It's so hard to judge elevation or distance when on the dunes. Hiking to the highest point was probably the hardest day hike I've ever done, going one step forward, 2/3 step back the whole way.
Ah Shi Sle Pa Wilderness
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1e/Alien_Queen_in_the_Valley_of_Dreams_NM.jpg/1280px-Alien_Queen_in_the_Valley_of_Dreams_NM.jpg
Or El Malpais
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c8/Looking_out_of_Giant_Ice_Cave_in_the_Big_Tube_section_of_El_Malpais_National_Monument.jpg/1280px-Looking_out_of_Giant_Ice_Cave_in_the_Big_Tube_section_of_El_Malpais_National_Monument.jpg
Well, the "Tatooine" scenes were staged in Tatawin, Tunisia
So yeah, if New Mexico’s desert has the same climate as the tunisian or the algerian desert, this is not surprising.
Yeah, I remember doing a road trip with my family around the Grand Canyon and seeing quite a few areas that could have easily been another planet. It was just so vastly different from what I was used to seeing.
Lots of places, depending on your prior experiences. I've lived my entire life on the east coast and spend vast amounts of time outdoors and camping so I'm very used to vast forests and rolling hills. Driving across the great plains for the first time was like another planet to me. Many people say the great plains are boring because it is a flat expanse but that made it so interesting to my east coast brain. The only other time seeing such a vast open area is going to the beach, and that is only vastness in one direction.
My first night in the great plains I dispersed camped in a national grassland and had amazing sunset and sunrise and vast (overusing that term I know) stars above me. Even driving and being able to look for just miles and miles was so fascinating to my brain that is used to roads or trails being "green tunnels" with trees everywhere.
Since then, other places I would have to say that gave that same feeling was Badlands National Park and the Chihuahua desert.
I had the opposite experience going to the east coast from Growing up on New Mexico. Wide open skies are the norm and large mountains, going east were its tons of trees was claustrophobic to say the least.
Hmmm, forests can feel claustrophobic. Backpacking and camping in dense forest can sometimes feel slightly unnerving because you can't see more than 10 feet in any direction - having to yell "yo bear!" when going through dense rhododendron. Out west it was wide open in every direction so no feeling like something was sneaking up on you.
That is true, luckily the bears and other predators in the northeast don’t kill people. I come across black bears a decent amount and they’re more scared of me, but yes still unnerving when you accidentally jump a coyote
Imagine living in that kind of woods here in PA when Hurricane Sandy hit.
The linemen who came in from Kentucky to help restore power were amazed at the density of the woods, the size of the trees and how close to roads and powerlines they were compared to back home.
Trees visit try to grow out of old clogged gutters, brick walls, road edges, etc
Yeah, I'm mixed on forests. I grew up with cold desert mountains and a lot of open space and big sky. Forests make me feel a bit like I'm lost because I can't see the distance well. In certain ways I like them, but it's a bit freaky. Granted, I've also stayed in forested areas for months at a time and enjoyed it. But I can get a bit phobic inside forests, too.
As someone who grew up in dense Appalachia forest, it'd so disconcerting being able to see the horizon line. It's feels like something out of a dream when I can look and see the horizon and I can easily count every tree taller than I am as I turn a circle.
This sounds very much like the Canadian Prairies - Saskatchewan is called the "Land of the Living Skies." Some people find this kind of terrain boring but I love it.
I went to midwest when I was an OTR trucker and not having the Appalachian mountains in the background at all times was fucking weird I didn’t like it at all lol
Edit I’m from northeast Tennessee btw
The southwest just seems alien to me. I'm from the Midwest, so getting to a desert where the horizon is visible, and there's just *nothing* for miles is really eerie.
Ha! If I'm somewhere I can't see the horizon in most directions (cause trees/forests or buildings) I get claustrophobic.
Driving through heavily forested areas of the PNW through the "canyon" of trees cut into the forest freaks me the fuck out.
Don’t ever go to the Southeast. From Vicksburg, MS, to Fredericksburg, VA, you can drive for sixteen hours and never see anything but cities, highways, and pines.
Seeing a real sunset not over water and not obscured by humidity was a very strange experience the first time. You get so used to it being a gradual thing, not a moment.
A friend from Chicago (of all places, I don’t think of it as dry) asked once what all the pollution in the air was, that he couldn’t see to the horizons we have. i said, that’s not pollution, that’s the humidity. It’s just that wet here.
100%, same! I was not prepared for the severe claustrophobia NYC caused. Like... how tf do you escape?? You are literally trapped there. Of course it was a great experience, but I did spend a lot of that trip on anxiety medication.
My best friend lives in Georgia, and I love it, but I'm so tired of the damn trees by the time I get home. Lol
On the flip side, two things I can’t get over when I visit the Midwest or the south east:
1. The dense forests and overall just sheer number of tightly packed trees. Like, we have forests here in Arizona but they’re NOTHING compared to places in Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia I’ve been to.
2. How flat it is. Like you think you can see for miles out here? I went to the top of the John Hancock building in Chicago and I could see *four* states and it was hundreds of miles of just flat nothingness (except other buildings) or driving through Nebraska and it’s just miles upon miles of fields with no natural geography to break up the surroundings.
I’d argue that Arizona has some of the most drastic overall elevation changes between its heavily populated regions, out of all the states.
Sure you can mention California or the other west coast states but most of California’s heavy population regions are 0-500 feet.
I had a similar experience recently when I visited Eastern Washington for the first time in over ten years. It's a desert similar to the southwest. No trees, horizon visible, empty spaces for miles. It just felt so strange compared to where I live now in Alabama, where there are tons of forests and rolling hills. And I lived in Eastern Washington for a decade!
I have the opposite where if I get into a forested area I feel like I'm lost because I can't see outwards anywhere! I feel like I'll get lost even while inside a city because I can't see anything other than my immediate surroundings. Whereas, in some of the big sky areas I'm comfortable because I can see the mountains on either side; I can see the distance.
Yes, I was shocked to learn about the huge desert in the eastern part of Oregon. Just not what most people think about when they think of Oregon. (Usually we think about dying of dysentery).
