Why you should still visit the US despite President Trump

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This was published 7 years ago

Why you should still visit the US despite President Trump

By Ben Groundwater
Travelling in the US will be the same as it ever was.

Travelling in the US will be the same as it ever was.Credit: iStock

There is this country – it's the best country. It's beautiful. Everyone agrees. It's so great that you're gonna get sick of its greatness. Believe me.

This country is, of course, the US, which now exists in a Trumpian dystopia where everything is "yuge" and it wins "bigly", even though everyone is apparently unemployed and the streets are war zones, and you have to get used to the fact that the most powerful man in the country, and effectively on the entire planet, tweets insane boasts like a 12-year-old with self-esteem issues.

But this is modern-day America. When Donald Trump announced in his inauguration speech that everything was about to change, he wasn't kidding. For better or worse, things will never be the same in the US again.

US President Donald Trump.

US President Donald Trump.Credit: Bloomberg

I was there for the transition. I was in the US for inauguration day, to see kind, sane Barack Obama hand over the reins of power to a man who seems, to me at least, to be the polar opposite of those things. And I wasn't alone in this thought, apparently.

Chairlifts at ski resorts are usually politics-free zones, where chitchat is limited to "where are you from, what do you do, and where are the powder stashes on the mountain", but not on inauguration day. It was all Trump, all the time, and it turns out that you don't meet many people in Beaver Creek, Colorado, who voted for the Orange One.

In fact, no one I've met in the US so far will put their hand up and admit they support this guy. And yet here we are, with the man in power. "It's gonna be … interesting," one guy said to me on the chairlift. "Let's call it interesting."

It might be enough to put you off visiting the US. It might be enough to hear the ridiculous boasts, to read about the brutal policy ideas, to hear the descriptions of a broken, miserable country, to feel the deep sense of nationalism that pervades everything Trump has to say, and consider not visiting the US any more.

This new attitude of ultra-patriotism is likely to make American grate again. Why go to a violent country full of people who clearly have no interest in us as citizens of the rest of the world?

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But that would be a mistake. Because anyone who's been to the US would be able to tell you that the version of America preached in Trump's speeches is not the version of America that any traveller would encounter.

This isn't a nation of chest-thumping xenophobes, even if it's being represented by one. This is a country of kind, hospitable, intelligent and friendly people who will love you for your foreign accent, rather than shun you for being different. And they live in a peaceful, beautiful country.

The vision that President Trump describes, an America of urban carnage, of drug gangs and poverty and misery, is not one that seems to have any basis in truth or reality. In Beaver Creek, Colorado – though it's probably not representative of the nation as a whole – the only "American carnage" I saw was on the beginners' ski slope.

Even outside of that winter paradise, life in the US didn't seem so bad. Certainly, the people I met didn't think so. "I don't know what that place is that Trump was talking about," one guy said to me. "But I'm glad I don't live there."

It would be a travesty if tourists were turned off visiting the US because of the new Trumpian reality. You can't judge a country by its leader. A politician isn't a people.

The travel experience in the US will be the same as it ever was, despite the rise of Trump. Los Angeles will always be a fantasy land. New York will always be brash and fun. The bands will keep playing in Austin, Texas. The Rocky Mountains will still get their snow. The sky will be as big as ever over Montana.

If American carnage really does exist, it's far outside the tourism bubble.

The only difference you might find in Trumpian US is that people start going out of their way to prove that you can't judge a book by its extravagantly coiffed cover. These will be protests on a micro scale, small acts of kindness and good will towards strangers that travellers will be able to enjoy.

Remember, the US is "yuge", and most people who live there did not vote for Trump.

b.groundwater@fairfaxmedia.com.au

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