Interesting Differences Across the Pond ~

Let’s take a closer look at some interesting differences across the pond!

Last month two of my very good friends traveled across the pond from the Boston area to come visit me in England. Our goal was to simply enjoy our time together, enjoy the local surroundings, laugh, and reconnect! It was eye opening to hear from them some of the same interesting differences I have personally noticed here across the pond!

On our first evening together, we visited a local restaurant to sit, chat, and discuss our plans for the week. When the bill came, guess what the discussion immediately turned to? THE TIP!!! Now in the states, servers generally get a very low wage. In some upscale restaurants, servers pay a fee to be able to work there! Therefore, tips are crucial to the servers and supporting staff. In the states, the customary tip is about 20%. For good service, you may feel obliged to leave upwards of 25%.

Here in England, the average tip is 10-12%. Some establishments have started placing an optional tip on the bills, but that is highly unusual. When I first visited England, not realizing some of the differences across the pond, I left a 20% tip when I paid my bill. The server questioned me and thought I’d made a mistake!

On a similar topic, the tax on items is generally included on the price tag in England. No trying to figure out what the tax will be on your purchase! This is an interesting difference to learn about across the pond. In the United States, each state may charge different tax rates for different items. From clothing, to food, tobacco, alcohol, gas etc. the tax rates may all be different depending on which state you’re in. And the price tags on items do not include the tax!

Another interesting difference my friends took notice of across the pond is the public bathrooms!!

We visited a local priory (church) while my friends were here. The priory was gorgeous, steeped in history with beautiful stained-glass windows, antiquated tombs, and had a surreal aura about it. When we were ready to leave, one of my friends used the public restrooms. She came out laughing and said she took pictures to show back in the states! The toilets all had doors from top to bottom, with no space above, no space below and no gaps between the door AND the toilets had lids! She thought this was fantastic! 😆

Look at the picture below. I took this at a local restaurant just to show how private the public restrooms are here in England!

Private public restrooms at a local restaurant!

Private public restrooms!

Compare to a public restroom in the states ~

Public restroom in the states

Another topic of interest across the pond that I find different is the availability of open land to the public for hiking, nature trails, bird watching, coastal paths, etc.

England does a really good job of providing access to pedestrians, hikers, bicyclists and overall nature and activity enthusiasts. There are paths leading to the coastlines, sidewalks that allow safe walking all over, even wide-open farmlands that may have public access. Imagine waking through the countryside, the ocean on one side of you and wide open fields with sheep and cows grazing on the other side.

When my friends were here, we visited the New Forest, located on the south-central coast of England, within the county of Hampshire. It’s about a 25-minute drive from Poole where I live. They absolutely loved the way we could walk freely over wide-open land and through forests and see the amazing beauty of wild horses roaming!

The United States does a good job with public parks and nature reserves, but I find that across the pond there is much more availability and user friendliness overall. Very rare do I see “No Trespassing” signs in England like I notice in the states!

No trespassing!

There are many other interesting differences across the pond and maybe another post soon to go into depth on some of them!

But….just for a sneak preview, think about these:

~The ability to fly to numerous European countries in less than four hours from England!

~Cashiers in England have chairs available, so they aren’t standing at the register all day!

~Average vacation allotment from your employer in England is 5.6 weeks!

~England’s online banking apps allow very simple user interface for transfers to other banks. You can use this feature to pay for just about anything or any individual without having to use an app like Venmo or PayPal!

And some difference from across the pond that I miss from the states:

~Large capacity washers and dryers!

~Writing the date as mm/dd/yyyy instead of dd/mm/yyyy!

~Driving on the “correct” side of the road 🥰. Check out some of these prior posts to learn more about driving here in England:

https://yankeebrit.blog/2023/06/06/driving-in-england/

https://yankeebrit.blog/2023/03/06/rotaries-roundabouts-traffic-circles-2/