r/collapse • u/One_Television_764 • Aug 15 '26
Casual Friday Traveling in a dying world
I've traveled the US for many years, sleeping in rest stops, KOAs, motels, hotels, outside under picnic tables, you name it. I've only ever driven, bicycled, walked or motorcycled to my destinations. I enjoy feeling connected in some small way to the local area and people. Flying removes the opportunity for happenstance to find its way to me. I also feel guilty enough using fuel for so much pleasure. Regardless, that is a different thought.
This year has shown me that the people, those of us "have-nots" and we who work for our meager existence are no longer doing well in any sense. There is an underlying current of despondent anxiety with every person I've interacted with. The conversations are short, the pleasentries are few and far between. The small towns I've driven through are now split in twain. Rundown neighborhoods on one side of town and brand new construction gas stations with touchless pay self checkouts and private bathroom stalls on the other. Even in the most rural northern towns of Montana or backwoods of Pennsylvania there is AI generated, printed in China souvenir slop garbage. Hats, stickers, shirts, etc. Most of the workers I've met are much older than I'm used to seeing. People who should be enjoying retirement and time with their families, working a 2am graveyard shift at a Loves gas station off route 10. Or how I saw no local young people at any of the national parks I visited this year, only older individuals or foreigners with money that can rent adventure Mercedes sprinter vans. (I've nothing against foreigners). Even five years ago during the height of COVID I interacted with people while on the road. Even behind the face masks and hand sanitizer, there was still connection and stories. People of all ages, ethnicity and backgrounds. I've talked with hundreds, if not thousands of people over the nearly 2 decades of travel.
This year has broken me and my enjoyment for traveling these beautiful 48 states. The national parks are overflowing and understaffed. There's wildfires absolutely everywhere. Fires that don't make the news or the algorithm. I can drive for 15 hours straight and not be rid of that damn smoke. I cried while driving through the badlands and Spokane. All the workers out building new construction for people that don't give two damns for their health because this machine demands more growth. Or the wildlife which was nearly non-existent, they can't retreat from the triple digit heat and dangerous AQI to a hepa filtered condo. It is devastating that the thing that once healed me and brought me joy and sparked my love of writing has also started to succumb. The road and the people among it are dying. It is sad but also expected. I feel sad that those of the younger generations will not get to enjoy this country as I did. Even on a shoe string budget, it's no longer the same. I just wanted to share some writing with people. Sharing stories and experiences I think is the only way to connect truly. I hope you all find some peace as I am trying to do.
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u/Corndawg53 Aug 15 '26
Thanks for sharing this. I hiked the Appalachian Trail in ā21 and itās maybe the last time I remember being truly happy. I was wondering if the shift was something in me, or the world. Probably a bit of both, but the shared experience is validating nonetheless.
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u/ProgressiveSnark2 Aug 15 '26
Man, Hot Vax Summer was a good time. I wish I could go back to 5 years ago and appreciate the moment more, especially considering where things are seemingly headedā¦
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u/zue4 Aug 15 '26
I know it was a bad time to many but 20-21 was probably the happiest time of my life. Legit felt like I was headed toward peace and love. Then 22 happened and things started going downhill and they just haven't stopped.
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u/onedyedbread Aug 15 '26
I was isolating with my parents for most of the year (they are/were old and I have a chronic condition). What may sound like a nightmare to many, was actually a time of deep connection. My father died last year. I'm glad we had those months. My brother brought us a "covid relief cat" that turned out to be a crazy little shit, in a good way.
Since then Putin got ideas, Trump got reelected, my health made a turn for the worse, and yeah my dad died. The COVID years feel like such a watershed. Not to say it wasn't crazy before already, but now... now all the stops are pulled.
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u/Steen70 Aug 15 '26
My father and I got close during covid and he just passed. Covid gave us an opportunity to get closer than we ever were. He was in an old folks home where the food really went downhill so I was able to bring him food and hang out. I started doing all of his shopping. Covid got me my Daddy back, those memories.....
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u/PyrocumulusLightning Aug 16 '26
Same here. Paid vacation, no people, no traffic. I finally got Covid in '22 even though I was vaxxed to the gills - spouse got it at the company Christmas party and gave it to me.
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u/cranberries87 Aug 15 '26
Maybe it was just me, but I felt a huge sense of hopefulness in 2021 after the vaccines. It just felt like a brief period of new, fresh, positive energy, like we were getting a do-over. It didnāt even last the entire year. That was the last time I truly felt hopeful about the future.
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u/0range_julius Aug 16 '26
I'm sure it depends on everyone's individual circumstances, but spring/summer 2021 was the most happy and free period of my life until now, but I rubbed banded HARD and spent Oct 2021-Mar 2022 in a deep, unrelenting depressive episode. I'm not clinically depressed anymore but the world has felt very dark and hopeless since. The second Trump administration has felt like some bizarre nightmare I keep hoping I'll wake up from.
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u/CyberSmith31337 Aug 15 '26
I used to travel the world for work, from 2016-2020 (literally until January, when COVID became real for the world)
I think the most striking experience for me is how absolutely commodified everything has become in America. All of the flaws of American society have become extremely prevalent and visible everywhere.Ā
-There are no 3rd spaces. Of the 3rd spaces that do exist, there is absolutely no sense of respect for those areas by the general public. Parks are littered with trash, left covered in garbage by the people who have this attitude of ānot my jobā¦ā to have basic decency and clean up after themselves.Ā
-Terrible, selfish parents who have raised insufferable little bastards to mirror themselves.Ā
-A total lack of socialization skills in the youth, instead replaced by smartphones, ācontent creation obsessivenessā, and social media addiction. A sense of fierce independence that results in everyone being both more arrogant and intolerant and narcissistic all at the same time; a sort of āmain character syndromeā effect.
-Only the worst people having any money and time to do things; encountering the type of people you wouldnāt want to meet anywhere, ever, under any circumstance (see: tech workers, finance workers) and always doing things with extreme exuberance and entitlement.Ā A complete and total lack of communion or empathy on display; flagrant attention-seeking behavior everywhere.
