I’ll start. Grew up in a small town deep in Rural west Virginia. Its hella different. The accents, mannerisms, expressions etc are quite a bit different from what most people would consider ” mainstream” America.

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  1. If we get to count small communities then Slab City for sure but really the whole area from the Salton Sea to Joshua Tree could probably be used.

    For cities it would have to be Las Vegas/Paradise.

    For context of this post I’m ignoring Hawaii and Alaska who I feel seem obviously different.

  2. The biggest one for me is South Texas. The rest of Texas forgets it exists half the time, but it’s an area bigger and more populous than a lot of US states that operates in Spanglish damn near 100% of the time.

    It’s even pretty remote from Mexican American culture, because most Mexican Americans have recent memory/stories of their families living in Mexico where most south Texans have had all their family in south Texas as long as anybody can remember.

    One of my favorite parts of the US. Puro pinche 956 cabrón.

  4. El Paso TX is a big city, and in many ways it can seem like a ‘typical’ American city (especially in the suburbs) but if you hang around what is called the Mission Valley or anywhere near the border, sometimes you feel like you’re basically in Mexico.

  8. To me, a lot of this depends on what you see as “mainstream” American culture. Are you thinking more NYC skyscrapers, baseball, and Wallstreet or are you picturing Norman Rockwell suburbs?

    If you’re just thinking unique cultures in America I guess I’d say New Orleans, Hawaii, Alaska, and parts of Appalachia.

  10. Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. I went up there for the first time since I was little to see family back in 2021 and it felt very “Canadian”

  12. Dearborn in Michigan. It’s a suburb of Detroit but has the largest population of Muslims and the largest mosque in North America. It’s often called little Baghdad. There are some great places to eat there.

  15. Miami is different from Key West and both are far different from Tallahassee or Pensacola.

  16. I’m not sure I know what mainstream America is. I thought I did but now that I’ve traveled more, I feel like New England and upstate NY are vastly different compared to anything south of Maryland on the coast, Texas, and SoCal.

  18. West Virginia

    Deep Appalachians in general. Very easy to get lost in and a lot of old culture snd old history still prevalent in the hills and hollers there.

  19. New Orleans. Everything here is so different from the normal middle America stuff that people are super-amazed at nothing. I’ve seen supposedly sane people bowled over by the mere sight of a yellow house. Click, click went the cameras. I asked what’s the deal? And the tourists gabbled “That house is YELLOW!! and we saw a BLUE one over there, next door to a PINK one and a GREEN one further down the block!! I just can’t IMAGINE having a BLUE HOUSE!!”

    “What’s your favorite color?”

    “Oh, I like blue!”

    “What color is your house?”

    “Well……it’s white….”

  21. I was born and raised in New York City and New York City is different from mainstream America. When I moved to Naples, Florida in 2004 from New York City when I was 21 years old I began to more see what America truly is. I felt like growing up in New York City and being first generation American of Trinidadian parents that the real America was foreign to me.

  22. Me being a 49 year old African American from rural western North Carolina and going to large western cites like Portland, Oregon and Denver, Colorado.

    I always have a very difficult time adjusting to the people in places where the majority of white Americans aren’t extremely racist and bigoted.

  23. Quite a few:

    The most distinct regions are:
    Southern Louisiana

    South Florida

    Hawaii

    Alaska

    New York City (especially Manhattan)

    New Mexico

    Utah/Mormon country

    Also any cultural/religious enclave surrounded by Mainstream America (e.g. Amish Country or Hasidic communities in New York) will be quite distinct.

  24. I‘ve been to over 30 states, and I feel that while you get some of the classic Americana stuff everywhere, I have felt it the least in places that have very low populations. Alaska, for example, can feel like an entirely different country. West Virginia also doesn’t feel like it fits in with the surrounding states at all. I’ve never been to Hawaii, but I’d imagine this is also true there. The most obvious answer though would be Puerto Rico, which doesn’t even speak the same language, etc.

  26. I have no idea what would be considered mainstream America. For example, NYC, MIA and LA are so different from each other.

  29. I lived in SoCal most of my life and moved to NYC for my career and that opened up a lot for me culturally — that and I was a flight attendant, so going to the Caribbean, Dominican Republic, etc really let me see how much of a melting pot NYC was due to its migrants. I loved it — and it was unlike any state I’d been to. Now that I live in Japan, I miss NYC’s booming multi-cultural offerings.

  31. The Florida Keys. Bit more of a laid back atmosphere, especially when you get away from Key West. Hella expensive though.

  32. Santa Fe, NM. I used to travel there a lot growing up because I had extended family and I remember all of the people who would sell handmaid jewelry/clothes in the town square. Honestly it was really neat, but it’s something I had never seen before. It was all handcrafted and *gorgeous*. I also remember going and watching an Indian dance when I was a young kid. It was just an entirely different culture and it has stuck with me in memory for a long time.

  34. Massachusetts (Boston and greater area) and Hawaii feel like other countries to me. I love them both though.

  36. California is very cosmopolitan and you don’t feel the “spirit of America” too much here. At times you feel the vibe from the many latinos here and other foreigners make you forget the vibe of the spirit of America tho you may still feel the glory of America

  38. rural maine. parts of louisiana. yesterday i was watching a youtube video about a town in nevada of 18 people that is 100 miles from a grocery store. i have not yet been to guam or VI or PR. I’m not sure if the northern mariana islands are even part of the usa, although i think so.

  39. Hawaii — Island time is very much a thing.

    Alaska… Anchorage feels like most moderate sized cities, but once you get out a little into the boonies, it feels a little like you went back in time. Wait, you carry a gun? To fend off bears? What century is this?

    But really, backwoods anywhere feels kind of time warpy. You meet a lot of folks who have never been more than 50 miles from their house, things like that.

    Ooh, and Indian reservations. Like this weird, unhealthy combination of money and abject poverty. I’ve got pretty mixed feelings about the whole reservation thing.

  40. NYC is still largely broken up into very segregated ethnic enclaves like most American cities were in the past. You can walk through neighborhoods and hear little to no English spoken and find some businesses with no signage in English.

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