The other big thing for knowing I'm in Illinois is seeing gasoline and diesel prices significantly higher than in my state. It's not just fossil fuels either, charging my EV in Illinois makes it cost more than fueling my wife's SUV in my state and driving the same trip. The roads aren't much better either for the higher taxes either.

Totally agree. It's just sad to see the extent of the sprawl with seemingly no regard for anything except "development."

The roads get better, the drivers get worse, there's jughandles everywhere, they won't let me pump my own gas, and there's liquor stores that aren't owned by the state.

Also I have to cross a river, and pretty much everything gets flatter.

For the other borders, mostly the same. One direction you start seeing more places serving crab, another has no sales tax, one is just boring and depressing, and the other unless you cross at some very specific places is mostly just woods and farms and shit that kind of blend into our own but with better roads.

• Idaho -> Oregon: weed dispensaries
• Idaho -> Nevada: casinos

When you cross from Nevada into California, the roads turn to shit.

I couldn't believe driving through Missouri. What a shit hole.

When you pass into Indiana, you're immediately overcome with this opressive sense of forboding and dispair. Also the roads immediately turn to shit.

Trenton area mostly. The bag ban wasn’t in effect last time I visited, so if it’s improved the situation that’s great.

Like others have said, the roads here tell you.

Specifically, when you cross State Line Road, you've crossed the state line.

Crossing from LA to Mississippi, you notice there's a lot more cops.

The drivers for sure. I live in a major metropolitan area on the east coast and at the intersection of three jurisdictions.

My home state’s drivers are slow as molasses and geriatric or are obviously foreign and didn’t take U.S. driver’s ed.

Across the river is a bunch of sheltered drivers who I normally pity. Their city is usually walkable or transit-able so driving is not something you could even expect them to be good at.

And then there’s the adjacent state which is notoriously home to some of the worst drivers in the US who genuinely, routinely make me fear for my life when they’re in my proximity on the road lol. Hate those drivers.

Other than that, I think the culture of my home state is much warmer and friendly while the adjacent state is nice but the people are also a bit more standoffish and cold. Home state is a barren wasteland of awful roads and data centers, adjacent state has so much green space and well-developed communities.

Never been, but I've heard it's lovely.

Right now just with signs, but if Wisconsin doesn't get their shit together it will be a clearly marked, well equipped check point

I never saw these personally, but ten years ago in Matt Gaetz's district a shelter ran billboards with "She's your daughter, not your date". Yikes.

Well, I live on the Minnesota side of the Minnesota / Wisconsin border and normally I can tell I crossed the border because I have to cross the 4th largest river in the world, the Mississippi river.

Joking aside a big tell used to be frac sand mines. Minnesota cracked down on them much harder much more quickly than Wisconsin so you would see them all over the place in Wisconsin but not in MN. I haven't seen as many of those lately though. Also If I drive too far south I wind up driving out of the Kwik Trip gas station zone and into the vastly inferior Caseys gas station zone in Iowa.

It's only regularly spoken by a minority but most can and will break it out on ocassion. It's always fun to do on vacation.

Why is it always lawyers?

I saw one that was just a photo of an eye and a phone number. I wasn't from the area, so it was driving me nuts wondering what it meant. Didn't take long driving through the area to learn that this lawyer has so many different billboards up, that his eye alone has become recognizable.

Before everything got crazy on the Canadian border, we used to go over by boat to fish all the time without much problem.. just put put the boat on over.

Drive south far enough and you reach the vastly superior QT gas station zone.

NM perspective:
Border crossing at Anthony - immediate cattle feed lots, huge freeway, and then the pile of cookie-cutter houses that is El Paso.

North into Colorado: Seems pretty much like NM, but the food gets blander and more expensive as you enter Boebert's district. Denver is ok, but it's like Los Angeles at a little higher altitude. If Denver had a culture, it probably died in traffic.

East into Oklahoma/Texas: There's like... nothing there. For miles. It's really pretty, actually, but don't get a flat tire.

West into Arizona from Gallup: It's like a portal into the 1950s, all abandoned route 66 stuff and super offensive 1950s native american stuff.

Culturally, I'd say most of the 4 corners zone is pretty similar "southwest", though Texas is really obsessed with big box stores and Arizona is a bit obsessed with unmarked police cars. Colorado culturally is as bland as their chiles

The biggest cultural shift is traveling through the res lands between NM/AZ where you can actually go to grocery stores with local language signage.