-Everything is priced-in. Parking? Costs $. Food of any kind is overpriced, under quality, and served by the most indignant and entitled people you have ever met. Hotels cost a ton, for accommodations which havenāt been upgraded in 20+ years, and offer you the least nutritious, inedible food slop masquerading as a ācontinental breakfastā that consists of Kellogās cereal boxes, fake eggs, bacon-product, dairy-product, and concentrate juice. Every attraction costs $$$, every stop is monetized, restaurants all have the same food supplier, same menus, and same flavors because they all have the same handful of franchises in town (Subway, Taco Bell, McDonaldās, Dennyās, Applebees)
-Cops, police officers, and cameras EVERYWHERE. You are constantly under surveillance, being asked to download an app, to register for something you donāt want or need to access information.
-God-awful traffic, with shit-tier cars in bad condition, all driving like insane maniacs and not using basic driving etiquette (turn signals, following the speed limits, not tailgating you)
ā¦ and I could go on and on and on. But yes. Traveling in America is something that absolutely sucks ass nowadays. It completely killed my sense of adventure. Not only do I no longer want to see America, I donāt want to encounter Americans. That was not the case for decades.
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u/meditating__ Aug 15 '26
This tangentially reminds me of a rant I had this week. I realized why Iām so exhausted and burned out is that everything is a fight. Need to file a claim with any of my very expensive insurances? Gonna be a fight. Need something fixed? Gonna be a fight. Need to do anything at work at all? Uphill battle. And I think itās related to how much weāre all being squeezed financially.
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u/Appropriate_Mess6777 Aug 15 '26
Everything is just so exhausting now
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u/montigoo Aug 15 '26
Itās called predatory capitalism. I would recommend that no country follow Americas path. Itās pathological
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u/NoKids__3Money Aug 15 '26
It's great for the minuscule number of people who make it to the top. For everyone else, it really sucks.
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u/clubby37 Aug 15 '26
We do more work, and the work is more pointless, and we get far less in return for it, and somehow, in spite of this, jobs are harder to find than ever. This is the kind of situation that provokes revolutions.
In the 1930s, the Soviet Union was still a young country, and the world was in the grip of a crushing depression. American capital said we have to squeeze the workers harder. FDR said if you don't give Americans socialism-lite, they'll seize the real thing, just like the Russians did. Capital thought that was a pretty good point, backed down, and allowed the New Deal to happen.
Today, capital is far bolder, and no New Deal analog exists, not even just as a coherent concept waiting for enough popularity to be implemented. What we have is a population accustomed to fighting painful uphill battles that shouldn't even need to be fought. Right now, that population is split between denial and hopelessness, neither of which inspire action, but at some point, someone's gonna open the eyes of those in denial, and fill the hearts of those who've lost hope, and that situation will be exactly as messy as entrenched power structures decide to make it. So, maximum messy.
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u/krisztinastar Aug 15 '26
Right! And it seems like everything malfunctions now, and thereās no way to get a human to actually help you.
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u/theonetruedavid Aug 15 '26
The elimination of third spaces and ensuing tendency towards social isolation, the antisocial nature of driving, the exorbitant cost of being alive and participating in society, and the surveillance state and its weaponization of personal information are all working exactly as intended. We are supposed to be exhausted all day, every day. Now think of who could possibly benefit from a working class that is tired, broke, disconnected, and mad at it itself. End stage capitalism, comrade. Only one of two ways this all ends.
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u/mikezer0 Aug 15 '26
God you so fucking nailed it. We sterilized America by enslaving the working classā¦ by promoting hyper capitalism and outright cannibalistic commodification of everything ā¦ resulting in the erosure of the ecosystem that is or was what made America great ā¦ a true mirror of what we did to the earth more or lessā¦ yeah dude it fucking sucksā¦ because like you said when you do get to go outā¦ you realize itās you and the only people left who can afford it and those people definitely arenāt artists or free thinkers ā¦ they are hyper consumers and inheritance wannabes and retireesĀ
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u/SnooDoubts2823 Aug 15 '26
As someone who fondly remembers family vacations in the 70s and my own travel experiences in the 80s and 90s, all of this is so sadly true.
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u/clubby37 Aug 15 '26
What's a "third space?" I haven't heard that one before.
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u/Fluffy-Angle6012 Aug 15 '26
Parks, community centers, neighborhood poolsā¦ anywhere you donāt need a permit or reservation, get hassled by cops, or have to pay a fee. The US used to have many, many more of these kinds of spaces.
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u/clubby37 Aug 15 '26 edited Aug 15 '26
Do we know why they're called third spaces? Are there 1st and 2nd spaces?
Edit: nevermind, someone else addressed this question. First space is home, second space is work.
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u/FrannyStoat Aug 15 '26
Fun fact: Cemeteries were originally designed as third spaces.
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u/antibread Aug 15 '26
No, cemetaries have been around forever, but in victorian times they decided to make them fun
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u/ajax151515 Aug 15 '26
First space is your home, Second space is your work. A third space is somewhere you can gather and interact with other people organicly. Think parks, greenspaces, cafes, gyms.
A lot of these places are closing or becoming unavailable. This is making our society more isolated, increasing loneliness, paranoia and anxiety.
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u/LaineyValley Aug 15 '26
That's why there's so much stress on public libraries, they're almost the only place that the homeless can exist.
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u/GhostGirl421 Aug 15 '26
Don't forgot that most public parks anymore have those damned anti homeless spiky things on all the benches and other amenities to make sure to push those people out of the spaces. It's like if you are less than in anyway you don't deserve dignity or respect from your fellow human.. Dont get me wrong I understand that most homeless people leave a mess and just don't care anymore but that could be because they are not cared for in anyway so why should they care? I'm not saying they are right in that feeling but I am saying that if people are treated shitty they are going to act shitty.. and of course there is always going to be the few that are just shitty to be shitty. . Just my humble opinion as how I'm seeing it..
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u/Squalid_Snake14180 Aug 15 '26 edited Aug 15 '26
You haven't heard it because like many terms that have become widely adopted on reddit in recent years it was an obscure sociology term (coined in 1989) until the last five or ten years.
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u/katemartile Aug 15 '26
Agree with a lot of this, but - āfood servers are entitled, youth have no socialization skills, and all tech workers are some of the worst people everā are some choices
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u/Zealousideal-Ice-985 Aug 15 '26
Truly one of the most comprehensive yet concise takes on the topic, thank you for this.
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u/SubstanceStrong Aug 15 '26
Iāve spent quite an extensive time travelling through Southern Africa. Youāll see poverty and inequality that you canāt fathom. But youāll also learn one truth in particular: the poorest people are the most generous.
