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CultureWorld Cup Fans in the U.S. Are Sightseeing at … Buc-ee’s and Bass Pro Shops? - Social media dispatches from travelers headed to matches appreciate the more mundane parts of American life. They’re a hit.
By Melina Delkic
June 17, 2026
Updated 9:02 a.m. ET
Shaun Alexander, from Edinburgh, has taken social media by storm during the World Cup, documenting his travels across the United States. Shaun Alexander
On Shaun Alexander’s recent trip to the United States, he checked off some of the classic American pastimes from his bucket list: Catch a baseball game at Fenway Park in Boston, see live music in New York, visit the Alamo and try barbecue in Texas.
But he also had an unusual goal: Alexander wanted to visit Bass Pro Shops in every state he passed through.
“It’s just unbelievable,” said Alexander, 38, from Edinburgh. “It’s like a theme park and a museum all wrapped into, you know, a big retail store.”
He is an avid fisherman, he said, but it was about much more than that. There was a model humpback whale on the roof of a location in Foxborough, Mass., that he compared to “the size of a whale that we have in one of our biggest museums in the U.K.” He added that it was “the type of thing that could really only exist in America.”
Like many World Cup visitors, Alexander is going off the beaten path while he follows his team. Whether it’s because of the downtime between games, the routes between stadiums or the steep prices of hotels, many are getting out of big cities or taking road trips.
Shaun Alexander has visited a few different Bass Pro Shops. Shaun Alexander
“The biggest takeaway for us is the kindness and generosity of people,” Alexander said of his U.S. travels. Shaun Alexander
Their itineraries may include the more traditional Statue of Liberty or the Hollywood Walk of Fame. But as millions of Americans follow along on social media, buoyed by the videos romanticizingdaily life in their towns, the soccer tourists are also marveling over the everything-in-one Southern gas station chain Buc-ee’s, as well as combing through grocery store shelves and picking up Italian heroes at the local deli.
“I’ve been coming to America since I was a kid, but we’re visiting places that I’ve never been,” said Sammie Bell, 30, from Hertfordshire, England, whose trip included stops in Dallas, Fort Worth and Tampa, Fla. She regarded not only the stadiums as highlights, but also the wildlife. The lizards she saw in Florida, she said, were “the animals we’d see in a zoo in England.”
Alexander, who has come to be known online as Scottish Shaun, highlighted the ice machines. “In Europe, you have to fight for your ice.”
For Elsa Thora, 24, who is from Stockholm, it was the fire trucks: “They’re shiny, they look really cool — just like in the movies.”
Views of the United States are skewing negative, and joyous headlines about the World Cup have been interspersed with those about players and a referee being denied entry at the border. So videos depicting international visitors finding joy in the mundane have been unifying and welcome.
Sammie Bell’s tour of the Everglades during her stay in Florida. Sammie Bell
Jay Boersma noticed people were flocking to his video about Buc-ee’s. Jay Boersma
“All of those stories are true,” Jeroen Boersma, 30, from Harich, the Netherlands, said of the news. “But the people that do come here to the U.S., they also see the other side, which is something you cannot see if you don’t come here — and that is the beauty of American people.”
Boersma moved to Denver in 2021 and has been posting for years, but noticed his viewership spike in recent weeks, especially on a video about Buc-ee’s.
“From the people I’ve spoken to,” Alexander said, the content “seems like a bit of an antidote. You know, they’ve needed some kind of positivity.”
Many of the reaction videos say they can’t get enough of this content. Viral clips feature glimpses of food, shopping and transit, and a fair share of wow that car is big. They also show moments of cultural exchange or inspiration, like when fans of Japan’s team in Dallas helped clean up after a game; or when Congo’s team wore commanding leopard-embellished suits; or when Scots and Bostonians partied together.
Most focus on the small things. “The highlight for me has been seeing how happy X users are when they see me enjoying the food,” said Tatsuya Takeuchi, a 36-year-old journalist from Kawagoe, Japan, who recently posted about eating muddy buddies.
One of the must-see spots in the TikTok genre is Chipotle, the fast-casual Tex-Mex chain that inspires devotion among both locals and visitors.
“Where to begin on Chipotle?” said Giovanni Piacentini-Smith, 20, from Glasgow. “It’s like my one true American love. I remember the first time I tried Chipotle in New Hampshire — it was something that my taste buds had not experienced.”
Giovanni Piacentini-Smith’s Chipotle order: Three brisket tacos. Giovanni Piacentini-Smith
His Dunkin’ order is an iced latte with an extra pump of vanilla. Giovanni Piacenti-Smith
Buc-ee’s, the road trip mainstay with a friendly beaver mascot, has also enchanted (or perplexed) visitors.
“It is very bright and very dazzling,” said Alexander, who loves the chain’s beaver nuggets.
“It brings everything that’s American into one spot,” Boersma said. “America is a lot of big foods, a lot of crazy foods. It is driving culture. It is big cars.”
He added that it “was bigger than any supermarket in all of the Netherlands, and it’s a gas station — and they sell fresh food that is really good.”
And their complaints echo those of Americans, like the traffic and the long drives, for starters. In Boston, Alexander was stuck for three hours trying to get to a World Cup match. In Florida, Bell said she was “driving on roads for four, five hours — and you’re still in Florida, which is crazy.”
