Incredible to think that something like 65% of Americans have NEVER left the country, not even to Canada or Mexico. More impressive, even, is that like 40% have left their home STATE.
I imagine that’s a large part of it, yes, but how many don’t, and just CHOOSE to stay in like, Oklahoma or something?
most people i imagine? How many europeans are born in a country, and just, never leave, move out, go anywhere else. It has to be a statistically significant figure, not as much as america, considering that UK is maybe the size of ONE state. But still.
why would they, sure you could go visit europe, or india, and a lot of people do that.
America is a huge fucking country. If you want to have interesting travel, there are PLENTY of places you can go within america alone. It’s just not really required. Sure if you want to experience other culture, and what not, you’re going other places, nobody is going to stop you. But you can literally just drive across ALL of america, without a passport, it’s so much easier. And again, there are tons of geographically unique places to visit, there is a substantially significant variety of culture within america itself.
It’s just not really needed.
America is a huge fucking country. If you want to have interesting travel, there are PLENTY of places you can go within america alone.
I would love for this to be the answer for why most Americans don’t travel internationally. The US is massive, and it’s one of the most geographically diverse countries on earth. Just look at this list of ecoregions of the US. Also, damn near every nationality you can think of has made a home here, and they brought their culture with them. There are Congolese enclaves in North Carolina, Somalian enclaves in Minnesota, Cambodian enclaves in California, Indian enclaves in New York, Finnish enclaves in Oregon, French enclaves in Alabama… The list goes on and on. It’s actually insane how much beautiful variation there is here, both geographically and culturally.
Unfortunately, the real reason most Americans don’t travel abroad is far more depressing. The numbers that Dogiedog64 was citing come from a survey conducted by OnePoll, which wound up in this Forbes article.
In fact, survey results showed 76 percent of the respondents wanted to travel more than they do currently. The reasons they gave for why they don’t are what you would expect: mainly due to a lack of finances or just feeling unprepared and ill-equipped to venture forth into unknown territory. More specifically, 63 percent of Americans who have never left the country said an international trip would be out of their price range.
When you consider that nearly 40% of Americans can’t cover an unexpected $400 expense, it starts to make sense that so many Americans don’t travel abroad. It’s heartbreaking that we basically invented “grind culture”, and yet most of us can’t afford the same kind of vacation that a minimum wage worker in Denmark gets.
even if this is true, at the very least people are capable of traveling a lot of interesting places, so it’s not all hope lost at least.
If i had to guess, it’s probably less money (certainly right now that’s the case) and more to do with all the bureaucracy. You can wake up tomorrow and drive all the way across america, with basically no paper work. I would be surprised if many people in america even had valid passports to be honest.
Not to mention all the work you have to do in preparing overseas accommodations. And potential language barriers. Traveling outside of the US has got to be like 10x more difficult than traveling inside the US.
I also imagine that if people DO travel outside, they’re going to go on a big trip, to see a lot of things, and it’s going to be more expensive. It’s just how that kind of thing tends to work. It’ll be some shit like a wedding, for example.
I mean it’s a very large country with many interesting places, diverse landscapes etc etc, I don’t find it particularly strange to never have left. I wonder how many Europeans have never left Europe, though I guess the cultural differences between countries there is larger than between states in the US.
its to keep them ignorant, most of them tend to be conservatives, the only time they would leave is joining ht emilitary, that is about it. i never been to mexico, but i been to canada on both coasts different times when i was younger. was in china pre-2000.
unlikely, it’s more likely that most americans just don’t really feel the need to go anywhere outside of america, due to how large it is, and how much cultural variance there is within the country. It’s more than any single european country could imagine, more than every west european country could imagine even.
Do people live without a passport? Cause I dunno, maybe it is how my family ran things in my childhood but everyone of us had a passport as a must. (I’m from a lesser known EU country)
Or maybe a psspsspssport?
It’s a good idea to keep a valid passport around no matter if you live in North America or Europe. Doesn’t hurt to be prepared.
I just picked up my first passport in my entire life. I’m trying to get away from this hell hole.
Where have you been traveling to? I was thinking euro rail pass and travel Europe.
that’s a great idea, I traveled across Western and Central europe, pretty much all of asia, Australia, India, morocco, I’m in Guatemala right now.
after South America probably I should start on Africa, but the largest inhabited continent is such a massive undertaking that I haven’t got to it yet.
I don’t think Morocco counts, I need that sub-Saharan Safari vibe going on.