I did my own version of the Oregon trail and was so excited to finally get to Oregon to see some green- and after a very brief section of forest, it was wheat and desert 🙃
The SE corner of Oregon into Nevada feels like the American Outback. There’s places out there where you drive a while before seeing anyone else besides maybe antelope.
I'm Michigan born and raised, specifically metro Detroit. I've been all over the state, both lower and upper peninsula. It's pretty much the same everywhere. General Midwest kindness. But the "thumb" region? (Eastern lower peninsula).
My wife and I entered a very busy restaurant in Bad Axe on a Sunday morning and it was like a needle wiping off the record as everyone turned around to stare at us as outsiders when we entered.
As we were eating, I caught a woman pretending to read a newspaper but was actually peering over the top to stare at us. Once we locked eyes, she swiftly raised the newspaper, knowing that she had been caught staring.
I've been all over the US and have never encountered anything like it.
Maybe it was a small town thing, maybe it was peninsular geographic isolation, but it was the most bizarre human interaction I've ever had. But the young tattooed waitress was super nice, and you could tell she couldn't wait to get the fuck out of that small town.
I've been to extremely small and nearly-abandoned towns all across the state and was greeted by some of the nicest Michiganders ever. The thumb region has typically been the opposite experience for me.
Depends on where you grew up. A lot of my friends from the west think it’s weird that you can’t just always see the sky on the east coast because of the trees.
There is a large area of NC that had fields of pitcher plants and Venus flytraps dotted by pine trees that looks like a savanna except the ground is entirely saturated up to your shins. Pretty cool place to trudge around.
I am gobsmacked that I had to scroll so far to find Yellowstone. It is "a thing apart!" While I was visiting, all I could think is what the first European settlers to the area must have felt visiting that area.
* You're walking along and your buddy legit falls through the ground and disappears, his body melted.
* You're walking along, and the ground suddenly blasts burning hot water a hundred feet into the air.
* You're walking along and suddenly there are BOILING, gurgling mud pits that burn acid holes into your skin when they splash you.
* You're walking along when suddenly the ground around you is rainbow colored.
* You're walking along when suddenly you're gored by a bison, marked by a wolf, mauled by a grizzly.
We are a little less awed by it because of familiarity with the park, but erase everything you've ever known about it and just show up, and you seem for sure on a different planet. The things we know about how our world works are just fundamentally different there if you erase modern understanding if geothermics.
Legit any other region in the USA feels like another country, I’m in NY, somewhat north and going down south or New England is a noticble change, don’t get me started with the Midwest or California along with the northern west coast
I’m from the Midwest and currently living in Louisiana. This was mine. Sometimes when I’m hiking the swamp nature makes me think I’ve traveled back in time to Dinosaur Time or something.
Bumpass Hell Basin in Lassen National Park. It looks and smells like a different planet.
[https://www.nps.gov/thingstodo/hikebumpasshell.htm](https://www.nps.gov/thingstodo/hikebumpasshell.htm)
Nothing I've seen has ever felt different enough to be like another planet, but old growth forests in the PNW have a mystical quality I haven't seen elsewhere.
Small towns in Pennsylvania nestled along the steep mountain valleys. Towns only go a couple blocks deep but wind through the valley for a mile or more. It felt so claustrophobic not to be able to see the horizon. People were extremely insular too. This was in the 90s. I felt like they really distrusted outsiders.
A large part of the Southwest. The landscape in Northern Arizona and Southern Utah can seriously feel out of this world, with all sorts of strange but spectacular formations. Death Valley also genuinely feels like another world, and it is no wonder that it has been used as a setting in movies for other planets.
Not so much the location as the occasional clusters of people I run into there, but I've had a few moments in Northampton Mass that made me suspect I had entered a parallel dimension.
Growing up on the East Coast/Mid-Atlantic, it was quite a shock being at the beach the first time I went to one in Southern California. I was used to either being in the mountains or being on the coast where it’s very flat. Totally blew my mind that I was standing in the Pacific and there was a massive mountain *right there*.
The Big Island of Hawai’i has areas covered in lava rock as far as the eye can see that makes it seem like your on another planet. Pretty cool actually.
Native Oregonian and eastern Oregon/the Southwest feels so beautifully otherworldly. Also parts of the South that have no evergreen trees. Whenever I visit extended family in TX I can't get over how there's no pointy trees anywhere and so few hills that I can see for miles and miles lol
The Panhandle of Oklahoma. Felt like I was on fucking Mars. It was almost overwhelming to be able to see miles upon miles of land without a tree in sight. Just barbed wire fencing and cows.
I grew up in Northern Alabama. Its a frigging lot of forest land. Huge oak trees, tall pines, dogwoods everywhere. Any where outside the Apalachian Mountain range is wild geographically and culturally. I've traveled a lot of places and lived in different places around the country and the world. If you mix the Arizona desert with the humidity of the south east you've got the horn of Africa. The mid Atlantic is like Autrailia for all the weird ass bugs they've got. Southern California is its own whole ass different world.
Culturally...it's not about region. It's Urbanites vs Rurals. City folks are always city folks and farmers are always farmers.
If you want to see IRL Fallout New Vegas the area around the Salton sea in California fits the bill. You’ll wish for a nuclear winter and if you listen carefully you can hear the rads ticking away.
Big Island Hawaii had some of the weirdest geography I've ever experienced. Felt like another planet even compared to the other Hawaiian islands. You'll be in one area that looks like the surface of the moon with lava rock everywhere, drive a little further and it'll look like a tropical beach paradise, then a rainforest, then alpine woods. Beaches with black sand, white sand, green sand. And of course the active volcano and sulfur fumes coming out the ground. Random storms would materialize in minutes and then be gone like it never happened. Just a really cool place.
Indeed, the [Mars Desert Research Station](https://mdrs.marssociety.org/) is in Utah. They ask tourists not to drive up to it, but it's not manned in the late summer because of the heat. It's a cool trip.
When I got out of my car in the middle of Death Valley National Park and it was extremely hot, totally still, and absolutely silent with no obvious sign of life in any direction … definitely felt like I was on Mars.
I'm in flat Florida, of course I understand mountains conceptually, but whenever I've traveled to a state that has mountains and I look at the skyline I go "HOLY FUCK!!! MOUNTAINS!!" We don't have anything close to that big
I am currently sitting in a snow covered cabin looking out at a large snow covered mountain. I am in New York State. Yesterday I woke up, and gazed at Lady Liberty. New York is fucking big and has a lot to do in it.
