By Jeanne Bonner, CNN
(CNN) — When Elizabeth Ruane and her family spent a semester in Lüneburg, Germany, her life revolved around Marktplatz, one of the main squares in the southern German town.
“In Marktplatz, there was this massive community market and anything you could want was there. It was a place everyone went to. You’d say, ‘Let’s meet at the market.’ There were so many ‘coming together moments’ that you don’t see very often in the United States.”
It’s a long way from “Insta-carting your groceries for the week,” added Ruane, a mother of two who lives in Olympia, Washington.
Jessica Ketcham fell in love with Place Bellecour in Lyon, France.
“You could look up and see this gorgeous cathedral up on a hill,” said Ketcham, a writing professor who taught in a semester abroad program there last year. “It was something geographically awe-inspiring, even though you were in the middle of the city.”
And there’s always something interesting going on in the place — from fire juggling to literature readings, she said.
Europe is packed with these urban oases, and along with a taste for lattes and tapas, Americans are increasingly hungry for Italian piazzas, Spanish plazas, French places, and similar squares around the globe.
But the joy of experiencing life in these public squares leaves some American travelers disappointed when they return to the States.
Lily Bennett studied with Ketcham in Lyon in 2024. She, too, swooned over the town’s main square. And when she returned to America, she found the adjustment quite jarring.
“The reverse culture shock was way more intense than the initial shock of arriving in Lyon,” said Bennett, 18. “I was excited to see my family and my dog, but after the reunion, I was struck by the isolation of cities here.”
While in Lyon, she would stop to have breakfast on her way to school, seeing dozens of people along the route.
That blissful, social morning routine is a distant memory now.
“I don’t see anyone because I get in my car and go and drive somewhere,” the University of Washington student said. “I felt pretty isolated when I came back.”
Vacation lifestyle out of reach at home
As travel abroad has become common for a wider cross-section of Americans, more people have seen what life is like with a large, walkable communal point in towns and cities around the world.
But while some American cities have European roots, most don’t have central pedestrian zones where people can gather to stroll, talk and shop.
As a 2024 Economist article ranking walkable cities noted rather acidly, anyone who prizes walkability and wants to ditch his or her car “might want to avoid North America.” The ranking was part of a study looking at global mobility, and it found that cities in the US and Canada were at the bottom for walkability because “cars are king and less than 4% of people walk to work.”
All of the cities in the top 20 were in Europe, Africa or Asia, including top-ranked Quelimane, a small seaport in Mozambique; Peja, Kosovo, which ranked second; and Utrecht in Holland, which ranked third.
Many American cities are crisscrossed by freeways, in deference to car traffic, and public transit is often starved for funding.
European-style squares, by contrast, are expanses people can walk not just to, but also through and around.
“It’s also a fact that all of these places were designed around people, rather than cars,” says architect Daniel Parolek whose firm, Opticos Design, designs walkable residential communities.
And in addition to individual piazzas, these spaces were designed with streets that link one square to another.
“Any historic city you go to in Europe – in Italy, Spain, Germany – you have a network