Americans of Reddit, what's a big example of culture shock you experienced when visiting another region of the country?

1. I moved from Vegas to Utah. I got offered a lot less crack
   — xThe_Cool


2. Liquor sold in grocery stores. I am from Georgia. I went to California to visit family/friends during my party days and was pleasantly surprised when I saw hard liquor being sold next to the fruits and tomatoes and I was able to buy on a Sunday.
   — no_pizza_4_u


3. How incredibly nice people are in Colorado. People just walking by or riding their bikes by you and always saying hi/asking how you are. I'm from Massachusetts, people are always in shock if you say hello to a random stranger here and they usually just have a rude response back such as ignoring you or just flat out looking at you like you're crazy. Edit: grammar
   — falthecosmonaut






4. The south is fucking slow. I don't mean dumb, I mean the pace of everything is just so slow. Everyone from the grocery store clerk, to the bank teller, to the waiter, to the bus driver, to even just people walking were going half speed compared to what I was used to up north. Eventually I got used to it but when my parents used to visit I could see the veins in their temples throbbing.
   — PM_ME_TINY_DINOSAURS


5. I visited Upstate NY from Texas. The thing that threw me off were the bottle returns. I asked the cashier what that extra charge was on the case of beer and she told me that I'd bring them back to the store, put them in the machine and get the money back. Always thought that was a cool concept to encourage recycling.
   — PM_ME_USED_TAMPONS


6. You don't have to go far for a culture shock. I lived an hour away from my dad growing up. I lived in a suburb, he lived in a foresty mountain with a town population of under 1000. Going up there was weird because everyone waved hello but where I grew up it was weird to even acknowledge other people existed. Someone waved to me and my sister and we both thought "why the hell is this creep waving at us we don't know him" After going up many times more I learned it's just a completely different life style up there, people are friendly and now we find ourselves waving at other people more often.
   — Recabilly






7. I'm from New England. When I went to Saint Louis Missouri for a robotics competition, I was pretty shocked that there wasn't a Dunkin Donuts every other block. My hometown had 2 of them on the same street, but I don't remember seeing any in that city
   — N3MO_


8. I'm from Texas and travel to California for work. I was shocked by all the warning labels of everything that could give me cancer. The most surprising one was at Starbucks.
   — sassy2148


9. Louisiana native here. Visited Seattle a couple months ago to see a friend. Apparently saying "no sir" or "yes m'am" is completely unheard of in the Northwest while in Louisiana we say it to elders/adults or just to anyone as a sign of respect. No one said "y'all" but instead said "you guys". My friend (we met on the internet) was shocked that I had no Southern accent. He thought Gumbo was a type of shrimp... he was thinking of "jumbo shrimp".
   — TheCouchhPotato






10. Moving from a pretty small US nuclear site town where everyone had masters degrees in hard sciences to LA. Lordy Lou I love being in LA but there are some scientifically illiterate motherfuckers here.
    — LexSenthur