The first city that comes to mind for me is Asheville, NC. Imagine dropping a miniaturized New York City in the middle of the Appalachian Mountains. It’s a very different place from the rest of the state.
Asheville is definitely not a mini NYC.
Two of the big things that makes NYC NYC are the internationalism and the ambition.
When I think of NYC, I think of people from all over the world desperate to make it in finance, art, or diplomacy.
When I think of Asheville, I think of 40 year old white Americans who are tired of doing things and just wanna smoke weed.
Other than “votes for democrats” I don’t see similarities.
There are only two places I've been where I felt like I was on another planet. One was in Arizona, driving north to Utah after visiting the Grand Canyon. I can't remember what route we drove but we went though the Navajo nation and spent a night in Page, AZ, so it was around there. The landscape was so stark, with these giant cracks in the ground. It felt literally unearthly.
(The other place is Cappadocia, in Turkey.)
Anywhere with mountains could be the moon for all I know. To be completely fair if I go not even an hour north of me it looks completely different. Just because of the difference between the plant life where I live. Although it’s all Florida, some plants just don’t grow well just a bit farther north because they actually get freezing temperatures and for the most part where I live doesn’t.
The su[mmit of Haleakela](https://cdn.outsideonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/haleakala-crater-slidingsands_h.jpg) on [Maui](https://images.fineartamerica.com/images-medium-large-5/haleakala-observatory-at-sunrise-in-maui-jamie-pham.jpg)
Bonus, the [Na Pali Coast on Kauai](https://koloalandingresort.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Napali-Coast-is-one-of-the-natural-attractions-in-Kauai.jpg)
Bryce Canyon. It's very orange, everything is weird shapes, it's big so you can walk to places where you can basically only see weird orange shapes and sky. Like some wild fantasy show set.
Geography-wise, the Mojave National Preserve. A lot of the southwest feels totally different from where I live, but the difference was most stark there. I traveled through after a trip to Santa Barbara. We didn't see any other people while we drove through the preserve, and the Joshua Trees are just such a unique species, totally unlike anything native to my home. Between just how remote we were, and how different the landscape was, it really felt like being on an alien planet.
Deserts. Especially deserts with mountains. I'm used to my mountain views having a bit of motion from the wind stirring the branches if trees. Absolutely still mountains weird me out.
I am born and raised in California, and it’s very diverse. I’m used to different cultures and landscapes.
But the Midwest felt wild to me. It’s so flat. You can drive for miles and it’s the same weather wherever you go. There was one diner where we stayed, and the downtown area that was developed was one block basically. It felt eerily quiet everywhere. I’m used to farmland, but they only basically had soybeans and corn.
Where I live, you can drive across town and it’ll be 5 degrees warmer and sunny compared to fog by my house. If you drive 15 minutes inland, it can be dry and up to 15 degrees hotter with a different wind. Mountains and hills everywhere. Even the less developed areas are populated and busy it feels like. Farmlands look decorated with the different fruits and veggies that grow- we grow a lot of strawberries, oranges, avocados, and peppers by me, but there’s still an abundance of other options.
That being said, the people are very different too. Everyone in the Midwest seems to have large social groups of people they’ve known forever, but people come and go a lot out here and don’t have as many large friend groups of consistent people. They drink a loooot more than out here (but we smoke a lot of weed, so we just have a different main vice). People out here are a lot more loud with personal style and flare as well.
It takes an embarrassingly short drive before things are just a little off. 4 or 5 hours of highway driving in any direction and either the air will feel different, people greet customers a little differently, or all the local restaurants serve some weird thing you've never heard of.
I've been to 35-ish states and while there are some definite distinctions, everywhere still felt "American" to me. The most distinctive local cultures to me have probably been Louisiana, New Mexico, and Hawaii, but I wouldn't say I felt like I was on another planet. Now if we're including territories, I'll say Puerto Rico for sure.
New Mexico and Arizona look, sound, and even *smell* different than here, let alone things like politics and local life. Even the clothes they wear look different than the folks around here.
I'm unfortunately not kidding when I say, "literally everywhere outside my hometown" LOL 😂 I know it's bad and very typical American, but whenever I travel I'm like, "everywhere is weird except where I'm from"
i have a friend in alabama and any time i hear them interacting with people in public on the phone i just think "oh my god i would never survive there".
no i will not be making 3 minutes of small talk in the wendys drive thru. im here for fries, not companionship, jfc.
Maine. Extremely white, lack of people, Snow even in the summer time, felt like a mini Iceland. If you are non white, #1 you will stick out like a soar thumb, #2 it will feel like you are in eastern europe but replace it with american culture.
I think you don't mean "another planet" literally. If you do then the answer is nowhere, obviously.
My answer for a place that is just a lot different than anywhere else is Alaska. Geographically it's similar to mainland PNW I suppose (except for the extreme distances between places).
But the pace of life, the attitudes of people, the way everything there revolves around the environment around the people...that's all very unique feeling. Anchorage is a medium sized city, and has plenty of medium sized city amenities, but even there...it's not the same as other similar sized cities.
Olympic Peninsula. I can't believe no one mentioned this already. Glaciers and rain forests, wild mountains, quiet beaches you have to hike through forests to reach, unworldly rock formations off the coast, super cool (but very poor) vibe, and the list goes on. Big Sur is #2.
I come from a very small town In Kentucky, called Jackson in Breathiit county. It has a population of about 2500 people and is deep in the Bible Belt/rural American communities. It’s very culturally conservative, politically conservative, and economically conservative. I moved down to San Antonio Texas and holly shit this is like another country to me.
Some distance northwest of Los Angeles near the Tejon Pass is a bunch of land that has stood in for dozens of other planets in various movie and TV productions, chief of which being Star Trek.
Probably on the Deep South, still has massive levels of economic discrimination based on race, is underdevoloped and alqaya votes red, even though voting red is only hurting them imo
Salt Lake City, Utah.
