Nine Things We Miss About the United States

We love living abroad, but being back in America for the holidays reminded us there are still some things we miss.

Brent and I love our lives as digital nomads.

But we recently spent two weeks back home in Seattle, seeing friends and family for the holidays.

We’ve written a lot lately about what we don’t like about the United States, but our Christmas visit reminded us that we still miss a few things about home.

We recently mentioned how hard it is to find good hamburgers outside the U.S.

Here are nine more things we miss about America.

1 ) Large mugs

We generally prefer the smaller food portions served in countries other than the U.S.

But one serving size drives us crazy outside of America: tiny tea and coffee cups.

The smaller cups are standard almost everywhere except America, and it’s partly a question of teapots, which are more common in other parts of the world. It’s also the fact that coffee tends to be much stronger overseas — so you drink less of it.

But still! One of the first things we do when we arrive in a new country is find a place that sells decent-sized mugs. Who wants to have to refill their mug all day long?

In most of the world, these are colossal mugs.

2) America’s national parks

Europe does many things very well, but their national parks? Not so much. In fairness, it’s hard to set aside large areas of untouched wilderness when you’ve been, er, touching the land for thousands of years.

Other countries around the world do have large swaths of beautiful, untouched land — but those countries are often too poor to properly enforce the boundaries of anything like a “national park.” And some countries are too small or crowded to set aside much land for wilderness and recreation.

But America is a huge country with enough wealth to protect some of its most precious natural resources.

My personal favorites of America’s national parks? Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, Mount Rainier and Olympic National Parks in Washington State, Arches National Park in Utah, and Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado.

A few of the national parks we’ve visited.

3) Diversity

Other countries have racial and cultural diversity, at least in their largest cities — and many countries have seen greatly increased immigration in the last decade or so. But for the most part, most countries other than the U.S. are still fairly homogenous.

Meanwhile, the United States has diversity in almost every city and state.

More importantly, America celebrates its diversity. It’s part of our national identity in a way that isn’t true in any other country we’ve lived in.

America absolutely continues to have problems with racism and xenophobia. But in our experience, it’s still one of the most open, welcoming countries on Earth.

Photo by Nicholas Green on Unsplash

All this racial and cultural diversity also leads to…

4) So many different cuisines!

Brent and I have written previously about how Italians do excellent Italian food, the Thai do fantastic Thai food, and the English do, um, great Indian food. (I kid! England has better food than most people think, and the pub food is great.)

But other than in very large cities, it can be challenging outside of America to find great food that isn’t the local specialty — or maybe the cuisine of neighboring countries.

In Asia, for example, it can be almost impossible to get a good taco.

In America, you can get almost anything anywhere. Recently, we visited friends in Oakland, California, and within a five-minute walk from their house, we found great restaurants that served Thai, Italian, sushi, Ethiopian, Mexican, Argentinian, and more.

5) Christmas and Halloween — and specifically American holidays like Thanksgiving and the Fourth of July

Other countries have their own unique ways of celebrating Christmas — and we’ve really enjoyed experiencing them.

But we sometimes miss the familiar holiday traditions we grew up with. We like how America has turned Halloween into a holiday for kids and adults.

And on Christmas, we love houses lit up for the holidays, gaudy mall decorations, A Charlie Brown Christmas, homemade cookies, and, yes, even Starbucks Peppermint Mocha lattes.

We also miss those uniquely American holidays of Thanksgiving and Fourth of July. On these days, we even love American excess!

6) Ice in drinks

In restaurants outside of America, many drinks are served chilled, but except for specifically “frozen” drinks, they rarely have ice.

Brent and I don’t see eye to eye on this one. I don’t miss ice — but he really does.

So as soon as we arrive at a new destination, he whips out the ice tray he carries in his pack and immediately fills it up to start making ice.

Photo by Jonas Jacobsson on Unsplash

7) Functioning infrastructure

Look, I get it: America is by far the richest country in the world. As a result, it can spend money making most things, well, work.

Living in other countries where this isn’t always true, we’ve come to appreciate how it’s really nice to have reliable water pressure in your apartment, electrical outlets that aren’t clear fire hazards, strong and consistent wi-fi signals, toilets where you can flush the toilet paper, and water you can safely drink right from the tap.

Europe has its own issues. Because the buildings are often hundreds of years old, there is an absolute dearth of electrical outlets in hotels and coffee shops. And, of course, there are those famously uneven cobblestone streets. Disabled folks, beware!

Beautiful but treacherous.

But sidewalks are even worse in Asian countries like Cambodia, Vietnam, and Thailand.

Now if only America could somehow build a decent mass transit system.

8) Likewise, a functioning bureaucracy

Here in Mexico, where we’re living now, I just bought yogurt for Brent that says “Sin azucar” on the label — no sugar.

It clearly has sugar.

Sin azucar my ass!

In poorer countries, this kind of thing happens a lot. Labels are often vague suggestions — and they force you to ask yourself the question, “If they’re openly lying about sugar, what else are they lying about? Is this food even safe?”

Europe has even stronger consumer protections than the U.S. Still, they have their own bureaucratic issues — namely, indifferent and even hostile bureaucrats who can’t be fired for any reason and who aren’t especially fond of Americans, especially ones who don’t speak the local language.

9) Guilty pleasures!

For some reason, peppermint is a flavor that much of the world has yet to embrace. In most countries, things like Ghirardelli mint chocolate and York Peppermint Patties are impossible to find — not to mention the mint flavoring I like putting in my homemade mint chocolate chip cookies.

Also, why can’t other countries make decent peanut butter? It’s literally just ground-up peanuts!

Finally, I’m lactose intolerant, and the best vegan ice cream ever devised by humans is Ben & Jerry’s vegan ice cream. So naturally, I can’t find it in any country other than the United States.

That’s it! Nine things we miss about America.

If you’re an American world traveler, feel free to share in the comments the things you miss too. And if you’re not an American, what do you most miss about your home country?

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Michael Jensen is a novelist and editor. For more about Michael, visit him at MichaelJensen.com.