--- type: Country title: United States description: Harry's observations from a three-week 2024 trip, Hawaii to New York, filmed against an election year β€” friendly people, extreme cost of living, and homelessness he keeps returning to. tags: [united-states, north-america] timestamp: 2026-08-05T12:00:00Z --- # United States Harry crossed the United States over three weeks in 2024, starting in Hawaii and finishing in New York, and framed the trip from the first minute against the election and a country he describes as extremely divided. The recurring subjects are cost of living, homelessness, and the gap between what a place is famous for and what is happening a few streets away from it. ## Observations ### From [Hawaii is the Most Overrated Place in the World πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡Έ](/videos/UPxuhl1Kpc4.md) - **Hawaii is the least American state**, in Harry's framing, and the one he chose to enter the country through. - **Americans are friendlier than he expected**, starting with the immigration officer, which he says surprised him. - **Cost of living is the story.** Hotels at $400–600 a night plus resort fees and parking; a minimum wage of $14.50 rising to $18 by 2026 with everything else rising faster; and no cap on rent. - **Homelessness at scale**: [Hawaii](/places/hawaii.md) has more homeless people than any other US state, 28% of them native Hawaiian, and Harry spends a substantial part of the video inside a self-organised camp of around 250 people. - **Native Hawaiians are being priced out** of the islands, with people who grew up there moving to Las Vegas. - **Annexation is recent and contested**: American and European businessmen overthrew the Hawaiian queen in 1893 with US government support, annexation followed in 1898, and territory status in 1900. Harry notes James Dole's involvement, and caveats himself as an Englishman on the subject of colonialism. - **Pearl Harbor** is free if you join the standby line rather than booking a tour β€” something he says isn't advertised. - **Food**: poke is Hawaiian in origin β€” *poke* means cut-up raw fish, from Polynesian fishermen β€” with rice added through Japanese and Filipino migration from the 1970s and avocado added later by Western influence. - **Value for money is his actual complaint** about the US, not the places themselves: the same scenery costs a fraction as much in the Philippines or Indonesia. ### From [Walking the streets of Los Angeles' Most Dangerous Neighbourhoods (Skidrow) πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡Έ](/videos/-pDxtQVWUq0.md) - **The famous hoods have changed and the reputations haven't.** Compton ran at 91 murders per 100,000 in the 1990s; residents now describe it as safe, the gangs have largely gone, and the neighbourhoods that were segregated are mixed β€” which locals say is *why* a stranger draws no attention. - **Money comes back in.** People who made it and left fund parks, nonprofits and youth leagues in the neighbourhoods they came from. - **Skid Row is the exception, and Harry says so.** Over 4,400 people, the largest homeless population in the country, concentrated where the shelters and food are and where the transcontinental railroad once ended. He states that he felt safer in Kabul than in downtown [Los Angeles](/places/los-angeles.md). - **The response, per residents**: clean-ups before big events, streets hosed at night to move people on, and β€” reportedly β€” other states buying bus tickets to send people to a warmer climate (from video – unverified). What they say they want is a long-term job and housing. - **Two problems, not one**: a local contact's argument is that drug use and untreated mental illness need separating before anything works. - **Consumerism**: expensive cars in the poorest neighbourhoods, and a cultural tolerance for credit-card debt that Harry flags as a generalisation while making it. - **Inequality is a few miles wide**: Beverly Hills to Compton on one metro ride. ### From [What Happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡Έ](/videos/ugKRNmqEtCU.md) - **Resort fees are the American hotel trap**: $50 a night on top of the rate for wi-fi and parking, disclosed only in the terms and conditions. Harry hits them in Hawaii and again in [Las Vegas](/places/las-vegas.md). - **Tourist cities have ordinary cities underneath them.** Las Vegas is over two million people; most locals live twenty minutes off the Strip and some go years without visiting it. - **Prostitution law is county-level, not state-level.** Legal in rural Nevada counties, not in Clark County where Las Vegas sits, and fewer than half the counties that could offer it do. - **Homelessness underground**: around 1,500 people live in the storm tunnels beneath the city, with their own community and hierarchy. - **Crime figures**: violent crime rose in 2020 and further in 2021 nationally and locally, and has since come down. - **Casino economics, stated plainly**: far more people lose than win, free drinks and small payouts are retention mechanisms, and the only real skill sits in table games β€” blackjack basic strategy cuts the house edge to about half a percent. - **Rent**: a Strip studio at $1,000 a month or more, with prices flatlined after a peak rather than falling. - **American hotel beds** are, in Harry's view, the best anywhere. ### From [Miami Is Like playing GTA VI in Real Life πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡Έ](/videos/q-s7erKrjlo.md) - **He changes his mind about the country here**, and says so on camera: he arrived expecting arrogant, loud Americans, and two weeks in has had no bad experiences. Expensive, but he thinks you get what you pay for. - **Every city feels like a different country.