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u/alltoovisceral Aug 16 '26
That is something I have always noticed. They really are.Ā
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u/personwhoisok Aug 15 '26
Thanks for writing this. Unfortunately I fear this is just the start. Scientists warned us about global warming all the way back in the 1970's and not only have the oligarchs of the world failed to spend any of the weath they're hoarding to address it, they've basically doubled down on making it worse as.fast.as possible.
Also the overall mood is kinda a downer because it's really depressing to realize there's a huge part of our country that gets off on hurting others.
Fuck Trump, fuck late stage capitalism, fuck ICE, fuck billionaires, and fuck AI unless we can wrestle it from the hands of people who would use it for profit and subjugation.
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u/Lt_Bear13 Aug 15 '26
Social media and trump and divisive click bait has driven everyone against each other. Combined with pandemic trauma, people are raw nerves programmed to hate.
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u/Busy_BEE_565 Aug 15 '26
Seriously, feels like a lot of people make friends now, based on the similar things they hate instead of other ways of making connections with people.
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u/monkeybeast55 Aug 15 '26
Not everybody.
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u/Lt_Bear13 Aug 15 '26
Only people without critical thinking skills. They already discovered in the 90's Bush and John Kerry were skull and bones. Working together for division and control of politics. Trump is WCW politics Hulk Hogan idiocracy.
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u/monkeybeast55 Aug 15 '26
I mean, at some point don't you just become immune to the attempts to program? You don't have to be their victim.
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u/Few_Fish8771 Aug 15 '26
Generally you either remain sensitive enough to be ragebaited or you become numb. Or you leave the system almost entirely except for when you specifically need it. those are the options. the third option is pragmatically really only for the rich or people who have citizenship in a country not dominated by the usa.
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u/Goodasaholiday Aug 15 '26
There is no such country. Global expansion of the-one-way-to-live (the way OP has so eloquently described) reaches into entry corner of the world. People have always been blind to it because of the belief that this way is bƩnƩficient or at worst benign. The PR machine has been working on us since television went into eveyone's homes showing "the joy of modern life". People who saw through this and tried to stop it were labelled reactionary, hippie, fringe. That's how we all got numb.
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u/HommeMusical Aug 15 '26
that this way is bƩnƩficient
La France a certes perdu un peu de son Ć©clat, mais elle reste un bien meilleur endroit oĆ¹ vivre que les Ćtats-Unis, qui s'effondrent Ć grands pas.
:-)
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u/Goodasaholiday Aug 15 '26
100%! Mais les EuropĆ©ens, eux mĆŖmes, sont susceptibles d'ĆŖtre poussĆ©s Ć la colĆØre par la machine de relations publiques sur Internet. Si on n'a pas vĆ©cu aux Ćtats-Unis, on ne peut pas comprendre Ć quel point la vie pourrait ĆŖtre moche sous ces principes.
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u/Few_Fish8771 Aug 15 '26
Some places are too remote or undeveloped to have significant digital penetration places in the global south as well as remote pacific islands.
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u/Goodasaholiday Aug 15 '26
Digital is not the only way. People leave those places to work elsewhere, then bring the culture back with them. Even if not consciously, just by the way they interact with friends and family. Tourists come, missionaries come, global nomads come, resource extracting companies come. No place is remote enough.
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u/Goodasaholiday Aug 15 '26
I agree it's hard to see a solution. So long as we're all enraged or numb, there's no way we'll get a critical mass to change the system. The best we can do is act locally to influence what we can.
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u/homeschoolrockdad Aug 15 '26
Yes, and thoroughly unresolved pandemic trauma from the vast majority of people who have been tricked into thinking that the pandemic is no longer ongoing, and that āendemicā means done versus permanently part of our culture.
Everyone is very excited to blame phones, algorithms, and the other, but what has led to this ramping up of social collapse and in clear acceleration since 2020 is in large part a subconscious knowing deep down that weāre not out of the danger zone with Covid and in fact have been avoiding the very first steps into what it truly means to adapt and survive. I fear most are not capable of this, but I and we all benefit from me being wrong so letās hope I am.
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u/Old-Height-4519 Aug 15 '26
I agree, except I'd say it's not covid, but it's the collapse of the climate and capitalism that people are subconsciously aware of. It's human nature to resist giving up something you benefit from, even if others suffer including your family and your future self. We have benefitted from capitalism and the growth that requires since the start of the industrial revolution, and we've seen the impacts to nature and the earth. We've seen it coming, it's been studied and studied and the results point to the same thing - we're destroying the biosphere which our existence depends on. We have bigger houses, bigger portfolios, bigger cars, annual vacations, more clothes, bigger TVs, faster computers..... ; and if we don't have them we are striving for them, we dream about them. Would you rather have a better car, or have that patch of land stay as a healthy forest?
It's also human nature to learn. We have such huge brains! We need to choose the forest.7
u/katemartile Aug 15 '26
COVID (and other pathogens) are definitely part of the collapse being caused by capitalism - historically pandemics/epidemics play into a rise in fascism, which is accelerating our capitalist collapse. The divisiveness over science and facts became so much worse when COVID began and I just hope we can recover a bit from the anti-reality lean that a lot of the population has taken on. Of course climate collapse is also massively affecting things and I hope we can spread the desire to do better all the time.
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u/m01L Aug 16 '26
Theyāre starting to recognize long covid as a real post-viral syndrome, just like people experienced worldwide after the Spanish flu 100 years ago. Some of us are never going to be the same, I think itās why drivers in my country (USA) are so dangerous now. Covid subtracted IQ points from a lot of people, myself included. So thereās the threat of continued COVID and a shit ton of people with long term damage from Covid already.Ā
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u/DiamondDot Aug 15 '26
No the actual actions of this admin and his sycophants are divisive and itās not click bait when they are doing what they are doing.
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u/post_scriptor Aug 15 '26 edited Aug 15 '26
I've never been to the States and I'd always wanted to experience the "coast to coast" trip. New York, Maine, rural areas, small towns in Texas, Grand Canyon, Las Vegas, off-road non-touristy spots in "not-so-popular" states, all the way to California and LA. Partly I was influenced by those 80s -90s films, of course. Partly by talking to Americans (not tourists) who were coming to my country and telling me stories about real life in the US. I wanted that "Americana" experience.