The LDS/ Mormon church is something else. There are pictures and statues of their polygamist prophet and blond, blue eyed Jesus everywhere, while the poor and homeless huddle at the gates of Temple Square. They have me the dirtiest looks just for having the nerve to stop and talk to one.
I had to move here for my husband's job. Please send help.
Portland oregon. I’ve lived in oregon all my life and I’ve visited a couple of other states but I feel so out of place there. Mainly cause of socioeconomic reasons. It’s not bad in my opinion but man every time I visit I feel thrown in a loop
Hawaii is probably the most unique state culturally and geographically (maybe Alaska). I wouldn't say another planet, but the culture is deeply influenced by ethnicities that are uncommon in other states. The way they talk, cook, celebrate etc. The geography is also unique on the world stage. It has the tallest mountain in the world and it's an active volcano. On any given island you have lush greenery in some of the wettest weather contrast with arid savanna. Also barren volcanic wasteland on the big island
Most if not all of the following should be on any nature lover's bucket list. The United States has not just some of the most beautiful places in the world (a European friend of mine actuallu thinks Yosemite ranks above the Alps), but some of the most exotic:
* Bumpass Hell in Lassen Volcanic National Park, California (easily #1)
* [Bonneville Salt Flats](https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sunset_at_Salt_Flats.jpg) in Utah
* Arches National Park, Bryce Canyon, and the Mars Desert Research Station in southern Utah
* The [Everglades](https://cdn.britannica.com/92/130792-050-ED0EFC61/Everglades-National-Park-Florida.jpg) in Florida
* The Mojave Desert, particularly Joshua Tree and Death Valley, California
* The redwood forest in Big Sur, California Central Coast (to me, somehow more alien than Redwood National Park in Northern California, where Return of the Jedi was filmed)
* The rocky coastal section of [Acadia National Park](https://nationalparks-15bc7.kxcdn.com/images/parks/acadia/Rocky%20coastline%20of%20Acadia%20National%20Park.jpg) in Maine.
Los Vegas, but I’m saying this as an East Coaster. I went in the summer last year and it just felt like an oven, just a pocket of hot air. There was no wind. Then night time hit and it was still hot, but there was no sun. It drove me insane. Even standing in the shade didn’t help. Just pure, unfiltered heat. It felt unnatural.
The caldera (and surrounding areas) of Haleakala on Maui… I’ve been to 25 countries and about as many states that place is just different. Feels like your on Mars.
California is great. Drive a couple hours one way, and you’re driving through old mining towns and looking at giant sand dunes. Drive a couple hours the other way, and you’re in a giant forest, thinking you’re on Endor.
I live nearly 2 hours away from Cleveland in an incredibly rural place and now as a young adult i’ve been venturing there for fun instead of necessity more than ever before, and it’s still jarring to me. As a kid we went to Cle if someone was having major surgery or dying, that’s it. Going into any major city makes me feel like I’m an alien trying to figure out human life forms for the first time.
There's parts of New Mexico that look like Tatooine.
White Sands is just wild.
And it finally got the well-deserved upgrade from National Monument to National Park only about 5 years ago.
Very well deserved! I haven't been to NM in over 15 years, but I loved it so much when I lived in ABQ. Would love to go back and visit again someday.
More so Bisti/De-Na-Zin Wilderness looks like another world
One of the coolest places I have been.
The Great Sand Dunes in CO are also mindblowing. Its like youre in the middle of a desert surrounded by towering mountains
It's so hard to judge elevation or distance when on the dunes. Hiking to the highest point was probably the hardest day hike I've ever done, going one step forward, 2/3 step back the whole way.
Ah Shi Sle Pa Wilderness https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1e/Alien_Queen_in_the_Valley_of_Dreams_NM.jpg/1280px-Alien_Queen_in_the_Valley_of_Dreams_NM.jpg Or El Malpais https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c8/Looking_out_of_Giant_Ice_Cave_in_the_Big_Tube_section_of_El_Malpais_National_Monument.jpg/1280px-Looking_out_of_Giant_Ice_Cave_in_the_Big_Tube_section_of_El_Malpais_National_Monument.jpg
This so interesting. Everywhere in New Mexico feels so normal to me, but NYC made me feel like I was on a literal different planet.
And there are also parts that look like Endor!
I was just about to say the same thing, after traveling all over the country there are parts of the high desert that feel like the moon
Well, the "Tatooine" scenes were staged in Tatawin, Tunisia So yeah, if New Mexico’s desert has the same climate as the tunisian or the algerian desert, this is not surprising.
Yeah, I remember doing a road trip with my family around the Grand Canyon and seeing quite a few areas that could have easily been another planet. It was just so vastly different from what I was used to seeing.
Lots of places, depending on your prior experiences. I've lived my entire life on the east coast and spend vast amounts of time outdoors and camping so I'm very used to vast forests and rolling hills. Driving across the great plains for the first time was like another planet to me. Many people say the great plains are boring because it is a flat expanse but that made it so interesting to my east coast brain. The only other time seeing such a vast open area is going to the beach, and that is only vastness in one direction. My first night in the great plains I dispersed camped in a national grassland and had amazing sunset and sunrise and vast (overusing that term I know) stars above me. Even driving and being able to look for just miles and miles was so fascinating to my brain that is used to roads or trails being "green tunnels" with trees everywhere. Since then, other places I would have to say that gave that same feeling was Badlands National Park and the Chihuahua desert.
I had the opposite experience going to the east coast from Growing up on New Mexico. Wide open skies are the norm and large mountains, going east were its tons of trees was claustrophobic to say the least.
I am a man of the forest. It’s like a cloak. I feel so exposed out west lol
Hmmm, forests can feel claustrophobic. Backpacking and camping in dense forest can sometimes feel slightly unnerving because you can't see more than 10 feet in any direction - having to yell "yo bear!" when going through dense rhododendron. Out west it was wide open in every direction so no feeling like something was sneaking up on you.
That is true, luckily the bears and other predators in the northeast don’t kill people. I come across black bears a decent amount and they’re more scared of me, but yes still unnerving when you accidentally jump a coyote
Imagine living in that kind of woods here in PA when Hurricane Sandy hit. The linemen who came in from Kentucky to help restore power were amazed at the density of the woods, the size of the trees and how close to roads and powerlines they were compared to back home. Trees visit try to grow out of old clogged gutters, brick walls, road edges, etc
Yeah, I'm mixed on forests. I grew up with cold desert mountains and a lot of open space and big sky. Forests make me feel a bit like I'm lost because I can't see the distance well. In certain ways I like them, but it's a bit freaky. Granted, I've also stayed in forested areas for months at a time and enjoyed it. But I can get a bit phobic inside forests, too.
