I am searching with taxonomy terms, is there a way to do the search with anything that contains what i am searching for will be returned?
For example if i search Amer nothing will return, but i would like America to return in the results. I know that there is an option when you are just searching by a field, but i don't see it for taxonomy. Does anyone have any ideas??
---EDIT---
I do have the search set as an exposed filter too...
As per my understanding exposed filter works for this requirement. So maybe you can try combining contextual filter with exposed filter.
You can use the Views Filter Harmonizer module for that. Here is a quote about it (from its project page):
Views Filter Harmonizer solves an operational foible with the Views module regarding filtering.
Normally, when a Views field has been assigned both an exposed filter and a contextual filter, then both filters get applied to the View's results set -- always. This is not configurable behaviour. It's hard-coded.
As a consequence, contradictory search clauses easily occur, causing a counter-intuitive user experience with some White Screens of Disillusionment. Since the contextual filter sets the "bounds" for the page, any filtering by the visitor through the exposed filter on that page can only narrow down the results set, not broaden it. In other words the exposed filter appears not to be working properly.
This small module allows you to have a contextual filter argument apply only when there is no corresponding regular (exposed) filter value present.
This is most common on initial page load. After that the contextual filters will silently retreat and let the exposed filter values as selected by the visitor do their thing without interfering.
This means that you can take advantage of friendly URLs using contextual arguments instead of ugly and verbose query parameters. Put the URLs anywhere on your site, in emails and in newsletters to take visitors to tailored Views pages. Having arrived there, visitors may then further filter these pages to their heart's content using the View's regular filters you exposed. And they won't experience any odd behaviour.
This might help: https://www.drupal.org/project/views_argument_substitutions
Contextual Filters allow a View to be filtered based on arguments passed via URL or other embedded method (e.g. the View Reference module), but contextual filters are inflexible compared with normal filters (which allow for "contains," "begins with," "ends with," etc.).
This module allows contextual filter arguments to be used as replacement tokens in filters and table arguments, so that passed-in arguments (such as from URLs or View Reference fields) can be used as values in normal View filters.
