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Comment by eastof | Hacker News Reader

Would you mind sharing the general region where you are? Based on your criticisms it sounds like the US, but my experience is quite different. I have only lived on the West coast though, and we're quite spoiled with amazing natural beauty around every corner here. I had a great time road tripping around small towns in the northeast around Vermont and Maine though.

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The Midwest in particular is extremely homogeneous and flat, mostly plains and farmland for hundreds of miles. The West cost has more in 15 miles than the Midwest has in 100, on average. There are pockets here and there, but not enough to warrant the several hour drive it will take to get there.

Honestly, most of the US is like this. It's huge and very, very sparse.

Yeah that makes sense, that's too bad. The coasts are the most interesting places for local travel, but the elites living there don't seem to have the time of day for it. More for me I guess.

I've hiked in the mountains and I've swam in the ocean, and I'm perfectly content to live amongst the hills and streams of the Midwest. I suppose it's relative. I live on the east end of the state, and I find the west end pretty flat and boring. :)

"extremely homogenous and flat" is a common sentiment, but.. it's just not true.

Flat for example. The southern portion of the Midwest can be quite hilly (the northern portion not as much, due to glaciers).

But even there, the definition of "flat" gets confused with "not mountainous". If the topography varies a lot, but there aren't mountains, is it flat? (Max/min vs variance)

The driftless area certainly has some truly beautiful parts, but my statement is less about the homogeneity across the entire region and more about the distance between any notable landmarks. Hills alone aren't really that interesting either and I stand by my statement that most of the Midwest is boring and flat.

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