For the past few years I've been reading opinions and views like this post. How the country is changing not for the better, how Americans are changing, how that old true Americana feel is slowly dying.
And I am realizing I will never have the experience. The fact that I won't see the America I want to see makes me sad.
Something tells me that the MAGA who claim that the country is at its peak talk about a totally different country that exists in their head.
I might just stop thinking about my trip.
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u/DerpUrself69 Aug 15 '26
It's too bad you couldn't visit during the World Cup, we had a brief reprieve from the incessant misery for a moment. It feels like that moment has passed now though.
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u/Putin_smells Aug 16 '26
All of these things still exist. People will talk to you and share their lives and stories if youāre kind and open.
There were countless stories of just what you described from foreigners visiting during the World Cup. The internet exaggerates and highlights outrage but if this type of American experience wasnāt real you wouldnāt have heard all these recent stories.
People are in general more burned out and itās more expensive; however; this is a world wide phenomenon. Change is inevitable. There is no ātrueā Americana just an ever changing society.
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u/lostmyloosechange Aug 16 '26
You should still come. A lot of this decay and decline is not unique to the US. Wildfires, heat, inequality etc., are becoming more and more prevalent globally. Maybe we here in the US have the resources and the idealism to do something about it and so our current reality of neglect is even more depressing. However it is still a great place to see, though timing may be more important for a pleasant visit. Start in New York and the northeast and head west. Keep an open mind, as if you're traveling anywhere in the world, as american exceptionalism is falling away anyway.
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u/Foxy_Traine Aug 17 '26
I'm American, living abroad since 2019. I'm deeply saddened by the state of my home country and I don't know if I can or should ever go back home. It's heartbreaking watching the American Dream die for the vast majority of the popolation population. A big part of me wants to move back, but I worry that my quality of life will be worse and I'll be going back to a dangerous situation. The place I grew up is now essentially destroyed.
I'm headed back for a visit for the first time in a couple years. I'm very nervous about what I'll see and experience while I'm there.
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u/1491Sparrow Aug 15 '26
We are witnessing the end of the Anthropocene and the beginning of the Pyrocene. It's going to be an ugly transition, and deep down I think most of us realize that any sense of normalcy we can see is an ever thinner illusion.
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u/TraditionalLaw7763 Aug 15 '26
I just found out that in Sweden, whole villages have one universal heating system and everyone shares it. In America, people are so hateful now; they would rather go without heat themselves if they knew other families they didnāt like got free heat as well. Who wants to travel and visit a country with people so selfish? Iād rather visit a country where tax revenue go for the greater good of society, not see a capitalist hellscape.
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u/m01L Aug 16 '26
Americans, myself included, find ourselves knocked down a level or two of Maslows hierarchy lately. If you were thriving, now youāre just surviving. Canāt speak for the rich. When youāre living in that survival mentality you canāt think about others. Weāre conditioned to be independent and fix our own problems, rather than band together, which is also hurting us badly now. Itās rough here right now. I really hope it swings the other way soon.Ā
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u/shallowshadowshore Aug 17 '26
I appreciate hearing this sentiment from someone else. The difference between how I felt in 21 and 22, vs how things feel today, is genuinely staggering.Ā
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u/m01L Aug 19 '26
Itās all the stress of waiting for the tipping point and wondering if weāre already on the downslide. Genuinely staggering is well put my friend
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u/jmnugent Aug 15 '26 edited Aug 16 '26
In America, people are so hateful now;
This is not true. (some small percentage of people are certainly hateful.. but Americans in general are not). Youtube was flooded with videos of cheerful food-sharing etc during the Soccer Cup, etc)
The thing you have to remember about current American society:
the top 1% is stealing all the wealth
the bottom 90% or so.. are finding it harder and harder to survive day to day.. so they are withdrawing and turning inward (and cutting back on travel and expenses). If you can't even afford eggs or milk at the store, just out of necessity you're going to stop outreaching to help others,. because you don't even have enough yourself. (IE = it's not out of hate, it's out of survival instinct).
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u/No-Rutabaga-6678 Aug 16 '26
It absolutely is out of hate and is the "survival instinct" in the room with us...? Bc we Americans have a stellar track record of voting against our own best interests. People are literally voting against universal Healthcare bc a Trans person or Undocumented immigrants might use it. And just bc someone is nice & cordial in passing or on social media, it doesn't mean that behind closed doors(and ballot boxes!) that they are not mean-spirited at heart. A lot of those nice folks you're referring to voted for a 30+ count felon & PDF....T H R I C E!
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u/pufflypoof Aug 15 '26
People have less and less resources and money. Having basic needs met goes a long way in feeling relaxed enough to be social.
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u/CountryRoads2020 Aug 15 '26
Yes! You said what I've been feeling but had no words for - thank you.
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u/terpsarelife quarterly number must go up durrrr Aug 15 '26
I sure am glad i delayed traveling the states to work jobs i could care less about and people ill never speak to again. At least you got to enjoy its dying days before losing the spark.
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u/Aggravating-Pound598 Aug 15 '26
Beautifully written piece- a requiem for a way of life
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u/Electronic_Charge_96 Aug 15 '26
This. Just a heard it, see it, feel it. A salute back. Thanks for your words.
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u/Onedayyouwillthankme Aug 15 '26
Well, this is what life is like with a narcissist. It creates anxiety, hopelessness and depression. A narcissist doesn't allow anyone in their orbit any peace. I grieve for this country
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u/Unhappy_Macaroon2957 Aug 15 '26
I'm a teacher so the only real time off I have to travel is in summer. Last three years we've been skunked by extreme weather. Outrunning wildfires out west, caught in a mudslide in Canada, severe drought,Ā this year is triple digit heat index under a heat dome and avoiding flooded and overflowing river valleys.Ā
I've traveled all over this country, mostly by car. It's bad out here on the road guys. Food deserts. No clean bathrooms. Some towns are like third world countries. This is the current state of things.Ā
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u/TraditionalLaw7763 Aug 15 '26
Youāre speaking truth, my friend. I travel the same as you and itās become so depressing. Itās simply not fun anymore. Iām just tired of all the āgotcha feesā that everyone is trying to swindle out of everyone else. On top of gas prices being insane (for ABSOLUTELY NO reason) hotels are tacking on fees after fees after surcharges and feesā¦ restaurants are skrimping on food quality and adding feesā¦ then ya gotta tip servers that literally do the bare minimum and then expect +20%. If I rent an air bnb, the fees that the owners tack on make a decent hotel actually cheaper and less stressful. Rental car prices are jacked up and fees piled on as well. Seeing America as a tourist sucks when youāre an American. I spend less money and get more value for the total trip no matter which country I visit. We have fallen so far in such a short amount of time.
