the logistics. Even today people will assume that Berlin is/was on the border between the two former Germanies and doesn't "get" that the city was totally surrounded by East Germany. Therefore, the little part of Berlin that was designated West was an island of color many, many miles from any other place remoting like it. It existed in a sea of grey. For those who sought political escape to West Berlin,if they did succeed- they still had to obtain papers to fly out or had a long exodus overland in Eastern block ahead of them. For us, it took 2 inspections (they had mirrors on wheels to look under the bus/ car- as just a part of this)before a line of soldiers with rifles/ assault weapons- followed by 2 different office inquisitions (took our passports)before we got more than 300 feet into into East Germany. This was many hours ride from Berlin. More, again, upon entering Berlin. I will never forget how it felt seeing things in color again. There was mile after mile and a couple of days of grey (no paint?)- in between. We had escort and had to stop/stay overnight/eat- where THEY would be witness. Dorothy dropping into OZ is close to what I felt like when getting through Checkpoint Charlie. The color just hit your eye so hard, I wanted to cry. So very differnt now, and 1985 is not that very long ago.

TxTravelPro

Strange, but versions of that same story have been attributed to many agencies and travelers. Last time I heard it, it was an elderly woman traveler.
The first time I heard it was almost a decade back... these stories circulate amongst travel agents frequently.

hstergius

My biggest misconception: I thought Venice was going to be like Amsterdam - sure, canals everywhere, but roads & grass, too. My husband was going to be in Vicenza for 3 days for work after a vacation we'd had in Austria. We live(d) in Germany then. So, just for grins and without any planning at all, my 6 month old daughter, our dog, and my visiting teenage cousin went with him and scooted over to Venice for a spontaneous, but ill-planned, day.

Venice is NO PLACE for a dog and a baby carriage, both. We managed and no one looked askance - in fact - we got lots of positive attention because the dog and baby were both adorable and (now we know why) there weren't many of either to be seen in Venice. We got so much adoring attention that by midday, Jenney and I both pretended we did not understand any language being spoken to us, even though we often did, as many people at least tried English with us when their first language failed, if English wasn't their first.

The dog sniffed out the only 8x8 patch of grass in Venice. There are about 6 other dogs that live in Venice. They used this grass, too, so I guess it was a pretty strong beacon for Cheetah's sniffer.

We did have fun that day and aren't sorry we went, but I felt very, very dumb that I hadn't even checked anything out! We had a perfectly good baby-backpack at home, too. Dangit.

So, shame on me for not checking it out, but we at least didn't let it spoil our fun.

Rachel

I'm always amazed at how amazed at how many people think of Niagara Falls as a suburb of NYC. Its only about 400 miles away!

placeu2

While in Vegas this summer I started chatting with a woman in her mid 40's or more. Conversation turned to where we were from, she said LA and I said Chicago. Now I am not making the following up: "Chicago? I have never been there, how is the East Coast?" When I gently told her that we were not the East coast, she asked me what we considered ourselves then...Midwest said I. "Well what do you consider East Coast then?" is her retort.

I ran down a couple of cities to her blank looking face.

Nice lady, refined but she is a walking poster for CA jokes.

Ryan

WARNING: INTENTIONALLY SNOBBISH NYC COMMENT.

I'm amazed that anyone thinks there is anything worthwhile between the Hudson River and Los Angeles.


(Don't actually believe this but felt it my duty as a native New Yorker to toss that view out there.)

GoTravel

The above quote is an Urban Legend.

Go to Snopes.com and type in Congress and Orlando in the search. From Snopes.com;

"A Senior Vermont Congressman called, furious about a Florida package we did. I asked what was wrong with the vacation in Orlando. He said he was expecting an ocean-view room. I tried to explain that is not possible, since Orlando is in the middle of the state. He replied, "Don't lie to me. I looked on the map, and Florida is a very thin state!!!" "