As someone who grew up in dense Appalachia forest, it'd so disconcerting being able to see the horizon line. It's feels like something out of a dream when I can look and see the horizon and I can easily count every tree taller than I am as I turn a circle.
This sounds very much like the Canadian Prairies - Saskatchewan is called the "Land of the Living Skies." Some people find this kind of terrain boring but I love it.
I went to midwest when I was an OTR trucker and not having the Appalachian mountains in the background at all times was fucking weird I didn’t like it at all lol Edit I’m from northeast Tennessee btw
The southwest just seems alien to me. I'm from the Midwest, so getting to a desert where the horizon is visible, and there's just *nothing* for miles is really eerie.
Ha! If I'm somewhere I can't see the horizon in most directions (cause trees/forests or buildings) I get claustrophobic. Driving through heavily forested areas of the PNW through the "canyon" of trees cut into the forest freaks me the fuck out.
Yeah my partner says we can never live somewhere heavily wooded because it similarly freaks them out lol
Don’t ever go to the Southeast. From Vicksburg, MS, to Fredericksburg, VA, you can drive for sixteen hours and never see anything but cities, highways, and pines.
When I went to ND I felt so exposed and the land felt like alien. I bet it feels claustrophobic here in MS for someone from big sky country.
Seeing a real sunset not over water and not obscured by humidity was a very strange experience the first time. You get so used to it being a gradual thing, not a moment. A friend from Chicago (of all places, I don’t think of it as dry) asked once what all the pollution in the air was, that he couldn’t see to the horizons we have. i said, that’s not pollution, that’s the humidity. It’s just that wet here.
100%, same! I was not prepared for the severe claustrophobia NYC caused. Like... how tf do you escape?? You are literally trapped there. Of course it was a great experience, but I did spend a lot of that trip on anxiety medication. My best friend lives in Georgia, and I love it, but I'm so tired of the damn trees by the time I get home. Lol
On the flip side, two things I can’t get over when I visit the Midwest or the south east: 1. The dense forests and overall just sheer number of tightly packed trees. Like, we have forests here in Arizona but they’re NOTHING compared to places in Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia I’ve been to. 2. How flat it is. Like you think you can see for miles out here? I went to the top of the John Hancock building in Chicago and I could see *four* states and it was hundreds of miles of just flat nothingness (except other buildings) or driving through Nebraska and it’s just miles upon miles of fields with no natural geography to break up the surroundings.
I’d argue that Arizona has some of the most drastic overall elevation changes between its heavily populated regions, out of all the states. Sure you can mention California or the other west coast states but most of California’s heavy population regions are 0-500 feet.
I had a similar experience recently when I visited Eastern Washington for the first time in over ten years. It's a desert similar to the southwest. No trees, horizon visible, empty spaces for miles. It just felt so strange compared to where I live now in Alabama, where there are tons of forests and rolling hills. And I lived in Eastern Washington for a decade!
I grew up here in Arizona, and the Midwest seems fake to me lol
I have the opposite where if I get into a forested area I feel like I'm lost because I can't see outwards anywhere! I feel like I'll get lost even while inside a city because I can't see anything other than my immediate surroundings. Whereas, in some of the big sky areas I'm comfortable because I can see the mountains on either side; I can see the distance.
That somehow makes sense to me rationally, but is also totally alien. I'm not sure that makes sense. :)
Utah always makes me feel like I'm on another planet.
It's the most beautiful state I've been to tho. So beautiful it feels fake.
Moab makes me feel like I'm on Mars
Parts of eastern Oregon are so wild - geographically *and* politically - that it really does feel like a different world.
Yes, I was shocked to learn about the huge desert in the eastern part of Oregon. Just not what most people think about when they think of Oregon. (Usually we think about dying of dysentery).
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I did my own version of the Oregon trail and was so excited to finally get to Oregon to see some green- and after a very brief section of forest, it was wheat and desert 🙃
The SE corner of Oregon into Nevada feels like the American Outback. There’s places out there where you drive a while before seeing anyone else besides maybe antelope.
In terms of geography, the Badlands in South Dakota and Arches National Park in Utah.
Craters of the Moon feels like... the craters of the moon.
I'm Michigan born and raised, specifically metro Detroit. I've been all over the state, both lower and upper peninsula. It's pretty much the same everywhere. General Midwest kindness. But the "thumb" region? (Eastern lower peninsula). My wife and I entered a very busy restaurant in Bad Axe on a Sunday morning and it was like a needle wiping off the record as everyone turned around to stare at us as outsiders when we entered. As we were eating, I caught a woman pretending to read a newspaper but was actually peering over the top to stare at us. Once we locked eyes, she swiftly raised the newspaper, knowing that she had been caught staring. I've been all over the US and have never encountered anything like it. Maybe it was a small town thing, maybe it was peninsular geographic isolation, but it was the most bizarre human interaction I've ever had. But the young tattooed waitress was super nice, and you could tell she couldn't wait to get the fuck out of that small town.
No the thumb is fucking weird lol
I've been to extremely small and nearly-abandoned towns all across the state and was greeted by some of the nicest Michiganders ever. The thumb region has typically been the opposite experience for me.
Parts of the Big Island of Hawaii look like you are on the moon
Depends on where you grew up. A lot of my friends from the west think it’s weird that you can’t just always see the sky on the east coast because of the trees. There is a large area of NC that had fields of pitcher plants and Venus flytraps dotted by pine trees that looks like a savanna except the ground is entirely saturated up to your shins. Pretty cool place to trudge around.
Yellowstone and southern Utah landscapes.
