30 Days Travelling USA - American Dream or Failure? 🇺🇸

The through-line video for Harry’s three weeks in the United States with Will: a campervan from Los Angeles to Las Vegas, then New York, asking one question of everyone he meets — is the American dream still possible?

His answer at the end is yes, and harder than it was. The more interesting answer is the one about the people: he arrived expecting arrogant and loud, and left arguing that Americans are the most openly friendly Westerners he has met.

Obs: the video carries a read-aloud luggage sponsorship, and credits a campervan rental, a booked food tour and a premium credit card. No provider is recorded here except where the mechanism is the information — the card perks are covered on use card perks at expensive hotels.

Key moments

• [00:00] The premise: a childhood ambition to do the American road trip and stay in the Home Alone hotel, against a country he’s been told is in trouble.
• [00:30] Venice Beach, and a stranger’s party they are simply invited into.
• [01:04] A woman from Indiana on why she stays: she can be exactly what she wants here, and there is room to do all of it at once.
• [02:40] Bodybuilding started in LA, at a gym he films, and skateboarding nearby — his example of American cultural export.
• [03:09] Magic, on a bench, giving away psychedelics, food and spare clothes to whoever walks past. Her comparison: New Yorkers are too standoffish to accept anything from a stranger, and Angelenos will take anything.
• [04:19] On the law: possession is flexible, and she distinguishes what she gives away from what she says would actually get her arrested.
• [04:19] Asked whether the American dream is still possible, she says yes — if you want it you’ve got to get it, and the people who don’t want it will watch you get it.
• [05:51] Santa Monica pier, and a man from Detroit who tells him to think with his soul rather than his brain, like children do, and says he could sit there happily for the rest of time.
• [07:33] Venice Boulevard: the smell of marijuana the length of it, and the contrast he keeps returning to — people in crisis and joggers and tourists and the wealthy all on the same pavement.
• [08:02] An empanada seller — Egyptian, selling Argentinian food in America, around 100 a day. Harry pays $100 for $6 of food because she’s been working all day.
• [11:13] The campervan: two double beds and a gas oven, booked online and collected in minutes.
• [12:36] Rock-paper-scissors decides who drives the four hours to Vegas.
• [13:50] They sleep in a casino car park on the Nevada state line.
• [14:22] First American casino, 8am, and a $18 win he describes as better than sex.
• [14:53] Nevada legalised gambling in 1931, which is where the city comes from.
• [15:46] The 20,000-calorie burger. Eight patties, no fries, no sauce; you get spanked publicly if you don’t finish; you eat free if you weigh over 350 lb, and someone does while they’re there.
• [17:04] He doesn’t finish, gets spanked, and takes it well.
• [19:53] The Sphere: $2.3 billion, the largest audio system in the world, a $99 ticket for a 50-minute film that circles the earth. His verdict is that $100 is a lot and it is worth it.
• [22:26] New York, and the courthouse where Trump is on trial: crowds segregated into pro and anti sides like a football match, arguments running in every direction, and cameras everywhere.
• [25:29] A Trump supporter’s argument, at length and in his own words: he is an immigrant himself, entered legally through a port of entry, and thinks everyone should — that every country requires a visa, and that people cross this border precisely because life here is better. He ends on freedom of speech, and calls America one of the greatest countries in the world for it.
• [27:44] His own correction, stated plainly: he started the trip thinking Americans were arrogant, loud and annoying, and finished it thinking they are extremely friendly — strangers strike up conversations constantly, which he says doesn’t happen in Britain.
• [28:18] National Guard in the subway, which he flags as not an everyday sight.
• [28:50] Tall poppy syndrome, and his theory of why America gets ahead: Americans support each other’s success where the British instinct is to cut people down. He’s careful to call it his own opinion.
• [29:25] A Brooklyn street food tour with a local guide, and the point it makes: New York food is immigrant food.
• [29:50] Mexican pork and pineapple; a huge Mexican population, concentrated on the west coast because of proximity.
• [30:22] Brooklyn is twice the size of Paris at 2.7 million people (from video – unverified).
• [31:26] The Chinese community grows its own produce upstate, so Chinatown’s ingredients are local — his guide’s point about jobs as much as food.
• [32:28] Vodka sauce pizza at $5, which he has never heard of and rates highly.
• [33:41] The tour’s own thesis: Mexican, Chinese, Italian post-war and Caribbean communities all arrived for economic opportunity, and the food map is the immigration map.
• [34:49] 63 donuts a year is the average American figure he’s given (from video – unverified).
• [36:36] The Plaza, at $1,000 a night — the Home Alone hotel, opened in 1907, renovated in 2008 at a cost he gives two versions of and doesn’t resolve, and a National Historic Landmark.
• [38:16] The upgrade lands this time, on the same premium card that failed to deliver one in Manhattan when he booked the same day, plus a $100 credit. See use card perks at expensive hotels.
• [39:54] He catches himself trying to save $9 on a Coke Zero in a $1,000 room.
• [40:57] The verdict: the American dream is alive for people who believe a better future is reachable through work, and it is definitely harder than it was.
• [41:32] And the sign-off he uses everywhere: he came expecting a divided country and found friendly people — a government and its people are not the same thing.

Extracted pages

• Country: United States
• Places: Los Angeles, Las Vegas, New York
• Person: Will
• Tip: Use card perks at expensive hotels