4 ms·

I grew up in the US and lived there for 30 years, but now I live in Europe. Every single one of my friends in their 30's finds visiting the US absolutely terrif

I grew up in the US and lived there for 30 years, but now I live in Europe. Every single one of my friends in their 30's finds visiting the US absolutely terrifying (even those who have previously been). I have yet to meet a single friend in today's day that has expressed any interest in visiting.

fckgw 7mo ago
What part did they find "terrifying"?
- s_dev 7mo ago
  ICE agents shooting US citizens, the mass shootings, the school shootings, the crime rate and fentanyl 'bend' posture that makes loads of poor people look like zombies, the aggressive police with guns who sometimes shoot people, burglaries that involve shootings. A lot of the problems in America seems to stem from guns and drugs but also policy. Even something as simple as crossing the road is unnecessarily complicated in America. Some roads you seem to need a car to get from A to B. It just doesn't seem peaceful but very chaotic and intense.
  - JumpCrisscross 7mo ago
    This sounds like someone who is on social media too much. The counterpart is an American in Paris convinced the banlieu are war zones. The actual problems: we’ve made it impossible and insulting to get a tourist visa. And we’ve made pissing on our tourism partners our foreign policy.
    - blurbleblurble 7mo ago
      Your head's in the sand. Where I live we have bounty hunters kidnapping people into unmarked vans. For six months or more now. Would visitors likely be safe? Sure, but not necessarily and I can't blame people for being cautious and there's so much unpredictability around it, even for those of us who are familiar.
      - JumpCrisscross 7mo ago
        > I can't blame people for being cautious and there's so much unpredictability around it I can. Again, this is like refusing to visit CDMX because you heard about gang violence or avoiding Sicily because there is crime. Those singular events aren’t false. But they don’t make up the majority of the context. Someone refusing to travel because of these low-probability events (note: because of fear of them, not out of protest, which is separate) is almost certainly behaving irrationally.
      - JumpCrisscross 7mo ago
        > I can't blame people for being cautious and there's so much unpredictability around it I can. Again, this is like refusing to visit CDMX because you heard about gang violence or avoiding Sicily because there is crime. Those singular events aren’t false. But they don’t make up the majority of the context. Someone refusing to travel because of these low-probability events (note: because of fear of them, not out of protest, which is separate) is almost certainly behaving irrationally. Where your argument might have purchase is in America having previously been a good tourism destination for someone with such anxieties. But the truth of the matter is folks like that don’t tend to travel in the first place.
        blurbleblurble 7mo ago
        It really isn't like that though. On top of the rogue paramilitaries with arrest quotas for getting their menial bonuses, there are multiple cases now where _tourists_ have been detained for weeks or more, even those with valid visas, arbitrarily. Multiple governments are cautioning people around travel to the US, and people from many countries are being outright banned from entering. Look at this map: https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/IN12631 https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/IN12631. Travel is already stressful enough without a rogue xenophobic force at the helm. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/21/karen-newton-valid-visa-detained-ice https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/21/karen-newton... https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/us-travel-detentions-1.7489525 https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/us-travel-detentions-1.7489525
        7mo ago
    - s_dev 7mo ago
      >The counterpart is an American in Paris convinced the banlieu are war zones. This isn't a counterpart because nobody is trying to explain a significant drop in tourism numbers to Paris.
      - _Tev 7mo ago
        > This isn't a counterpart because nobody is trying to explain a significant drop in tourism numbers to Paris. Actually there isn't much to explain. Every single person I know that has been to Paris has been disappointed by it and complained how there are way too many people everywhere. Maybe there were just too many tourists in Paris?
  - deleted 7mo ago
    [deleted]
  - sgustard 7mo ago
    I have been to Rome and Taipei and Johannesburg, and crossing the road is terrifying lots of places.
- nitwit005 7mo ago
  Several Europeans have been detained at U.S. borders or during their stays, sometimes for weeks or months, even with valid documents. Unsurprisingly, most people don't like hearing they might go to prison for no real reason.
mherrmann 7mo ago
I live in Europe and was in California in November. No issues.
- Steve16384 7mo ago
  California confirmed 100% safe.
- dboreham 7mo ago
  That's not the point. The number of white European people arrested and shackled by CBP/ICE is very small. But it's NOT ZERO! So at the margin plenty of potential tourists would prefer to go some other place where that chance is effectively zero.
- nitwit005 7mo ago
  But other people did have issues. Examining a single person's experience won't work for this sort of thing.
0xy 7mo ago
A Senior Software Engineer in Stockholm can expect to make less money than a Graduate Software Engineer in the United States, and will pay more taxes. It's simple, as a technologist, you live in Europe if retirement isn't important for you. Because you'll have almost nothing to show for it after 30 years in tech in Europe.
- BeetleB 7mo ago
  Except lots of vacation, travel, etc.
  - keldonjohnson 7mo ago
    In big tech the benefits are the same, except you save more in 10 years in WA than people in London save in 30.
    - JohnnyMarcone 7mo ago
      What about everyone else in society? What happens if your skill set is no longer in demand and you become one of "everyone else"?
      - coder68 7mo ago
        Even working in "tech" but not FAANG this is so true, 10 days is still the norm at many white collar businesses for your first year of employment, sometimes 15 days if they're generous.
      - bitfilped 7mo ago
        Skill up.
    - BeetleB 7mo ago
      > In big tech the benefits are the same, Depends on which big tech. 15 days of vacation, BTW, doesn't even come close to comparing with much of Europe. And I didn't mention London. London is crap. Probably all of UK is. Most Europeans I know in certain countries travel a lot more than Americans at big tech.

