Americans don't travel...

You say you've worked in these other countries? Did you pay for your travel to and from your home country to the countries you spoke of? Not all of us are being sponsored by our employers to travel. And most of the time we have to depend on limited vacation time to take advantage of any travel plans -- we're not lucky enough to be working there at the same time.

You meet a lot of Aussies in Australia? You don't say!
You meet a lot of Europeans in Holland and Italy? Get out of here!
But you don't meet too many Americans? Really? Even in America?

We don't have the "mentally" to travel? How are you privy to this information? If you don't meet many Americans, how would you possibly know? Perhaps you're better suited to generalize the travel habits of those South Africans you keep meeting on your various adventures.

If I sound bothered, it's because I am. Myself and many other Americans would love to travel. I don't have a passport ready on standby, because I know what my own current responsibilities and financial situation allow me to spend, and the luxury of travel is not one of those things I can afford to do in the immediate future. Your tone, implying that if one is not well-traveled, that they are somehow an uncultured isolationist is offensive. And for you to generalize that to a population of over 270 million people is myopic.



[Edited on Mar 09, 2005 by theSpotlessMind]

My girlfriend and I went to London 3 years ago. We were there for a week and we didn't meet a single English type person. An American friend of ours was living there illegally and she volunteered to put us up in her house. She had somehow gotten in with a bunch of crazy Aussies who were working there on 2 year visas. (they called it "dossing") There were anywhere between 12 and 403 of them living in the house at any point during the week we were there. Most of them worked all day, came home and partied ALL night.

So anyway, we spent that week living in the closet under the stairs like Harry and hanging out with the local Aussie population. We also met up with another American friend who was living over there and dating a Kiwi. The first American friend ended up meeting and marrying a South Africaner. So unless you count the folks who took care of us at restaurants, shops and trains, we met nary a Brit.

Legoland Windsor was really cool.

My domestic travel experience: NYC, Chicago, LA, San Diego, Little Rock, St. Paul, Richmond, VA. and all of New England.

My internationals: Niagra Falls (does that count?) London, Japan 3 times and a 6 hour layover in Seoul.

Thank you

I just have a bunch of things I want to accomplish before I start spending loads of money on travel. Like buy a house, have kids. I can't save money for that if I'm jet setting around the world. Not only that but I've been in about 30 of the US states and still don't feel close to ready to stop exploring the US.

You know ive been overseas a few times and the cultural differences are what I look forward to when I travel.

I actually had a chance to speak to a girl from Amsterdam ( no not the Red Light District) who was visiting Connecticut of all places ( my home state ) and she was excited to visit our country, and had a lot of interesting things to say about Amsterdam, customs, courtesies, but she was beside herself in CT. Of all the places ive been in the states I was more taken by her talking about Amsterdam than the first time I stood in Times Square with a wonderful girl on my arm.

Same thing with two girls from Israel I met. One having served in the Israeli Army another completing her grad degree from Harvard during a study abroad.


Sharing your culture with another culture with different languages, customs, and different approaches to life is exciting and offers something that just traveling in one country doesnt offer. America is neat and has a lot to see but I cant wait to live abroad one day.

I'm an odd one to talk about this with maybe.

I was born in Germany, but I am an American. I love it overseas. I've been to London and completely fell in love with it. I still miss Germany as well. I've been to Jamaica, and Cozumel. Honestly, unless you visit some sort of third world country its not much different than America. Americans get to other countries and get all sorts of high and mighty for some reason. Like they own this sh**. So people in that country tend to be very mean and rude, when you act like a typical tourist, and or are just rude and think you own everything.

When people tell me of bad experiences and such I just say you must have been rude. Most countries appreciate, you coming to visit there home for whatever reason, to learn and understand there culture, but if your there just to dick around they typically don't care for you.

The biggest problem of going overseas though for American's is the price tag. Let alone the price of the plane tickets there and back, now-a-days with the American dollar going down, its expensive.

The USA is a big country and when few of us can honestly say we've fully explored our own land first...I'm not sure how we can feel practiced enough to go somewhere else.

For me it was always a money issue above all else. If it hadn't been, I'd have been many more places than I have already.

True enough, Berlin is as far from London as I am from Dallas. That's the next state over. However, travel abroad doesn't require practice. It doesn't even require all that much money.

I think it's a lot harder and more expensive for an American to go overseas to Europe, or Asia or Africa or somewhere. When I was in Ireland, tons of girls from all over Europe were visiting. They just came over for a weekend. That's just not something we can do in the States. Passports are pricey, the exchange rates aren't that good for many, and it's hard to get time off work.

I just think it's easier logistically from someone from France to visit London or Switzerland or whatever then it is for someone from Utah.

The rail systems and the hostel systems are much better in Europe than here in the US...which makes recreational travel much easier.

Europeans get MUCH more vacation time, on average, than Americans. I believe you get four weeks to our two.

Like Reprobate said...since the US is such a huge country, distance between major cities in the US is much like the difference between countries in Europe. Also...there's so much of the US that I haven't seen yet...that it seems premature to travel to another country before I check more stuff off my list here in the States. I haven't even visited every state on the East Coast yet.

Finally...I would imagine that we Americans are much more receptive to travel suggestions when it's done in a friendly manner...and not wagging your finger and calling us "ugly Americans". Just a suggestion, is all.

i think it might have something to do with geography and transportation as well.

A continent smaller than our country with a multitude of different cultures and a far superior rail network just might be a factor. I have been to Italy and France, mind you, but as I've had some kind of job since I was 13, I've never had a month free to wander around Europe. Nor a country near enough to pop over to for the weekend. (Except Canada)

it's funny how written sarcasm sometimes looks like an understatement.

in all seriousness, though, i would probably travel more if i had the chance to. as it is now, i can't even go outside 250 miles without asking somebody else for fucking permission.

the sun done ris and the sun done set, and here I is in texas yet.

Eh, well...I didn't mean that geography and transportation weren't factors? I just used other examples. All apply. I was just trying to point out that it's not that Americans don't -want- to travel, but that it's much easier for for many Europeans to do so between their countries- for a multitude of reasons.