Last year, travelling from Memphis to Tulsa we took a short detour north to Joplin and so I must have been and 'done' Missouri. Another one of the 50 ticked off.

And if the I44 was a few feet to the right I guess I gone done Kansas too.

It depends on your definition of America.

If someone has never been here they must rely on the information if others, which always has bias even unintentional, and you formulate an opinion based on that.

People and experience can differ vastly even in one state.

For example, NYC is a vastly different experience than upstate NY.

To further that, the city of Rochester (upstate NY) is wildly different than the surrounding suburbs not 20 minutes away.

You can have white picket fences, apple pie, and great places to live and 20 minutes away you can have a “melting pot” rat hole that has more murders per capita per year than most of the bigger cities in the US.

Take Arizona. You can go to Scottsdale and it’s like being in Los Angeles. Drive 1 hour in almost any direction and it can be the Wild West.