I hadn’t seen my friend Charlotte in a full two years, so after I arrived to visit her in Ireland, it took a few days before we were able to exchange conversation without stopping to ask each other, “Wait, say that again.” We speak the same language, but hers includes phrases like “What’s the crack?” — “What’s up?” — and words like “class,” which means “good, fun, cool.”

The meals, however, were perhaps the most-stressful points for me during my trip — my right-handed use of the fork seemed barbaric compared to their left-handed custom. But, my visit to Ireland was worth the effort: I had a chance to take a trip off the beaten path to Warrenpoint, a town in Northern Ireland located about an hour from Dublin and an hour from Belfast.

Chatting word choice and utensil use were not the only differences that I found between traveling in Europe with Europeans and traveling in Europe with fellow Americans. Later in the summer, I traveled to Spain with my family. There were obvious differences: Charlotte’s parents’ capability to navigate versus my parents’ constant bickering and sounds of anguish when we got lost driving from one city to the next every other day. In their defense, the fact that the roads had the steepness of double black diamond ski trails didn’t help. With Charlotte, we got restaurant service that I could never have found one thing to complain about if I tried. With my parents, we had to leave a restaurant twice because no waiters or waitresses came to ask us to order.

But perhaps the greatest difference was that with Charlotte I visited places I would never have found in a tourist book. One of the best days was one when Charlotte and I met up with two other Irish kids — two boys I knew from a trip I had taken two years prior. Garrett, who is as much a nationalist as I’ve ever known, drove us around the countryside of their home, Warrenpoint.

Charlotte, who has vacationed in locations such as the Caribbean, the south of France, the south of Italy and Prague, dreams still of New York City. I prodded Garrett to visit me in New York with Charlotte; but he shows no interest. Despite his act of being authentically Irish — which includes trying to convince me that he eats mostly potatoes and knows Gaelic — he legitimately wants nothing more than Ireland. Charlotte, who watches American TV shows and worships American designers and the multitude of shopping opportunities in the U.S. (there is only one department store in all of Ireland), wants to experience New York City firsthand.

Honestly, I can understand Garrett’s contentment with Warrenpoint.

Warrenpoint is as far from American suburbia as you can get. In fact, as I explored it more and became purely astounded by it, I became increasingly ashamed of my own town, which I could only describe to Charlotte as resembling Wisteria Lane from Desperate Housewives. Warrenpoint reminded me of a mix of Cape Cod and rural Vermont, except windier and more stunningly beautiful than both these places. We drove alongside beaches, past cows and through Garrett’s father’s huge farm, complete with two cottages and large iron gates. It was no Alhambra, and it didn’t have Spanish flamenco dancers, but that was just what was so cool about it.

I saw Dublin and Belfast, and even played the role of a true tourist by riding one of the double-decker buses through Dublin. But this tour was not originally made for me. The tour I had of Warrenpoint was one that probably only a handful of Americans had ever gotten before me and will ever get after me — although I suppose now the secret is out. I never would have chosen Warrenpoint as a tourist destination. I simply went to visit a friend and discovered that sometimes it is a nice change to travel a little off the map.