While she was traveling through Indiana ahead of the World Cup, Swedish tourist Elsa Thora spotted a yellow school bus rolling down the street and immediately screamed with excitement.
“I feel like I’m in a movie,” Thora, 24, later wrote on X, sharing photos of two quintessential American snacks she had picked up at a local market: buffalo blue cheese baked pretzels and Hostess Twinkies.
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As international soccer fans like Thora pour into North America ahead of Thursday’s kickoff, their amused observations about life in the U.S. are becoming an unexpected source of entertainment — and pride — for many Americans on social media.
Thora, who has tickets to see both Sweden and England play, has documented everything from tasting ranch dressing for the first time (“Why did no one tell me ranch sauce is like crack?” she wrote on X) to wandering the aisles of a Trader Joe’s grocery store (which she described as “too healthy for my liking”).
“I think a lot of Swedish people kind of think of the U.S. as, you know, the land of the free and this big cool country,” Thora said in a video interview Wednesday after she landed at her next destination: San Francisco.
“And it does feel like that being here. It just feels a bit surreal,” she added.
The social media posts from a handful of tourists, which have amassed millions of views, have offered a more lighthearted counterpoint to the political discourse that has shaped perceptions of the U.S. in recent months.
The U.S., which is hosting this year’s World Cup alongside Mexico and Canada, is staging 78 of the tournament’s 104 matches across 11 cities. But President Donald Trump’s travel bans and restrictions on 39 countries have created hurdles for some fans and participants hoping to attend matches.
As of Wednesday, NBC News reported, 15 Iranian officials have been denied entry to the U.S., according to Iranian state media, as has the official Iraqi team photographer. An Iraqi player, Aymen Hussein, and other teams say they have been subjected to intensive and sometimes invasive searches at the border.
Omar Artan, who was expected to be the first Somali referee to officiate at a World Cup, said he was detained and questioned for 11 hours when he landed in Miami on Saturday before he was sent back home.
White House spokesman Davis Ingle said in an email that Trump was focused on ensuring the World Cup is an “incredible experience for all fans and visitors” and also “the safest and most secure in history — and no amount of ridiculous scare tactics driven by liberal activist groups and the left-wing media will change that.” A representative for FIFA did not respond to a request for comment.
Thora said she intentionally chooses not to speak about U.S. politics in her social media posts, saying political tensions haven’t affected her travel.
She said she has not been paid for her posts, nor has she received any sponsorship offers. She said she spent several months saving to fund the trip with her own money.
She’s “just here for a good time,” she said, adding that it has been fun seeing the positive reactions to her post.
“People are kind of amused seeing me experience America and thinking so big of little things for them, because if you live here, you might just be used to it,” she said. “But for someone like me ... it’s really cool.”
Other tourists who have gone viral sharing their U.S. experiences have also remained apolitical in their posts, appealing to American social media users seeking more “wholesome” content.
A German fan, who goes by Freddy on X, appears to have gotten the most attention online with his posts about the gas station chain Buc-ee’s, the sheer size of American stadiums and his first meal at Waffle House.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy gave him a shoutout on X, writing: “There’s no better way to see our country than on a road trip! Because to LOVE AMERICA you have to SEE AMERICA.” (Duffy recently drew backlash over his road-trip reality show.)
Former NFL star J.J. Watt also responded to Freddy’s request for recommendations during his road trip, telling him on X: “I got you covered in Houston big dog.”
Elsewhere on the social media platform, a Japanese soccer journalist compared Nashville, Tennessee, to Universal Studios, and a fan from the United Kingdom shared his surprise at seeing a five-story-high Starbucks Reserve Roastery in Chicago — the biggest Starbucks in the world.
“Genuinely, all these tweets of World Cup visitors getting to experience the best of Small Town, USA fills me with a national pride that’s been on holiday lately,” one X user wrote.
“I think this World Cup tourist phenomenon is beautiful,” wrote another X user. “It’s so easy to get hung up on the bad things about this place. But what makes the US special are the things we take for granted; the scenery, the cheesy roadside attractions, greasy food, classic Americana, the PEOPLE.”
