As vacations go, I’m what people generally classify as a snob. I refuse to drive anywhere for longer than 3 hours, and, considering there is nowhere in a 3-hour radius I would want to vacation, flight is my only option of travel. If it’s not a four-star resort or hotel, I’m really not interested. I need a health club with sauna and steam room, a friendly concierge and daily turndown service complete with a chocolate on my pillow.

My spring break included none of these amenities, and it was the most enjoyable and ideologically reaffirming trip of my life.

My fraternity brothers and I left Champaign, Ill., at 1830 hours on Friday, March 18, in a six-car caravan. Destination: Panama City Beach, Florida. We lit up Puerto Rican cigars, my roommate pounded the gas of his ’97 Firebird, and we were on our way. We had a 15-hour drive ahead of us, but it didn’t seem to matter.

After a lackluster trip through Indiana, which looked a lot like Illinois, we crossed the Ohio River and hit the beautiful town of Louisville, Ky., home to one of my brothers in the convoy. It was midnight, but his mother was awake and had prepared a meal of “the best ribs in Kentucky,” complemented with cornbread, green beans and Red Coke. It was official. We were in the South. The food was delicious and the people were friendly.

Upon reaching a rural gas station outside Nashville, Tenn., I had an epiphany that would last all my life: I was submerged in the Real America.

With a shot glass reading, “someone went to Tennessee and all I got was this lousy shot glass” in one hand and a 20 oz. coffee in the other, I was in line to check out. The man in front of me had two Black & Mild plastic tip cigars, a Steel Reserve 40 oz. beer and the Confederate flag on his shirt. Upon asking the attendant to make sure I had regular coffee and not decaf, I was asked, “Why wouldn’t it be?” I was in the heart of Bush Country: plenty of good ol’ boys and no double vanilla decaf lattes to be found.

Nashville is a beautiful city. As we descended through the curvy limestone-blasted highways speckled with tall pines, a distinct, colorful skyline rose before us. Just outside of this burgeoning metropolis, churches of all denominations lined the road. Communities and suburbs were flourishing all around. This area of the country looked so much like mine, but something was distinctly different: the people in them.

These were red states. Just like real Americans, people here went to church, had backyard barbeques and raised families. When it comes to politics and the United States of America, these southerners understand the responsibility of being the best country in the world, and the dangers of not respecting it.

As we made our way through Alabama, stops in Montgomery and Birmingham yielded the same southern friendliness we had come to expect. This region was diverse in age and ethnicity, but we had left behind the presence of the “urban hippie.” These people were not judgmental or pretentious. They moved slower and listened more carefully.

We hit the Florida state line, where hand-painted signs advertising “Boiled P-nuts” were fastened to palm trees lining the highway. An old man with a fedora shielding the sun from his eyes swayed on a rocking chair in front of a gas station.

Living in my island of blue amongst a sea of red, I had never really experienced Bush Country until this trip. These were the people who re-elected our President for reasons that I already knew. They wanted to keep their families safe, make sure their children got jobs and keep the moral fiber of America undefiled.

I realized you don’t need a four-star hotel and turndown service to have an enjoyable trip. With the t-tops off the Firebird and a Mountain Dew in my hand, I was introduced to Real America during my trip, and loved every second of it.