** Hawaii, Los Angeles, Las Vegas and [Miami](/places/miami.md) have almost nothing in common with one another, which he rates as the most interesting thing about travelling the US. - **The advertised price is never the price** β€” resort fees, parking, tax and expected tips. This became its own tip: [in America the advertised price isn't the price](/tips/american-prices-arent-final.md). - **Tipping**: he refuses to tip for a coffee and then argues the other side himself, noting that service staff are paid below minimum wage. - **Migration built Miami**: Henry Flagler's railway, then post-war retirees and veterans, then Cubans and Latin Americans fleeing communism. Everything is signed in English and Spanish and the city reads as South American. - **Rent is the local complaint** in Miami as in Las Vegas and Hawaii β€” expensive and getting worse, per residents. - **Regulation shows up in odd places**: renting a jet ski requires passing a written exam first. - **Money and costs (2024)**: a haircut and beard trim $70; beach coconuts $5; cigars $5–15. ### From [A Foreigner Takes on the Streets of Manhattan πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡Έ](/videos/MxdwBFwWHA8.md) - **His verdict on Americans, stated at the end of the trip**: he arrived expecting arrogant, loud and annoying, and leaves saying they are very friendly and that strangers talk to strangers in a way he doesn't see elsewhere in the West β€” less so in New York than anywhere else he went. - **His theory about why the country gets ahead**: Americans support people who are doing well, where Britain has tall poppy syndrome and cuts them down. He labels it an opinion while giving it. - **Every city was different**, which he names as the most interesting thing about travelling the country, and both he and Will rank them differently at the end β€” Will puts [New York](/places/new-york.md) first and Las Vegas last; Harry puts [Miami](/places/miami.md) first. - **Covid changed New York more than anything else**, per a barber who won't say whether for better or worse. - **Premium card perks are how he affords the top hotels** β€” see [use card perks at expensive hotels](/tips/use-card-perks-at-expensive-hotels.md). - **National Guard on the subway**, which he flags as unusual. - **Money and costs (2024)**: a pastrami sandwich and a drink $36; taxis expensive enough that he takes the subway throughout. ### From [First Time in the Home of a Hasidic Jewish Family πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡Έ](/videos/R8B356F8u2s.md) - **America's largest Hasidic population outside Israel** is in Brooklyn β€” around 15,000–20,000 people across more than 200 groups, each named for where it came from. See [New York](/places/new-york.md) for Crown Heights. - **Communities run their own services**: Shmira, a neighbourhood patrol, and Hatzalah, a volunteer ambulance service reported to beat the city's response times. - **Observance explained rather than displayed**: tzitzit from age three with eight strings and five knots per corner for the 613 commandments; tefillin from bar mitzvah, on the arm for the emotions and the head for the thoughts; the yarmulke, meaning fear of God; beards from the instruction not to cut the five corners of the face. The black suit is a uniform rather than a requirement. - **Mitzvah means connection, not commandment** β€” the framing his host offers is an invitation rather than an order. - **A kosher kitchen has two of nearly everything** β€” ovens, microwaves, dishwashers, washing machines β€” from the instruction not to cook a kid in its mother's milk. He calls it inconvenient and says they do it gladly. - **Married women cover their hair** from the day after the wedding, framed as modesty between a woman and God. The wigs are made with scalp-coloured linings, and the hair is bought from Europe, Ukraine and Brazil. - **Large families** come from the first commandment in the Bible. Harry's host has nine children and says the misconception he most wants corrected is that any of it is imposed rather than chosen. - **Harry's own summary of what travel taught him**, given here rather than anywhere else: 99.9% of people are kind, there are good and bad people everywhere, and strangers will help you anywhere in the world. ### From [A Journey Across the US/Mexico Border into Tijuana πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡Έ πŸ‡²πŸ‡½](/videos/F2cspOu3_iQ.md) A day trip out of San Diego, and what it adds here is the border rather than the country. The Mexican side is on the [Tijuana](/places/tijuana.md) and [Mexico](/countries/mexico.md) pages. - **San Diego is among the most expensive cities in the United States**, which is why **American citizens live in Tijuana and commute across the border** every day for work and school. - **Americans cross for healthcare.** Pharmacies immediately over the line sell medicine at roughly half the US price, and dental treatment is a border industry β€” a direct consequence of what the same things cost at home. - **There is no US exit stamp** when you walk out. Harry crosses without one and spends the day unsure whether he can get back in. - **The wall at the beach has two layers and a soldier watching it**, and part of it was where families split by the border came to talk and touch hands. He is told that may have stopped. - **On the language**, unprompted and in his own voice: calling people illegal immigrants makes them sound like animals, and they are people working harder than most of us. - **San Diego itself** gets a morning β€” sea lions, a coastal hike and an encounter with a snake β€” and no page of its own. ### From [30 Days Travelling USA - American Dream or Failure? πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡Έ](/videos/0ttOIcmgZYk.md) The through-line video for the whole trip, and the one where he answers the question he has been asking everybody. City detail is on the [Los Angeles](/places/los-angeles.md), [Las Vegas](/places/las-vegas.md) and [New York](/places/new-york.md) pages. - **His verdict on the American dream**: alive, for people who believe a better future is reachable through work β€” and definitely harder than it was. - **He corrects his own preconception on camera.** He arrived thinking Americans were arrogant, loud and annoying; he leaves saying they are the most openly friendly Westerners he has met, because strangers strike up conversations constantly in a way he says they don't in Britain. - **Tall poppy syndrome**, offered as his own opinion: Americans support each other's success, where the British instinct is to bring a person down for doing well. - **What people told him about the dream**: a woman giving things away on Venice Beach says you have to go and get it, and the people who don't want it will watch you get it. A man from Detroit tells him to think with his soul rather than his brain. - **The politics, filmed rather than argued.** Outside the courthouse where Trump was on trial, the crowds were separated into pro and anti sides like a football match. Harry says on camera that he isn't American and isn't taking a side, and lets a Trump supporter β€” an immigrant who entered legally and thinks everyone should β€” make his case at length. - **National Guard in the New York subway**, which he flags as not an everyday sight. - **A campervan is a practical way to cross**: two double beds and a gas oven, booked online, and they sleep in a casino car park on the state line. - **New York food is immigrant food** β€” Mexican, Chinese, Italian and Caribbean communities that arrived for economic opportunity, which is the thesis of the Brooklyn tour he takes.