The classic saying "In Europe, 100km is a long distance. In the US, 100 years is a long time" holds a lot more truth about perceptions in the respective cultures than you'd expect. I've had a very pleasant 100km daily commute - seriously, I quite miss that - and at the same time, there's a building down the street that's just been added to the historical registry and was built in the late 80s.

Meanwhile I've had German friends offer to book me a hotel when I went from Cologne to Essen to give them a visit (admittedly this might have just been learned pragmatism, I was taking the trip on DB...) and said hotel dated back to before my ancestors had a written language.

That really just depends on the scale they are personally used to though, for a fair few years I lived ~5 hours from my family (relatively far within the country), but it didn't feel like very much because I/we visited my partner's family on the other side of the continent at least once a year. Prior to that, I don't think that I would have visited anywhere near as frequently.

The lack of Schengen and now EU membership may make British people more prone to being on the smaller side of this.

Sure, perception can change. When all you have is a car and a highway. It seems outrageous to want an alternative. When you are used to high quality public transport, driving there is a chore.

Driving four hours is an effort that you have to actively take. Plus costs for ownership or rental, fuel and lodging. Americans treat these factors as mundane (and the cultural romanticization of road trips that doesn't exist anywhere else), but they have real costs. Sure, a plane or a train are more expensive. But it offloads a great deal of cognitive costs as well.

The distance itself doesn't change though.