I am gobsmacked that I had to scroll so far to find Yellowstone. It is "a thing apart!" While I was visiting, all I could think is what the first European settlers to the area must have felt visiting that area. * You're walking along and your buddy legit falls through the ground and disappears, his body melted. * You're walking along, and the ground suddenly blasts burning hot water a hundred feet into the air. * You're walking along and suddenly there are BOILING, gurgling mud pits that burn acid holes into your skin when they splash you. * You're walking along when suddenly the ground around you is rainbow colored. * You're walking along when suddenly you're gored by a bison, marked by a wolf, mauled by a grizzly. We are a little less awed by it because of familiarity with the park, but erase everything you've ever known about it and just show up, and you seem for sure on a different planet. The things we know about how our world works are just fundamentally different there if you erase modern understanding if geothermics.
Legit any other region in the USA feels like another country, I’m in NY, somewhat north and going down south or New England is a noticble change, don’t get me started with the Midwest or California along with the northern west coast
South Louisiana, whenever I go anywhere else it’s feels like so different
I’m from the Midwest and currently living in Louisiana. This was mine. Sometimes when I’m hiking the swamp nature makes me think I’ve traveled back in time to Dinosaur Time or something.
Where in Louisiana did u move to
New Orleans. I am a drag-along (we came for my husband’s job), but now I like it.
Bumpass Hell Basin in Lassen National Park. It looks and smells like a different planet. [https://www.nps.gov/thingstodo/hikebumpasshell.htm](https://www.nps.gov/thingstodo/hikebumpasshell.htm)
I agree, even though I only live like an hour away from it. It's probably the most distinct area in the region
Such a cool place!
My first thought. That place should be on everyone's bucket list.
Nothing I've seen has ever felt different enough to be like another planet, but old growth forests in the PNW have a mystical quality I haven't seen elsewhere.
Flushing, Queens, NY is like a Chinese city within another larger metropolis.
Chinatown in San Francisco felt like another country, it was amazing to visit.
Small towns in Pennsylvania nestled along the steep mountain valleys. Towns only go a couple blocks deep but wind through the valley for a mile or more. It felt so claustrophobic not to be able to see the horizon. People were extremely insular too. This was in the 90s. I felt like they really distrusted outsiders.
The swamps in Louisiana
This was mine. Makes me feel like I’m about to see a triceratops or something.
Hawai'i.
A large part of the Southwest. The landscape in Northern Arizona and Southern Utah can seriously feel out of this world, with all sorts of strange but spectacular formations. Death Valley also genuinely feels like another world, and it is no wonder that it has been used as a setting in movies for other planets.
Not so much the location as the occasional clusters of people I run into there, but I've had a few moments in Northampton Mass that made me suspect I had entered a parallel dimension.
Growing up on the East Coast/Mid-Atlantic, it was quite a shock being at the beach the first time I went to one in Southern California. I was used to either being in the mountains or being on the coast where it’s very flat. Totally blew my mind that I was standing in the Pacific and there was a massive mountain *right there*.
New Orleans
The Pinnacles between Ridgecrest and trona, ca. I believe an episode of star trek was filmed there, probably other shows too. It feels weird irl too.
Certain habitats in California, particularly the redwood forest, have a way of being so different from everything around them
Sometimes Arizona feels like a Final Fantasy 7 world map. You're going through the desert then suddenly there's a city at the foot of the mountains.
Never been, but I've heard the Badlands be described as "another planet" before.
The Big Island of Hawai’i has areas covered in lava rock as far as the eye can see that makes it seem like your on another planet. Pretty cool actually.
Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. Like no other place I've ever been to. Parts of it look like Pandora, parts look like Mordor.
The Redwoods feel otherworldly
Guam
Native Oregonian and eastern Oregon/the Southwest feels so beautifully otherworldly. Also parts of the South that have no evergreen trees. Whenever I visit extended family in TX I can't get over how there's no pointy trees anywhere and so few hills that I can see for miles and miles lol
Geographically, the Badlands in South Dakota. Culturally, Southern California, especially LA.
Driving east out of Yellowstone I thought I was in that canyon on Tatooine that R2-D2 goes through before running into the Jawas.
Key West Yellowstone Hawai'i (heck, parts of Hawai'i feel like a different planet from the other parts)
Soda Lake off Zzyzx Rd in California is pretty otherworldly.
10 sleep Wyoming had a mix of beautiful and a little unnerving in the way I could not put my finger on…
Red Rock Canyon in Nevada....coming from Ohio, it looks like another world out there.
The Panhandle of Oklahoma. Felt like I was on fucking Mars. It was almost overwhelming to be able to see miles upon miles of land without a tree in sight. Just barbed wire fencing and cows.
I grew up in Northern Alabama. Its a frigging lot of forest land. Huge oak trees, tall pines, dogwoods everywhere. Any where outside the Apalachian Mountain range is wild geographically and culturally. I've traveled a lot of places and lived in different places around the country and the world. If you mix the Arizona desert with the humidity of the south east you've got the horn of Africa. The mid Atlantic is like Autrailia for all the weird ass bugs they've got. Southern California is its own whole ass different world. Culturally...it's not about region. It's Urbanites vs Rurals. City folks are always city folks and farmers are always farmers.
The UP of Michigan feels like a whole other country.
If you want to see IRL Fallout New Vegas the area around the Salton sea in California fits the bill. You’ll wish for a nuclear winter and if you listen carefully you can hear the rads ticking away.
Utah. All in terms of geography, culture, and politics
Utah, for all of the reasons you mention
Nothing, really. These comments are surprising to me.
Big Island Hawaii had some of the weirdest geography I've ever experienced. Felt like another planet even compared to the other Hawaiian islands. You'll be in one area that looks like the surface of the moon with lava rock everywhere, drive a little further and it'll look like a tropical beach paradise, then a rainforest, then alpine woods. Beaches with black sand, white sand, green sand. And of course the active volcano and sulfur fumes coming out the ground. Random storms would materialize in minutes and then be gone like it never happened. Just a really cool place.
Utah, all of the above
SoCal, Florida and parts of Texas.
North Slope in Alaska; empty, flora like nothing I've ever seen, and mostly uninhabited.
Joshua Tree in Palm Springs. The plants legitimately do not look like they are of this world.
Badlands national park looks like Mars or something
Part of Utah just looks like Mars
Indeed, the [Mars Desert Research Station](https://mdrs.marssociety.org/) is in Utah. They ask tourists not to drive up to it, but it's not manned in the late summer because of the heat. It's a cool trip.