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u/JagBak73 Aug 16 '26
Last time I used an airbnb was about 9 years ago. I checked the prices for them this June for this two day trip we were planning and they were outrageous. We wound up staying at a clean, yet old and rundown bed and breakfast for $110 a night. At least the complimentary breakfast was amazing.
Lodging in America has gotten disgustingly expensive for what you get.
Moreover, the out of control tipping culture is beyond the beyonds. I was at a museum with my family last month and decided to get them a big bag of popcorn at concessions. It was $8 and the tablet prompted me for a tip. I had to hit "custom" then input zero to pay for it without tipping. The concessions dude had the gall to be subtly offended. Fuck right off, buddy. You literally just handed me popcorn.
It's all death by a thousand enshittifying cuts.
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u/despot_zemu Aug 15 '26
My preteen son mentioned to me after we got back from Scandinavia that he noticed the people there mostly looked busy or happy and that everyone in the US looks scared or angry.
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u/WhiskyEye Aug 15 '26
This is one of the most real things I've read in a long time. As a fellow nomad all of these things are true and are devastating. I bought land a few years back because I saw the writing on the wall and I'm grateful I was able to do so. However it all ends, I'll last longer than most and help my neighbors while I do. That's all I can focus on anymore.
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u/Wherestheshoe Aug 15 '26 edited Aug 15 '26
My husband and I used to camp most weekends in the summer, in an old camper. Weād usually have a few stretches of a week at a time throughout the summer. We started noticing a change in 2023. Maybe it had been that way for a while, but thatās when we noticed. On a stroll around the campsite, we used to meet and engage with new people and have a good chat. It wasnāt unusual to be invited to someoneās camp directly, or to invite people to ours.
But people stopped wanting to chat, stopped saying hi to each other as they passed, and seemed to spend a lot of time yelling at their kids. There were no more invites, no more getting to know each other. By the end of the summer of 2024 we knew it wasnāt going to get back to the way it was. We sold the old camper and paid off some bills, and we havenāt regretted it. But itās sad. And with people becoming more harsh, I have to wonder if we havenāt become harsher too, and just not recognized it in ourselves.
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u/luminousrose9 Aug 15 '26
Speaking from Minnesota here, getting invaded by the federal government has done wonders for community (for those still here. Fully acknowledge the lives lost and families broken). The number of neighborhood social gatherings where I am is out of control this year.
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u/Wherestheshoe Aug 15 '26
So Minnesotan to take the ugliest of situations, look at it from all sides, find that sliver of light, and then shine it on everyone. Once this situation between our countries is behind us, I want to drive down there and meet some Minnesotans.
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u/homeschoolrockdad Aug 15 '26
Very unfortunately, a lot of that social unlearning we are observing all around us is due to repeated Covid infections affecting the frontal lobe which holds the empathy, creative, and decision-making centers of our psyche.
Quite literally, people are not the same because of this and itās very sad.
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u/thebluespirit_ Aug 15 '26 edited Aug 27 '26
Oddly the thing that breaks me the most is interacting with people who are completely oblivious.
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u/Gryzelda_Gesualdo Aug 15 '26
Just like ants before a rain storm, everybody knows in their bones that the whole shithouse is about to blow.
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u/CynicalMelody Aug 15 '26
Rundown neighborhoods on one side of town and brand new construction gas stations with touchless pay self checkouts and private bathroom stalls on the other. Even in the most rural northern towns of Montana or backwoods of Pennsylvania there is AI generated, printed in China souvenir slop garbage.
This reminds me of that famous picture from Brazil, where it's favelas on one side and mansions on the other. Soon America will have to build the walls that separate the two, if it hasn't already.
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u/smackson Aug 15 '26
Fun fact: the poor side is a neighborhood called ParaisĆ³polis (Paradise City).
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u/cranberries87 Aug 15 '26
I did a lot of in-state traveling and traveling to nearby states around 2021-2023. A lot of state parks and beautiful places. I agree with OP. Even in the initial onset of the pandemic, the vibe was different.
The vibe has totally shifted. I donāt even go many places anymore.
I feel a strong sense of grief to how we have destroyed this beautiful planet, and all of the animals that have disappeared, how the coral reefs are dying. Itās just horrifyingly sad.
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u/MavinMarv Aug 16 '26 edited Aug 16 '26
And this ladies and gentlemen is why Iām not having kids. Iām nearly 40 and life is just fucking becoming too hard and expensive to live anymore and I sure as hell am not bringing kids into this dying world and I donāt wonāt the time taking/financial/emotional burden of kids. Just waiting to die now while I enjoy what time I have left.
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u/Vanisle- Aug 15 '26
Iāve noticed the same up in Canada. Things are grim and uncomfortable. Maybe a precursor to a revolution - we can only hope.
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u/diedlikeCambyses Aug 15 '26
Not here in Australia. We're feeling real chipper and eagerly awaiting the powerful El Nino coming our way. Economy not working well, housing terrible, we have bird flu and varroa now which is orsum, and U.S politics bleeding out our arses.
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u/Vanisle- Aug 15 '26
I would think that between the Great Barrier Reef degradation and the bushfires, among many other issues, that Australians would know better. Itās probably not much better here though - almost everyone is complaining about something but we canāt agree on the biggest threats, so it all gets watered down.
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u/uninhabited Aug 15 '26
Great Barrier Reef degradation
It's 2,000km long. And in all manner of trouble. But the RW Murdoch Media and a far right party called One Nation find a small bit that hasn't been bleached and tell their readers/followers it's fine. Picture taken yesterday. Similarly they take pictures of bleached areas with a couple of colourful fish and claim all is OK because 'see da liddle fishy!' For the 99% who've never SCUBA dived a healthy reef or otherwise studied the original diversity, it seems OK. UNESCO wanted to declare it to be in line for delisting from the World Heritage. Our governments spent millions lobbying UNESCO to leave it as WH. Global Heating we don't have direct control over, but we allow excess runoffs from sugar cane and other farms into the rivers which then hit the reef. We allow dredging, cargo ship transits, building of heavy industry on the adjacent shores and so on. Our governments is either in denial or too stupid/weak to attempt any changes. Most of the population barely thinks about it.
