I was in Florida in 1990 so a long time ago but remember it fondly. Had a hired Pontiac Sunbird and drove up the coast to Norfolk Virginia taking about a week, stopping at all the great towns such as Charleston. Beaches fantastic - clear water and few people. When in Florida you should go to the Everglades and Epcot centre. Have a great time!

Yes, we had been warned that it was no longer cheap to visit now.

Food shopping was always dearer over there than the UK, we found.

It was always cheaper to eat out. Waiting staff were always friendly due to needing a tip to

Supplement their wages.

I often thought that allowing undertaking would be a good thing, but after two days of having cars swerving all over the freeway and seeing the huge number of accidents and damaged cars from obvious side swipes my opinion has now changed. It makes for very stressful progress.

I wondered why Americans needed cars capable of such high acceleration - & then I drove there. Joining a busy lane from an onslip can be interesting ...

The use of mobile phones while driving is also very commonplace and you’ll see drivers furiously texting away while swerving all over the road. Road rage is a common issue too, get in their way at all and you’ll receive a foaming horn blowing rant.

or the threat of a firearm

The roads are straight and boring with only the lively driving to keep you awake and the unlimited 75/80mph artic trucks undertaking you to keep you awake. I often thought a driving holiday here would be fun, from my short experience it’s not, it’s stressful.

It still can be but you need to get off the busy roads/away from the big cities.

I hate the tip system of paying for almost everything over here, I expected everything to be cheaper and thus a tip not an issue but I’ve found everything other than fuel to be dearer, even a trip to the mighty Walmart flagged up prices higher than my local Asda. Staff are generally rude and unhelpful, taxi drivers have zero chat and prices fluctuate hugely over the same trip.

& tips are expected as a right irrespective of level of service, don't leave one & you might be chased down the street by an irate server. Mind you, it's their system where minimum wage is so low in some states that no one can live on it & they need to earn tips. Some step up to the mark , genuinely give great service & earn it but many don't.

Last time I was over ~ 5 years ago it was obvious that it had become more expensive & not just by the amount of the £/$ exchange rate drift. The only things that were cheaper there than here were petrol, soda, electronics & automobiles - even bread, milk etc. were dearer. It was cheaper to eat out than shopping & cooking so people did, which meant the supermarkets were chasing a smaller market hence higher prices whereas the restaurants just further benefited from increased volume. It's pretty much the reverse of ours where it is cheaper to shop & eat at home with restaurant visits rarer (so restaurants are having to pay overheads from much smaller volume>higher prices>fewer visits ...)

Edited by Heidfirst on 10/08/2022 at 11:30

I'm also just back (i.e an hour ago) from my second US trip in about 20 years. No driving for me as we went to New York and stayed in Manhattan.

Flights were with Aer Lingus connecting at Dublin and they were excellent. Years ago I would have avoided narrow body twin jets for such a long trip, but the new A321 Neo is an excellent aircraft,

Only experience in a car was the trip from Newark to midtown and it was fine, Heavy traffic on arrival as it was about 6pm, but the route from the airport is from Lincoln Tunnel in lower Manhattan so it was a mini intro to where everything was.

As we walked almost everywhere (about 150,000 steps over 6 days!) we came across a lot of traffic with the need to cross a road every 100-150m or so and despite the amount of traffic, along with bikes, scooters, pedal rickshaws, food carts parked on every corner etc we found the behaviour of all road users towards pedestrians impeccable. If the lights are red they stop, turn on red, they stop to let pedestrians cross etc.

From TV coverage it looks like NYC will have congestion charging in the next few years, although whilst roads were busy, it was far removed from the gridlock of London.

Huge varied mix of vehicles. Most yellow cabs are now Toyotas or Nissan people carriers. Not many euro boxes, Subarus by the dozen and lots of oversized Navigators, Denalis, Suburbans etc, but none of them look out of place as everything is huge.

We used the subway a lot including venturing out to Brooklyn and Queens and despite the scary stories you can read it is no worse than London. Once you understand that different services use the same lines it is simple enough (we only got on one wrong train so just swapped platforms at the next station and went back), Trains were clean, generally on time, all had aircon and wifi and just $2.75 per trip regardless of how far you travel, which can be many miles. After 12 trips in a week the rest are free, all payments done via an app and contactless apple pay or card.

We suffered with a signal failure affecting services and I ended up being the Englishman in NY explaining to US residents, new to New York and in a panic, to get on the first service heading in the general Manhattan direction and just change.

All in all a great trip, but like all big cities you don't see much in a few days.

Edited by daveyjp on 17/08/2022 at 10:18