I was once asked by a tourist near where I lived if the bridge they had just driven across was the 2500m long Forth Road Bridge across what is, I believe, geographically a fjord - it was actually Dean Bridge which is 134m long across a gorge of a fairly small river.
Another example: when the Ever Given ship was stuck in the Suez Canal, all the internet wags were saying "why can't they just excavate the dirt?" Well, this pic shows the scale difference involved: https://i.redd.it/5g9jvoecj6p61.jpg
Growing up in southern California I had some relatives visit and we spent a day at Newport Beach. When the morning marine layer broke and Catalina Island became visible, they asked, "is that Hawaii?"
I heard of some European visitors to New York thinking they would drive to Chicago for the day. It's about 800 miles. Countries in Europe are similar to average or small states in the U.S.
About 20 years ago I had a couple of people from the US ask me if they could drive to Rome for the day - we were in Edinburgh at the time. Rome is about 1,600 miles away from here.