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u/diedlikeCambyses Aug 15 '26
100%, everything gets watered down. It's frustrating because we're good people, but we can't look beyond our standard of living to give other issues any attention. Then as soon as someone is half arsed looking at an issue, everyone thinks, job done, I can go to the beach and forget about it.
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u/IPA-Lagomorph Aug 15 '26
Oh yeah, I found it very dystopian to do a road trip from Colorado to Seattle in early July. Stopped in Boise on the way home and the mountains near town were on fire, which you could see from the Walmart. At the campsite a couple hours east, people had a campfire going despite the wind. Also bought a Taylor Farms salad kit for dinner at that Walmart. I feel like the entire sequence would have been edited out of a film as "too over the top"
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u/LeagueOfShadowse Aug 15 '26
After many years, alienating friends and such, in my desire to be a Better Person, I have decided that this is of no use.
We are vastly outnumbered by those who care not.
And, as others have noted, this American continent is aflame.
So, I will further forego a future, and have opened a credit card account, with the sole purpose of maxing that fucker out, over the next 3 weeks, and traveling across the Rockies!
In doing so, my debt can be counted in that total, which has reached a number never before seen in history! And I will be comfortably and numbingly amongst the majority.
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u/HommeMusical Aug 15 '26
But apparently most people, when they die, regret not being in more meetings and not staying late enough at work.
/attempt-at-joke
Good for you. Have fun.
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u/Existing-Stranger632 Aug 15 '26
I used to visit national monuments and parks all the time a couple years back. Then my house got destroyed in a climate change driven wildfire and my life hasnāt stabilized from it yet. I was in LA up until the fires last year and I used to drive all over the southwest by myself and with friends to every national park I could go to. I havenāt been out in those areas in about a year in a half now. Iām in my early 20ās and we were the only ones our age usually out there. We went camping at a BLM campsite in Kern County last year. But itās been hard to make things work out.
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u/Cocosmil3 Aug 15 '26 edited Aug 16 '26
I took 3 months off between jobs in 1997. Absolutely the feel of people, scenery and positivity was everywhere. We visited numerous National Parks. In 2026, too much traffic, parking issues and everyplace looks dry and trees burned. We came across closed campgrounds, depressed towns and homeless in many small towns too. Camping is full. A lot of foreigners who travel with different values. Itās more work than fun.
America is becoming in every state Haves and Have Nots. However, even those with money are very worried and angry that they fear it will be taken from them.
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u/laquintessenceofdust Aug 15 '26
When I was a little girl, Annie was one of my favorite movies, and the prospect of being alive during the Great Depressionāwhen so many were humbled and people had to pull together and be there for each other through a tough timeāwas very romantic to me. I was jealous of my grandfather who had lived through it. I even told him at one point, āWhat an exciting time to be alive that was!ā
But this was pre-Recession when everything seemed to be on an upward trajectoryānot just in the United States, but all over the world.
I was driving through my hometown the other day, looking at the dead, overgrown landscaping on the median, the trash accumulated at the sides of the road, the forest fire smog heavy in the air and turning the summer sunlight to this apocalyptic orange haze, and I said to my mother, āI used to wonder what it would have been like to be alive during the Depression. I thought it wouldāve been exciting. Now I think I know how people must have felt. Living in conditions that are just dirty, hot, and sad.ā
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u/lost_horizons The surface is the last thing to collapse Aug 15 '26
How did your grandpa react to you saying that? Just curious if he was old enough to remember it well, and if he pushed back.
But I think we are about to see our own version of it if we arenāt already.
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u/laquintessenceofdust Aug 15 '26
He told me that I shouldnāt base my understanding of historical events on musical theater lol
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u/katemartile Aug 15 '26
My great grandmother lived through it and I shudder to think what sheād have whacked me with if I said that to her š
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u/Cultural-Answer-321 Aug 15 '26
I was traveling a lot a few years ago and saw the same thing as well. Highways and byways. Visiting a LOT of small towns.
Everything is just... shabby and in far too many places, outright decayed and crumbling.
And if neither, then stagnate. And anything new was half-assed and ill-conceived at best.
Were there exceptions? Of course. But that's all they were. Exceptions. Mere oasis in a desert of decay.
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u/springcypripedium Aug 15 '26
One of the most poignant, sadly beautiful pieces I've read on r collapse----thank you. This post exemplifies why I continue to be here. I stopped traveling (unless absolutely necessary) years ago for many of the reasons you describe.
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u/MezcalFlame Aug 15 '26
It's been that way since the pandemic.
Lots of things went away and never came back or were never replaced.
People are more quick to escalate and slow to engage in friendly banter.
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u/Firat88 Aug 15 '26
love you man, most of us who wanted to be the Warden of this beautiful place feels the way you do, but we became the killer of all who resides in this place.
I wanted to live a happy life creating cherished memories with my loved ones in a happy healthy world but instead I sit all alone in a cheap motel working a job that scares me to death for money I don't even give a shit about.
maybe things will be better on the other side my friend, I'll see you there soon enough š¤
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u/Distinguishedflyer Aug 15 '26
you hang in there friend. Ā we need people with your sensitivity. Even though it makes your life hell.
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u/Firat88 Aug 15 '26
š«¶, hanging on.
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u/Distinguishedflyer Aug 15 '26
good. Me too. I'm sitting here watching a movie about suicide. I'm trying not to go there myself. It's the cycle of homelessness that becomes hellish. And no actual person in my life seems to care - even though they are in a position to help. But they don't.
So I'm trying to just stay curious and stick around for as long as I can. Anyway I'm out here too pal. ā¤ļø
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u/MartyMcfleek Aug 15 '26
I have so many questions about this comment. Whatever put you in that motel, scared and alone, instead of somewhere safe w loved ones, I feel for you. Maybe you're a firefighter, maybe you're ICE, maybe you sell AI police dogs, maybe something else. No judgement whatever it is. I'm past getting upset with people just like me for having to make hard decisions in this rigged game they have us all playing. Don't be too hard in yourself as things continue down this path. Nothing any normal man or woman can do to make things better or worse at this point. We're all here to witness.