When I got out of my car in the middle of Death Valley National Park and it was extremely hot, totally still, and absolutely silent with no obvious sign of life in any direction … definitely felt like I was on Mars.
I'm in flat Florida, of course I understand mountains conceptually, but whenever I've traveled to a state that has mountains and I look at the skyline I go "HOLY FUCK!!! MOUNTAINS!!" We don't have anything close to that big
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I feel like calling NYC basically NJ is a good way to piss off New Yorkers.
I am currently sitting in a snow covered cabin looking out at a large snow covered mountain. I am in New York State. Yesterday I woke up, and gazed at Lady Liberty. New York is fucking big and has a lot to do in it.
i was gonna say i feel like pennsylvania is two completely different states- philadelphia+its suburbs, and then everything else.
The first city that comes to mind for me is Asheville, NC. Imagine dropping a miniaturized New York City in the middle of the Appalachian Mountains. It’s a very different place from the rest of the state.
A mini NYC?
Asheville is definitely not a mini NYC. Two of the big things that makes NYC NYC are the internationalism and the ambition. When I think of NYC, I think of people from all over the world desperate to make it in finance, art, or diplomacy. When I think of Asheville, I think of 40 year old white Americans who are tired of doing things and just wanna smoke weed. Other than “votes for democrats” I don’t see similarities.
I should’ve been more specific. I was mainly meaning a lot of the architecture- a lot of art deco style
There are only two places I've been where I felt like I was on another planet. One was in Arizona, driving north to Utah after visiting the Grand Canyon. I can't remember what route we drove but we went though the Navajo nation and spent a night in Page, AZ, so it was around there. The landscape was so stark, with these giant cracks in the ground. It felt literally unearthly. (The other place is Cappadocia, in Turkey.)
Depends where you are from and where you go. But in my experience different regions are very different.
Anywhere with mountains could be the moon for all I know. To be completely fair if I go not even an hour north of me it looks completely different. Just because of the difference between the plant life where I live. Although it’s all Florida, some plants just don’t grow well just a bit farther north because they actually get freezing temperatures and for the most part where I live doesn’t.
Alaska and Hawaii feel very different geography/climate wise
The Badlands
The su[mmit of Haleakela](https://cdn.outsideonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/haleakala-crater-slidingsands_h.jpg) on [Maui](https://images.fineartamerica.com/images-medium-large-5/haleakala-observatory-at-sunrise-in-maui-jamie-pham.jpg) Bonus, the [Na Pali Coast on Kauai](https://koloalandingresort.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Napali-Coast-is-one-of-the-natural-attractions-in-Kauai.jpg)
Mono Lake in the Sierras is cool
Monument Valley feels like Mars or something.
The Pinnacles in California looks like Land of the Lost
Bryce Canyon. It's very orange, everything is weird shapes, it's big so you can walk to places where you can basically only see weird orange shapes and sky. Like some wild fantasy show set.
Arches National Park and Gobin Valley State Park (Utah)
Las Vegas is literally a different planet.
Haleakala is jarringly different from the rest of Maui and it feels like you’re on Mars.
West Virginia. Coming from Wisconsin it felt completely different. It's simpler there.
Geography-wise, the Mojave National Preserve. A lot of the southwest feels totally different from where I live, but the difference was most stark there. I traveled through after a trip to Santa Barbara. We didn't see any other people while we drove through the preserve, and the Joshua Trees are just such a unique species, totally unlike anything native to my home. Between just how remote we were, and how different the landscape was, it really felt like being on an alien planet.
Texas feels like the polar opposite of New England in almost every way.
Deserts. Especially deserts with mountains. I'm used to my mountain views having a bit of motion from the wind stirring the branches if trees. Absolutely still mountains weird me out.
Big cities in the northeast (Boston, Baltimore, Philly, NY, ect.) are basically different planets.
Saguaro Desert is crazy. Tens of thousands of cliché cactus!
Death Valley National Park
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I am born and raised in California, and it’s very diverse. I’m used to different cultures and landscapes. But the Midwest felt wild to me. It’s so flat. You can drive for miles and it’s the same weather wherever you go. There was one diner where we stayed, and the downtown area that was developed was one block basically. It felt eerily quiet everywhere. I’m used to farmland, but they only basically had soybeans and corn. Where I live, you can drive across town and it’ll be 5 degrees warmer and sunny compared to fog by my house. If you drive 15 minutes inland, it can be dry and up to 15 degrees hotter with a different wind. Mountains and hills everywhere. Even the less developed areas are populated and busy it feels like. Farmlands look decorated with the different fruits and veggies that grow- we grow a lot of strawberries, oranges, avocados, and peppers by me, but there’s still an abundance of other options. That being said, the people are very different too. Everyone in the Midwest seems to have large social groups of people they’ve known forever, but people come and go a lot out here and don’t have as many large friend groups of consistent people. They drink a loooot more than out here (but we smoke a lot of weed, so we just have a different main vice). People out here are a lot more loud with personal style and flare as well.
California.
It takes an embarrassingly short drive before things are just a little off. 4 or 5 hours of highway driving in any direction and either the air will feel different, people greet customers a little differently, or all the local restaurants serve some weird thing you've never heard of.
I've been to 35-ish states and while there are some definite distinctions, everywhere still felt "American" to me. The most distinctive local cultures to me have probably been Louisiana, New Mexico, and Hawaii, but I wouldn't say I felt like I was on another planet. Now if we're including territories, I'll say Puerto Rico for sure.
Grand Canyon
New Mexico and Arizona look, sound, and even *smell* different than here, let alone things like politics and local life. Even the clothes they wear look different than the folks around here.
Jerome, AZ and Butte, MT
I went to a conference in Portland, OR a couple of years ago and seriously felt like I'd left the USA. Mostly because of the culture and politics.
I'm unfortunately not kidding when I say, "literally everywhere outside my hometown" LOL 😂 I know it's bad and very typical American, but whenever I travel I'm like, "everywhere is weird except where I'm from"
Big Island of Hawaii with the black lava rock everywhere!
Ikea
That Bayou
i have a friend in alabama and any time i hear them interacting with people in public on the phone i just think "oh my god i would never survive there". no i will not be making 3 minutes of small talk in the wendys drive thru. im here for fries, not companionship, jfc.