fckgw 7mo ago

What part did they find "terrifying"?

s_dev 7mo ago
ICE agents shooting US citizens, the mass shootings, the school shootings, the crime rate and fentanyl 'bend' posture that makes loads of poor people look like zombies, the aggressive police with guns who sometimes shoot people, burglaries that involve shootings. A lot of the problems in America seems to stem from guns and drugs but also policy. Even something as simple as crossing the road is unnecessarily complicated in America. Some roads you seem to need a car to get from A to B. It just doesn't seem peaceful but very chaotic and intense.
- JumpCrisscross 7mo ago
  This sounds like someone who is on social media too much. The counterpart is an American in Paris convinced the banlieu are war zones. The actual problems: we’ve made it impossible and insulting to get a tourist visa. And we’ve made pissing on our tourism partners our foreign policy.
  - blurbleblurble 7mo ago
    Your head's in the sand. Where I live we have bounty hunters kidnapping people into unmarked vans. For six months or more now. Would visitors likely be safe? Sure, but not necessarily and I can't blame people for being cautious and there's so much unpredictability around it, even for those of us who are familiar.
    - JumpCrisscross 7mo ago
      > I can't blame people for being cautious and there's so much unpredictability around it I can. Again, this is like refusing to visit CDMX because you heard about gang violence or avoiding Sicily because there is crime. Those singular events aren’t false. But they don’t make up the majority of the context. Someone refusing to travel because of these low-probability events (note: because of fear of them, not out of protest, which is separate) is almost certainly behaving irrationally.
    - JumpCrisscross 7mo ago
      > I can't blame people for being cautious and there's so much unpredictability around it I can. Again, this is like refusing to visit CDMX because you heard about gang violence or avoiding Sicily because there is crime. Those singular events aren’t false. But they don’t make up the majority of the context. Someone refusing to travel because of these low-probability events (note: because of fear of them, not out of protest, which is separate) is almost certainly behaving irrationally. Where your argument might have purchase is in America having previously been a good tourism destination for someone with such anxieties. But the truth of the matter is folks like that don’t tend to travel in the first place.
      - blurbleblurble 7mo ago
        It really isn't like that though. On top of the rogue paramilitaries with arrest quotas for getting their menial bonuses, there are multiple cases now where _tourists_ have been detained for weeks or more, even those with valid visas, arbitrarily. Multiple governments are cautioning people around travel to the US, and people from many countries are being outright banned from entering. Look at this map: https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/IN12631 https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/IN12631. Travel is already stressful enough without a rogue xenophobic force at the helm. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/21/karen-newton-valid-visa-detained-ice https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/21/karen-newton... https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/us-travel-detentions-1.7489525 https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/us-travel-detentions-1.7489525
        7mo ago
  - s_dev 7mo ago
    >The counterpart is an American in Paris convinced the banlieu are war zones. This isn't a counterpart because nobody is trying to explain a significant drop in tourism numbers to Paris.
    - _Tev 7mo ago
      > This isn't a counterpart because nobody is trying to explain a significant drop in tourism numbers to Paris. Actually there isn't much to explain. Every single person I know that has been to Paris has been disappointed by it and complained how there are way too many people everywhere. Maybe there were just too many tourists in Paris?
- deleted 7mo ago
  [deleted]
- sgustard 7mo ago
  I have been to Rome and Taipei and Johannesburg, and crossing the road is terrifying lots of places.
nitwit005 7mo ago
Several Europeans have been detained at U.S. borders or during their stays, sometimes for weeks or months, even with valid documents. Unsurprisingly, most people don't like hearing they might go to prison for no real reason.

mherrmann 7mo ago

I live in Europe and was in California in November. No issues.

Steve16384 7mo ago
California confirmed 100% safe.
dboreham 7mo ago
That's not the point. The number of white European people arrested and shackled by CBP/ICE is very small. But it's NOT ZERO! So at the margin plenty of potential tourists would prefer to go some other place where that chance is effectively zero.
nitwit005 7mo ago
But other people did have issues. Examining a single person's experience won't work for this sort of thing.

0xy 7mo ago

A Senior Software Engineer in Stockholm can expect to make less money than a Graduate Software Engineer in the United States, and will pay more taxes. It's simple, as a technologist, you live in Europe if retirement isn't important for you. Because you'll have almost nothing to show for it after 30 years in tech in Europe.

BeetleB 7mo ago
Except lots of vacation, travel, etc.
- keldonjohnson 7mo ago
  In big tech the benefits are the same, except you save more in 10 years in WA than people in London save in 30.
  - JohnnyMarcone 7mo ago
    What about everyone else in society? What happens if your skill set is no longer in demand and you become one of "everyone else"?
    - coder68 7mo ago
      Even working in "tech" but not FAANG this is so true, 10 days is still the norm at many white collar businesses for your first year of employment, sometimes 15 days if they're generous.
    - bitfilped 7mo ago
      Skill up.
  - BeetleB 7mo ago
    > In big tech the benefits are the same, Depends on which big tech. 15 days of vacation, BTW, doesn't even come close to comparing with much of Europe. And I didn't mention London. London is crap. Probably all of UK is. Most Europeans I know in certain countries travel a lot more than Americans at big tech.