Alert – We’re Americans who lived in the UK for six months – these are the 11 things we miss the most about Britain

An American couple who lived in the UK for six months reveal the 11 ‘unique’ things about the country they miss most.

And one or two of the entries may surprise some Brits.

Cara Atwell and Jeremy Davis – currently in Portland, Oregon – posted a video to their ‘Magic Geekdom’ YouTube channel in which they look back at the things they miss about the UK after spending six months there.

It has garnered over 100,000 views and hundreds of comments.

The list is in no particular order, but they did reveal to Travel the thing they miss the most, revealed here at the end.

Fossil hunting

Cara fondly recalls fossil hunting in Dorset, where they explored the ‘beautiful and amazing’ Jurassic Coast. 

While there, she reveals that they had great fun searching for fossils – and found what they think was a fossilised sea urchin. Cara adds: ‘[Fossil hunting] is just so cool. 

Cara Atwell and Jeremy Davis (above) – currently in Portland, Oregon – posted a video to their ‘Magic Geekdom’ YouTube channel in which they look back at the things they miss about the UK after spending six months there

 Cara fondly recalls fossil hunting in Dorset, where they explored the ‘beautiful and amazing’ Jurassic Coast

‘You can do it in so many places.’

Pub culture

‘We have pubs here [in the U.S], but it’s not quite the same,’ says Jeremy. 

‘[In the UK] people socialise and hang out and eat food – you can meet some really cool people. I feel that’s not what happens in the U.S. [Here] it doesn’t have the same feeling of friendliness.’

Fish and chips

Cara laments how fish and chips in America ‘is not proper fish and chips’. Above – ‘proper’ UK fish and chips

‘We have fish and chips in the U.S,’ says Cara. 

‘But it’s not proper fish and chips. It just isn’t. We don’t take that nice big filet of fish and lay it on those nice chunky chips.’

British food in general

Cara misses British food in general, picking out Cornish pasties, scones and clotted cream as being among the items she enjoyed in the UK

The couple also reveal how they miss British scones, clotted cream and Cornish pasties.

Quality of food

‘The quality of food is so much better in the UK,’ says Cara, with Jeremy adding: ‘I feel that whenever you go to a restaurant in the U.S, especially a chain restaurant, you can tell it’s not really fresh, that they boiled it in a bag, something sad like that.’ In Britain, he says, it’s easier to find ‘home-cooking food’.

‘Picky bits’

UK ‘picky bits’, explain Cara and Jeremy, are h’ordeuvres, including cheeses, crackers and biscuits, with Cara adding that other favourites in this category include Spanish tortilla [omelette] and baked Camembert. The latter, says Cara, ‘has changed my life’.

Sheep – and the countryside

Cara says: ‘When I close my eyes and think of a peaceful, wonderful place, I picture the English, Welsh and Scottish countryside [they haven’t made it to Northern Ireland yet]’

‘We have sheep in the U.S, but you don’t go driving down a country road and see sheep,’ says Cara. ‘You might see some cows, some horses, maybe a goat – but when was the last time you drove down a country road in the U.S and saw a field of sheep? To people in the UK, it might seem silly, but we just don’t have that [sheep].’ They’re fans of the English countryside, too.

Cara adds: ‘When I close my eyes and think of a peaceful, wonderful place, I picture the English, Welsh and Scottish countryside [they haven’t made it to Northern Ireland yet].’ And Jeremy remarks that older buildings in the UK that you might see in the countryside are ‘given more respect’.

More pet friendly

The couple remarked how travelling with their dog, Carly, was ‘just so easy’

Cara remarked that ‘everything was just so easy’ when travelling around with their dog, Carly. ‘Travel with her was easy, and in general I felt like not only were places more open to having dogs, but those places often had people who were so much more interactive with her.’

Markets

‘London has so many,’ says Cara. ‘There are so many neat markets in the UK. I feel like it’s so underappreciated.’

British lingo

Cara reveals that she prefers ‘car park’ over ‘parking lot’ and ‘lift’ instead of elevator, while Jeremy admits he misses ‘putting things in the boot’ [instead of the trunk].

Cara adds: ‘I love how we all speak English, yet our English is so different.’

What the pair miss the most, however, is the people.

They explain: ‘We both agree that the thing we miss the most is the people, including the day-to-day interactions that are harder to encounter in the U.S.

‘For example, in the UK, we would take almost daily trips to the supermarket, talking to people as we walked there in addition to people we would encounter in the store.

‘In the U.S, it’s much more common to drive to the supermarket and only buy groceries once a week, likely because we typically have larger fridges and use more preservatives in our food.

‘Once we got back to the U.S, we realised how many fewer interactions we have with people regularly and it has been one of the harder adjustments.’

Cara and Jeremy post on social media as The Magic Geekdom. They can be found at www.instagram.com/themagicgeekdom; twitter.com/magicgeekdom; www.tiktok.com/@themagicgeekdom; www.youtube.com/@TheMagicGeekdom and www.facebook.com/themagicgeekdom.