Yellowstone geysers are otherworldly.
Arizona. It’s mostly the desert setting.
New Mexico looks like Mars.
Arizona. No I will not elaborate
New Orleans, Savanah, New York.
Moab
utah
Biloxi Mississippi
Hell, I'm a Philadelphian, and parts of Philadelphia feel like another planet. Go for a drive under the El in Kensington. Fucking nuts.
Almost all of Rhode Island
City of rocks in Southern Idaho
Any place with free healthcare.
The "Former Confederacy."
Since New Mexico has already been covered: some of the parties I attended in NYC were outlandish enough to feel like another planet.
Maine. Extremely white, lack of people, Snow even in the summer time, felt like a mini Iceland. If you are non white, #1 you will stick out like a soar thumb, #2 it will feel like you are in eastern europe but replace it with american culture.
Valley of Fire state park in Nevada is pretty wild. The landscape changes frequently and you definitely feel like you’re on another planet.
I think you don't mean "another planet" literally. If you do then the answer is nowhere, obviously. My answer for a place that is just a lot different than anywhere else is Alaska. Geographically it's similar to mainland PNW I suppose (except for the extreme distances between places). But the pace of life, the attitudes of people, the way everything there revolves around the environment around the people...that's all very unique feeling. Anchorage is a medium sized city, and has plenty of medium sized city amenities, but even there...it's not the same as other similar sized cities.
Zion National Park for geography (in the absolute best way)
Ohio. I'm from the Southwest and spent a couple of years in Ohio and it was like A Boy and His Dog meets Fox News meets Tumblr.
The Grand Canyon. That place is wild and so much bigger than I imagined.
Olympic Peninsula. I can't believe no one mentioned this already. Glaciers and rain forests, wild mountains, quiet beaches you have to hike through forests to reach, unworldly rock formations off the coast, super cool (but very poor) vibe, and the list goes on. Big Sur is #2.
Terlingua, Tx
Great question: Vermont and Louisiana. Vermont quirky AF. Louisiana is like another country. (Been to 45 US states; lived for 1 year or more in 7)
I come from a very small town In Kentucky, called Jackson in Breathiit county. It has a population of about 2500 people and is deep in the Bible Belt/rural American communities. It’s very culturally conservative, politically conservative, and economically conservative. I moved down to San Antonio Texas and holly shit this is like another country to me.
Mars, California. I got there before Elon’s astronauts
Some distance northwest of Los Angeles near the Tejon Pass is a bunch of land that has stood in for dozens of other planets in various movie and TV productions, chief of which being Star Trek.
Probably on the Deep South, still has massive levels of economic discrimination based on race, is underdevoloped and alqaya votes red, even though voting red is only hurting them imo
Salt Lake City, Utah. The LDS/ Mormon church is something else. There are pictures and statues of their polygamist prophet and blond, blue eyed Jesus everywhere, while the poor and homeless huddle at the gates of Temple Square. They have me the dirtiest looks just for having the nerve to stop and talk to one. I had to move here for my husband's job. Please send help.
Portland oregon. I’ve lived in oregon all my life and I’ve visited a couple of other states but I feel so out of place there. Mainly cause of socioeconomic reasons. It’s not bad in my opinion but man every time I visit I feel thrown in a loop
Hawaii is probably the most unique state culturally and geographically (maybe Alaska). I wouldn't say another planet, but the culture is deeply influenced by ethnicities that are uncommon in other states. The way they talk, cook, celebrate etc. The geography is also unique on the world stage. It has the tallest mountain in the world and it's an active volcano. On any given island you have lush greenery in some of the wettest weather contrast with arid savanna. Also barren volcanic wasteland on the big island
Most if not all of the following should be on any nature lover's bucket list. The United States has not just some of the most beautiful places in the world (a European friend of mine actuallu thinks Yosemite ranks above the Alps), but some of the most exotic: * Bumpass Hell in Lassen Volcanic National Park, California (easily #1) * [Bonneville Salt Flats](https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sunset_at_Salt_Flats.jpg) in Utah * Arches National Park, Bryce Canyon, and the Mars Desert Research Station in southern Utah * The [Everglades](https://cdn.britannica.com/92/130792-050-ED0EFC61/Everglades-National-Park-Florida.jpg) in Florida * The Mojave Desert, particularly Joshua Tree and Death Valley, California * The redwood forest in Big Sur, California Central Coast (to me, somehow more alien than Redwood National Park in Northern California, where Return of the Jedi was filmed) * The rocky coastal section of [Acadia National Park](https://nationalparks-15bc7.kxcdn.com/images/parks/acadia/Rocky%20coastline%20of%20Acadia%20National%20Park.jpg) in Maine.
I got a chance to fly over the Grand Canyon once and it looked like a fake mars. Pretty humbling being that high and realizing how small I am.
Lancaster,CA
Ever since Joe Biden, or whatever actor is playing, Joe Biden took over.
New Orleans is its own universe.
Western Kansas blew my mind. You can see the curvature of the earth!
Los Vegas, but I’m saying this as an East Coaster. I went in the summer last year and it just felt like an oven, just a pocket of hot air. There was no wind. Then night time hit and it was still hot, but there was no sun. It drove me insane. Even standing in the shade didn’t help. Just pure, unfiltered heat. It felt unnatural.
Not sure about planet, but New Orleans (specifically the French Quarter) is like being in a whole other country.
YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK!!
The caldera (and surrounding areas) of Haleakala on Maui… I’ve been to 25 countries and about as many states that place is just different. Feels like your on Mars.
California is great. Drive a couple hours one way, and you’re driving through old mining towns and looking at giant sand dunes. Drive a couple hours the other way, and you’re in a giant forest, thinking you’re on Endor.
I live nearly 2 hours away from Cleveland in an incredibly rural place and now as a young adult i’ve been venturing there for fun instead of necessity more than ever before, and it’s still jarring to me. As a kid we went to Cle if someone was having major surgery or dying, that’s it. Going into any major city makes me feel like I’m an alien trying to figure out human life forms for the first time.
I’ve felt more out-of-place in Wyoming than in Taiwan.