Monday, September 18, 2006

Traveling across the States with Bengali girlfriend - where is NOT recommended? -

I m in the UK and planning a trip to purchase a car from the States, driving from West to East with my girlfriend, who is from Bangladesh, where, for race reasons, would not be recommended and should be avoided?Please don t just say The South , not very constructive. Many thanks in advance.

Anti-American sentiment would have you believe that large portions of the USA are racist. It isn t true. I would plan your journey based on where you want to go and what you want to see. If at any time you feel uncomfortable, just move on to another nearby town or another restaurant or other business; it is likely it will never happen. Americans in general are very curious about people who look different or sound different from them, so that you may find to be a factor. This curiosity is different from Europe, where there tourists are a far more common sight. These curious Americans would love to hear that you are tourists from the UK on a sightseeing trip (or business trip or whatever) traveling across the USA which should satisfy their curiosity completely.

Well... I wouldn t recommend staying for very long in Northern Indiana... but that s not to do with race issues so much as how years of industrial pollution has left the area, between Gary and Indianapolis specifically, with a grimy character that always me feeling less clean than I should be.Are you planning a straight across the country race, on a route as direct as possible? Or perhaps something more circuitous? Because if you ve got the time and the inclination, Chicago is the kind of town that shouldn t be skipped, in my humble opinion.

I think you ll be fine no matter where you go--us crazy americans are pretty open minded these days..but I suppose the backroads of west virgina and kentucky could be pretty scary but you would have no reason to be traveling in that direction anyway