My family is a redneck family, but we aren't full on, confederate-flag waving, living in a trailer park rednecks. We are country folk. We have a strong family bond and a lack of wanderlust. I guess you could say that I sometimes envy my friends who go on lavish vacations to tropical locations and what not but when they get back from the whole thing and have a chance to talk to me about it honestly, they say to me that they don't think the experience was worth the immense cost of thousands of dollars per person just to go somewhere like Hawaii.
We have an ocean here and while it might not be as lovely as Hawaii or some other tropical location, it is pretty nice. It is also just a few hours' drive from here and we can do it as a day trip if we wanted to. I have a fantastic time when I load up some friends in the car and head out to the Outer Banks or even just the shore of North Carolina. Would it be better if we were on some overwater bungalow on the other side of the planet? I don't know if it would be.
This is just a few hours drive from my house and I can bring whatever I want with me. Normally if we go there for a day trip we don't even go to a restaurant because as much as we love the convenience of this area, they do still overcharge the hell outta things at the restaurants and of course, in the tourist areas the restaurants aren't really even that good because they don't have to be. Therefore, we pack all of our own stuff, our dogs, and head to one of the beaches that we are allowed to BBQ on our own if we want. Or, if we are feeling less adventurous we just pack a bunch of sandwiches, sodas, and beers into the trucks and we go and do that.
One thing that we always do is someone has to pack their Cornhole boards into one of the vehicles because seriously, we can play this game for hours on the beach and never get tired of it. If you've never played this game it is a lot of fun and while there are genuine techniques to mastering it, I don't think a great deal of that really matters. You just throw it as best you can and if one of your friends has kids, you let them win every now and then to keep them happy.
Maybe I am just blessed to live in a state that has a wide variety of nature as well as plenty of lakes and rivers (as well as an ocean) but I don't feel terribly compelled to go to other places. Am I missing out on experiences because of this? Probably. But this is one of the aspects of being a redneck or a country-boy that people need to fully understand: we don't actually want to be global citizens. This doesn't mean that we are unwelcoming of other cultures or are afraid of them, we are just content where we are.
I've gone on a few rather expensive vacations to other parts of the US such as visiting a friend of mine in New York City where everything costs at least 3 times as much as it does here and I felt it to be, well other than seeing my friend, a bit of a nightmare. Everything is so damn crowded, dirty, and loud. I think we would be better off in the future if he were to return to his roots in North Carolina and come and visit me. We did go to the same North Carolina university after all.
Another time I flew down to the Bahamas and go ahead and laugh at my lack of international experience if you want, but that place was undoubtedly beautiful but again, it was really expensive because your only choice really is to stay in a resort and drink overpriced cocktails out of plastic cups. I never did understand why they wouldn't let us have glasses and at $6 a drink, they really should. I recall going to a place called Xanadu beach and yeah, it was breathtakingly beautiful with the crystal clear water that NC definitely doesn't have but I'll tell you this: After an hour or so of snorkeling I was basically over it. The rest of the time we were constantly harassed by people walking up and down the beach trying to sell you everything under the sun. You get kind of tired of being bothered by strangers selling stuff after a while and really, at that point I just wanted to go back to the hotel so that security could keep those people away from us.
src
this is an overhead view of Xanadu beach that must have been photoshopped. what it is really like is packed with people being harassed by touts all day long
That trip also cost me thousands of dollars whereas a trip to the Outer Banks or Atlantic Beach (the one in NC, not the gambling place in New Jersey) it costs me as much as what fits in my cooler and a tank of gas. If I feel like getting drunk I can get a hotel for $50, if I plan ahead and have a designated driver, it costs me nothing.
I think this is one aspect of redneckdom that the world doesn't really look at so much. we are not any less educated than the rest of any other demographic in America, nor are any more wild or drug addicted or even racist like the media would like to present. We just don't actually want to go anywhere else. I don't know why that is seen as wrong. We are content where we are and honestly, I think that kind of suggests that maybe we are doing things right. We don't have to go anywhere because we have all that we want right here.
If I miss out on seeing ancient Greece or the streets of Paris or the Pyramids with my own eyes so be it. For the few places I have been that people keep saying you absolutely must go to around the world, it seems to be inundated with everyone else there as well. I hate crowds unless I am at a concert.