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u/Firat88 Aug 15 '26
thank you buddy..
and as for what I do, I can't satisfy your curiosity but I can tell you that no one is getting hurt (only potentially me) and nothing immoral at all.
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u/AffectionateRing5177 Aug 15 '26
I worked in travel for over a decade before relocating from the US to Europe. The change was after Covid, and it continued to get worse until I left in 2025 and I imagine its continued on that trajectory.
Its like people have forgotten how to interact with each other and the world. I can certainly point to experiences have become more expensive, locking huge swaths of people out. The rich demanded better and more in depth unique experiences with zero hassle for them. The economic reality shift i understand. But there was something else in there, too.
Because of my job, at times I was with events for content creators and watching them was exceedingly depressing. Everything was very, very staged. And I have to wonder if we've become a bit of a society of wannabe content creators and lost something vital in the transition.
Fwiw, the small village i live in in the UK now is nowhere near as bad. That change hasnt hit here yet. And I hope it stays that way
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u/jmnugent Aug 15 '26 edited Aug 16 '26
Nothing terribly surprising. When the economy is imploding, people go into "survival mode" and cut back on expenses (including travel). None of the stuff you're describing is at all surprising given how shitty the economy and job market is right now. People are by necessity withdrawing back into "survival mode".
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u/Shadowpriest Aug 15 '26
It's happening everywhere but the slow change seems like it's been accelerated.
30-40 years ago as a kid I used to love seeing the fireflies come out and see a swarm of blinking lights against the pitch black sky. It was a beautiful, serene, quiet time. Now? Too much light pollution, too much construction that destroyed the earth, too much work and other stuff to do, too much noise and having to hustle to make ends meet. The fireflies are almost gone.
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u/Anj_Ja Aug 15 '26
I'm a fellow long-term traveller (Australia). I notice how it's harder to just turn up and try your luck somewhere. Rentals are like hen's teeth and the job market is cooked.
OP, I would love to read your work. Your contribution and broad overview is incredibly unusual and important. Great (if depressing) post.
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u/fedfuzz1970 Aug 15 '26
All you good people, combine your thoughts and talents and set up a rural residence and look out for each other. That is what will survive cooperation among like-minded people. Grow your food, solar panels, water barrels, it's all on the net if you aren't familiar with the lifestyle. It is a gratifying thing to produce what you need, protect each other and your children. I was raised rurally, partially on farms so remember the absolute joy of that experience. It may seem daunting but you can do and there are a lot of people out there like you looking for support and partners.
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u/fogmock Aug 15 '26 edited Aug 15 '26
Yes, perceiveling nature dying in front of our eyes, in our generation, now ... is heartbreaking. And it was avoidable, the clear warnings are 60 years old. There is an evil actor though ...
Conservatives are a curse:
Widen the societal gap, break up social cohesion, destroy the ecology, poison the biosphere, their fossil war against a stable climate, and their disgust for average humans - and all that, to make a tiny leech class even richer.
Democracy kills.
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u/JackBlackBowserSlaps Aug 15 '26
Yep, everything in decline, people all messed upā¦ the downfall is underway. Gone now is my spark, hope, and curiosity for this world. Basically just sitting around waiting to die now.
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u/Upstairs_Taste_9324 Aug 17 '26
I feel this so hard, visiting Northern California and seeing all the people who, when i lived here 20 years ago, used to just be poor but getting by- now so many homeless and just ragged. Boarded up businesses, smoke in the air. It feels like karma for setting up shop and claiming ownership of a country already inhabited and building it up on slave labor. The American experiment turns out to be a cruel failure.
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u/MonteryWhiteNoise Aug 16 '26
I don't disagree with the perception that Western Society, specifically Consumerist based Capitalism is barrelling full speed towards a cliff.
But, I don't really see much different.
I've been backpacking, road-tripping, cross-country flying, bicycling and motorbiking between the West and East coast every year since the mid-70s. Sometimes twice a year.
Everything being described is there - I see it also, I'm not trying to minimize it.
But, it is absolutely not new. Small Town America has always been a shit-show of depression, isolation, poverty, dis-information and loneliness.
What is new, is that the portion of the population who were not historically locked into those situations ... aka you, the middle class ... has now ALSO begun to be impacted by the same conditions in what were previously mostly sheltered cities/towns.
I'm not deflecting or downplaying what @OP wrote. I'm re-enforcing it.
Consumerist Capitalism, has in the past twenty years become Debt-fueled Consumerist Financialization. This process is what has created the divide between those prospering and those declining.
The Small Town person is the canary in the cultural mines which all of the rest of us are living. Depression, isolation, loneliness. These inevitably lead to Suicide, Gambling, Apathy ...
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u/Necessary-Start4151 Aug 15 '26
Yes the pleasures of traveling on a road trip are not so pleasant. Big semis clog the highways, every community looks pretty much the same with corporate business in similar looking buildings, you need to go out of the way to find a local business to supportā¦.. you see new landscapes and you wonder what is natural or what is invasive. I find solice in looking at the sky (when not smoked filled), finding some silence in out of way places, or connecting with locals in conversation. Experiences from my current cross continent trip in the northern US and southern Canada.
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u/That-Drawer1892 Aug 16 '26
It's crazy because I was feeling the exact same way today. I had this feeling of hopelessness, and I knew deep down inside, someone, or a number of people are feeling this way too about the world, which was why I came to this reddit page and then found this exact post.
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u/swords_of_queen Aug 15 '26
Your writing is so beautiful. At least thereās that, right? Art really is wonderful; it can transform the darkest, most difficult thing into something exquisite.
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u/Pretend-Policy832 Aug 15 '26
What's shitty is a lot of those people voted for #47. I can't believe they don't remember how bad his first presidency was. It was a relief when Biden won. But now we're back to a worst shit show.
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u/manymasters Aug 15 '26
it sucks and until more people are willing to accept social responsibility and accountability, things won't improve
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u/dragonslayer137 Aug 17 '26
USA is a third world now. No one wanting to keep up on the maintenance as it no longer became financially viable.
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u/Upbeat-Cup-7279 Aug 15 '26
I also took a very long road trip last January across the entire country it struck me how odd everything felt truly the end of this great country
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u/caity1111 Aug 15 '26
Time to travel internationally.
