What’s your opinion and experiences of the neighboring countries of the United States?

17 comments

1. Just fyi, Quebec is part of Canada.

   I like Canada a lot. I haven’t been a ton of places but I’ve been camping in Alberta and BC and been to Niagara. Pre-9/11 you only needed a drivers license to cross into Canada and back so that was pretty cool.

   There’s a lot of politics about Mexico and the southern border but I think it’s a beautiful country with incredibly rich traditions and very nice people.

   I’d love to visit Cuba and I was born after the Cold War had more or less ended, so I don’t have any real negative connotations to Cuba that older Americans who lived through the Cold War may have.

   I’d like to visit the Bahamas too but since I haven’t, I don’t really have any opinion about them other than that.

   Haven’t been to Catalonia yet but I do have in-laws there. I also have in-laws in Extramadura and Andalucia that I have met. Spain is a beautiful country and I get super excited every time I get to go.

2. Maybe it’s because I’m Californian born, bred, and raised, but Mexico is basically America where they speak Spanish.

   Yeah, there are definite unique aspects, but take away the Spanish and the poverty, and Jalisco is about as different as Minnesota.

3. I love both. Some parts of the US feel much more foreign to me than most of Canada. Mexico feels very ‘real’ in a way that doesn’t exist anywhere I’ve been up here.

4. 90% of my friends are Mexican. You couldn’t pay me to set foot there.

   I almost married a Canadian. And I once tried to get citizenship there. I was denied. Because they didn’t want me taking blue-collar jobs away from their people. I’m still a little bitter.

5. Love ’em all.

6. Canada has a similar cultural affinity as the US… multicultural Anglo society. Haven’t had the pleasure of visiting it. Hopefully sometime in the future.

   Mexico has a strong cultural influence on the southwestern states (cowboy culture, food, etc.). I’m a third generation Mexican-American. So far I’ve been to Tijuana and Cancun a couple of times… I really want to visit more of the country (trying to get fluent in Spanish first). I’m from LA and Mexican food is pretty much the staple food here.

   I’d love to visit Spain someday, very influential in the southwest as well.

7. No negative feelings about any of our neighbors.

   I live about a half hour from Canada. No issues with them

   I haven’t been to Mexico but the people I have met from there have been lovely and the food is yummy.

   I haven’t been to the other places you mentioned but I have had pretty positive feelings about the Caribbean countries I have visited.

8. We’re lucky to have friendly Neighbors, Canada is like the 51st state.

9. Canada is beautiful, fun, but crazy cold and their bears are scarier than ours.

   Mexico is beautiful, tasty, fascinating (the museums are great), but scary poor and there are a lot of inconveniences, from drug violence to homeless dogs on the street

   Bahamas are beautiful, warm, relaxing, but very far. There really isn’t much to do besides the beaches and the Slavery Museum.

   Cuba is almost as far away as Bahamas (from California), but I’d love to go.

10. I’ve lived in Canada (western Ontario) for almost a year now, and my son is finishing up first grade (“grade one” as they say here) in a couple months. It’s been a seamless transition. No complaints. The family is happy. We went to Banff for a long weekend last summer and took in the scenery. None of us are accustomed to mountains, so just driving around was nice.

    I’ve only ever been to Mexico once, and that was an extended layover. Got in at 3pm, left at 8am the next morning. Spent the evening in a nice part of Mexico City. I liked it. But I can’t really offer a full opinion since it’s so limited.

    I’ve never been around the Caribbean. My parents go on cruises there every couple years. So it must be nice. But I’m not a cruise person and I’m not a resort/island person. Too slow.

11. I live on the Canadian border. In the past decade border crossings became a big trickier, and certainly had been trickier after 9/11 until then. The city I live in was once one, now split on either side, both still with the same name. One might think that at least before border crossings faced more scrutiny that both might have operated more like a single city and that the border isn’t such an obstacle. Perhaps because it’s a bridge crossing rather than just land-bordered, but it never really felt that way. The Canadians disproportionately frequented the American side for commerce since prices on most things here are lower. The walmart I worked at had huge numbers for a small city such as this thanks to that – sometimes they’d buy several gallons of milk at a time, or a whole case of butter. As well a large portion of the clientele at the theater I once worked at were Canadian. That might speak somewhat to the cost difference, since the Canadian side has a walmart of their own, and a theater which frankly was much nicer than ours.

    Americans going over on that side is more for special occasions or events. The drinking age there is 18 versus our 21, so the coming-of-age right of going out for one’s first bar excursion in my town was very commonly done at 18 on the Canadian side. There was a strip club over there as well, which often made that a particularly lucrative stop for someone turning 18. We get a lot of canadian broadcast stuff here as well naturally, so on the whole we have a lot more cultural influence mix from Canada.

    So yeah I guess it’s interesting at least to grow up right along the border, but the other side remains quintessentially foreign, and in that probably moreso for us than for them. There’s a decent amount of culturla influence and commerce, but the actual dynamics of it feel entirely separate, while if a city that size was right next to mine on this side of the border, everything would be radically different around here

12. Mexico is beautiful. Love the people there. Amazing culture. Major issues with crime and corruption. Still a great place to visit.

    Canada is America’s cousin that we grew up with. They have their own thing, but they hung out at our house all throughout childhood and we still hang out on weekends.

13. I’ve been to Canada many times and I think pretty highly of the country. Don’t care much for their PM or form of government though. I wish they’d realize that they don’t need to smugly base their national identity on being different from and better than us.

    I’d like to visit Mexico more.

14. I like Mexico. I tolerate Canada.

    Canada is, to me, just a more bland version of the US.

    Mexico is far more vibrant and intriguing.

    As far as our other neighbors, like the Bahamas, they’re cool to visit. However our day-to-day is not really influenced by them.

15. I have family in both…. Would love to live in Vancouver one day but I visit Mexico much much more often. Both are beautiful countries in their own ways.

    Bahamas are beautiful.

    Never been to Cuba but I’d love to go.

16. Love Canada, I go there fairly often. Love most Mexicans, hate their corrupt government and cartels, I’ve only been there once. Love the Bahamas, it’s beautiful there, but I’m not a fan of some of their banking laws, wish Cuba had freedom, never been.

    I tried learning French because that’s the language spoken closest to me, turns out Quebec uses a different type of French so that was useless, wish I learned Spanish, I hear it spoken every single day, it’d be cool if I could understand what’s being said.

    I don’t think of Quebec as separate from Canada, because it’s not. It’s a province within Canada.

17. I have friends and family in Canada and Mexico, I love both countries. In general I think the negative and positive stereotypes about both countries are generally overblown.