Piacentini-Smith lamented the inconsistency of his Dunkin’ and Chipotle orders.
“I don’t think I’ve had the same Dunkin’ once, even though I get the exact same order every single place,” he said.
Same goes for Chipotle portion sizes, a much-debated topic in this country: “I’m not a big man, come on,” he said. “A bit more meat, mate.”
But travelers agree on one thing: “Everyone’s just so nice,” Bell said. Almost all had been invited to drinks or given tips for what to see next.
Alexander highlighted people in New York who had helped him figure out the subway, and people in Boston who had talked him through baseball rules. “The biggest takeaway for us is the kindness and generosity of people,” he said.
“I‘ve probably had at least 30, 40 people invite me to their homes,” Piacentini-Smith said.
America is fucking cool, for all its faults. The more mundane parts are what you see in movies growing up, so of course they're interesting. Not everything has to be highbrow.
Us Americans take so much for granted. It doesn't help that our own media hates America and spreads bullshit propaganda that tells us we're evil, we're inferior, and to be more like our European cousins.
We really are that friendly, and we really are that dumb.
Powerlevel but one time I was in Florida and me and my bro were tent camping and the middle class black people in the next site were prepared to RAGE and they invited us over for food and drinks and it was like "We could sit in the tent and be mad about it or we could join them" and it was a great time.
I live in hickland and have driven by Buc-ee's a million times and I still have never once gone in the Buc-ee's. I don't get it. It's a gas station. It's going to be the same as any other gas station on hte inside, just bigger. Would you get excited over a Walmart that's five Walmarts smushed together?
I live in hickland and have driven by Buc-ee's a million times and I still have never once gone in the Buc-ee's. I don't get it. It's a gas station. It's going to be the same as any other gas station on hte inside, just bigger. Would you get excited over a Walmart that's five Walmarts smushed together?
Apparently they have pristine but also massive bathrooms, has in-house made barbecue and is known for cheap ice. While truck stops aren't new by American standards, I can see why Europeans and people from other countries would be blown away going into one.
Remember, these people are all tourists, and when it comes to international tourism, you (American or non-American) would probably want to visit things that don't really have a 1:1 analog in your home country (there's nothing like Bass Pro Shops or Buc-ee's) and get stuff there that you can't get back home easily. Within reason, of course...you can buy a cool knife and pack it in checked luggage but they're probably going to be pissed when you get back home.
Also I have learned in this thread that European hotels do NOT have ice machines, which is extremely common in America, even the crappy Indian-run motels will have one.
Apparently they have pristine but also massive bathrooms, has in-house made barbecue and is known for cheap ice. While truck stops aren't new by American standards, I can see why Europeans and people from other countries would be blown away going into one.
Giant roadside convenience store or giant roadside truck stop, whatever it is I imagine it's a marvel to Europeans who have never been inside one before.
Us Americans take so much for granted. It doesn't help that our own media hates America and spreads bullshit propaganda that tells us we're evil, we're inferior, and to be more like our European cousins.
There's been quite a few European and Anglosphere YouTube influencers coming to the US over the last couple of years that have been doing "franchise tourism" vids along with stuff like Route 66, national parks, going to football and baseball games, etc. The World Cup visitors are just checking out all these things for themselves now that they have the chance. These two loveable goofballs get hundreds of thousands of clicks on their videos, for instance:
To say something positive about you Yanks, I really, really liked Walmart. Giant supermarkets like that are not a thing in Europe. They have stuff I have never seen sold outside of speciality shops before.
On a more touristy level, I also had a lot of fun watching your lardass-fatso-jabba the hutt-bastards driving around in mobility scooters without any shame.
This was the core american experience for me.
When I visited Austin for work a couple of years ago they had ordered in some pizzas and I was amazed at how huge the 'large' pizzas were compared to what I had back home.
It may have been the best accidental pysop ever to drop the training camps locations and matches around college towns and small places filled with real salt-of-the-earth people. You have to remember, most of the individuals and media groups that represent our country abroad live in dystopian urban bugman shitholes and constantly doom. If you assumed what the U.S. is like from what the news says, you'd be expecting a xenophobic warzone with federal agents hiding behind every corner to nab anyone darker than a good tan. Instead, the world is here having a good time, and they'll be here at the perfect time for our 250th birthday. The party hasn't even started yet. Outside something catastrophic like a terror attack, it's not shaping up to be a horrible experience.
Don't know about Wisconsin, but a few years ago someone mentioned the giant thermometer in Michigan, I looked at it on Google Maps and found out central Russia is basically that except MIchigan's roads are a square grid. Like, I've been on that road a thousand times, I can smell the trees in the photo, feel the slight chill in the air, I flinch from the car that's about to go by and prepare to slap a skeeter. I want to go there some day. Mom says it's a retarded waste of money (and I agree), but I still want to go.
I live in hickland and have driven by Buc-ee's a million times and I still have never once gone in the Buc-ee's. I don't get it. It's a gas station. It's going to be the same as any other gas station on hte inside, just bigger. Would you get excited over a Walmart that's five Walmarts smushed together?