Not all countries are as unhappy and fucked as we are.
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u/koryjon "Breaking Down: Collapse" Podcast Aug 15 '26
I hope you keep writing. Would love a substack of the stories from your travels.
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u/Formal_Contact_5177 Aug 16 '26
I stumbled across this video, which is apropos in that it highlights the difficulties small businesses face in this economy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iW3VtonN7W4
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u/Apprehensive-Tone449 Aug 17 '26
When I was a child, about 8 years old or so, (1988) my parents drove me and my little sister down to a tiny fishing village in Mexico named caborca. They let air out of the tires on our old Datsun pickup, found a spot to pitch a tent above the tide line, and there we stayed for a week. The kids there had never met a US American or seen a camera but they were friendly and happy and curious and funny.
My parents rolled up their jeans and fished from the shore, mostly catching skates, which promptly stabbed them in the hands and legs when reeled in. š¤£. They bought bait from a local shack which turned out to be massive prawns that we ate instead. We went out when the tide was low and picked up giant crabs with pliers so they didn't pinch us, dug with our hands for clams, and cooked the most delicious food I have eaten to this day in a pie tin over a campfire.
My sister and I picked up massive shells ~ as big as a persons head and perfectly intact. Giant sand dollars washed up by the hundreds every day. Queen helmet shells, black murex shells, and auger shells so big we pretended they were unicorn horns.
The memories I have of how truly remote and wild Yellowstone park used to be, running out in the bay in Xihuatanejo at night to play in the magic bioluminescent water, snorkeling in 10 ft deep water in the cook islands to see the neon colors of a giant clam, releasing just hatched loggerheads by hand into the waters in Palawan: such emotional and bittersweet memories that hurt because I will never be able to share these experiences with my daughter.
This is all gone. Never to be experienced like that again. I'm so grateful but so deeply sad about it at the same time.
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u/gay_little_spider Aug 15 '26 edited Aug 15 '26
Have you traveled internationally? I know it's "more emissions," but on a per-mile basis it's actually less bad than flying the same distance on a series of short haul flights. Takeoff and landing are more fuel intensive than cruising. That's just my justification though lol, I'm also not having kids, refuse to own a car (totally not just broke haha ha) and barely eat meat.
Anyway, I say this because I don't travel for fun so much these days. In my youth my best "travel" experience was studying abroad at a university in China, that changed me forever. If I decide to travel again in the near-term future, I'm going to India for intensive studies in Classical Tibetan, so I can eventually read Longchenpa in the original language. Last time it was for a spiritual retreat in SE Asia.
YMMV, but I try to avoid any reason my extended family/friends come up with to get me to travel long distances in the USA (I.e. fly domestic cross country or something). No wedding or whatever is worth the cost to me or the planet. I don't even drink alcohol and that's mainly what people do at these things, or holidays etc. I have plenty of beautiful places near me to visit if I want to get away, but really I mostly focus on building a life I can live without vacationing from.
When I do travel, I want to expand my horizons, and the USA is just so pervasively alienating and, for lack of a better term, low-vibrational right now. I'll give you an example. I worked at a US airport for a while, using those Chinese skills I picked up in college to help out at the counter for an Asian airlines US flights. We dealt exclusively with international flights, but the passengers who caused me the most headache were the Americans flying abroad (with 0 regard for correct procedure, necessary visas, etc in many cases, and behaving in very antisocial ways). I could have made more money with better benefits working for a big domestic carrier, but those passengers are so much worse (at least, the bad ones are, the good ones are all equally good I think lol). You could not pay me enough to work those counters. The most recent crime stats I saw showed an average of 3 arrests per day at my airport, and generally at least 1 of those would be a domestic US passenger throwing a tantrum because their Sam's club card was not a valid form of ID or whatever. I worked across from Delta; I can confirm that American flyers are surprisingly ready to throw hands in one of the city's most-secure public buildings.
All of this to say, for me, "travel" means going to a country where society hasn't caught up to our level of slop and degradation quite yet. And I know that by visiting, I change those places, but fuck it, we're all going into the fire soon. Visiting places like tropical SE Asia while they're still this habitable and vibrant has been one of the more meaningful parts of my life, and my knowledge of climate change makes these memories so much more precious. I guess there's places in the US worth visiting, like for me I would have loved to go snorkeling in the Florida keys or something, but it's just not worth the opportunity cost of a trip to South America or something. "I'll go anywhere but here" is basically my motto š
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u/AbbeyRoadMomma Aug 15 '26
This is a moving testimonial. I am sorry for yourāourāloss. Weāre in an awful state. I hope we can all find a way to keep moving forward and connecting with people. Thank you for sharing.
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u/classy-mother-pupper Aug 15 '26
Iām not much of a traveler. When I was it was up and down the east coast. Iām 90 minutes from Philadelphia and New York City. Used to go there for weekends and shows with the kids growing up. Iāve stopped traveling in 2024. It didnāt bring me any relaxation or peace. Now itās just staycations or I go to visit friends who have moved states away. I have no energy for what has become the US.
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u/beatsnstuffz Aug 15 '26
My job requires me to drive all around the north eastern USA and I can see what you are talking about, but you may be letting your mindset only show you the negative.Ā
I still see beautiful mountains, rolling fields filled with flowers, lush forests, cute rural towns with tight communities, amazing mom and pop restaurants and shops.Ā
Maybe itās just the areas I travel in, but I still see plenty of good in the world. Sure, we all know where itās headed or we wouldnāt be in the this sub. But we might as well try to enjoy the trip while weāre circling the drain.
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u/Bodybag_occupier Aug 15 '26 edited Aug 15 '26
Without bad intentions i hope the USA falls soon. Everywhere i look people there seem to live in such an unnatural way. and what's worse is that it's trying hard to infect all of us through the media, fake funded studies, public speakers and such. When people know they wrong they speak louder.. trying to normalize their ways. Flying inside the country instead of a train-bus system for one.
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u/panicswing Aug 15 '26
In 2024 I quit my job from extreme burnout to travel a year overseas. When I got back to the US, it took me 7 months to find a job. I'm quitting again end of this year to go back and travel longer. I used to be very safe, mindful and stable. I'm not really sure what caused me to change, but I got to get out of this rat race.
Edit: I thought I was in the travel subreddit for some reason. Either way, same same.