How do Americans do holidays?

[Champagneforeveryone]

We've just flown to Venice for a few days, and I was reading the guide book which says that flights arrived only from a couple of US states.

Which got me thinking how very little I know about this and it seems I have a huge amount of preconceptions 🙄

I imagined that you could fly from every state to anywhere in the world - obviously not! So I'm guessing there's a large number of internal flights? Are they expensive? Are they as time consuming as taking a flight abroad, or are they similar to taking a bus.

Also, does this limit how you holiday? I had always imagined that the US was similar to us and people holidayed abroad frequently (ours would be mostly Europe with the occasional long haul "big" holiday) Do you fly to different states or do you leave the US?

TIA for filling the gaps in my knowledge while DH showers 😉

As a general rule, Americans don’t travel abroad. They also have a lot let leave than us. They tend to make a big thing of weekends and long weekends.

The ones lucky enough to get as far as Europe will do a week and drop into a few places. I agree they won’t get the same experience at all!

Haven't RTFT so this might have been mentioned already but I was astounded to learn during a tourism marketing course that over 80% of American citizens NEVER own a passport.

Sitting back and thinking about all the different experiences and landscapes are possible just within their country it makes more sense, but still... 80%.

Forty-four percent of Americans have a passport.

@CarolinaInTheMorning Maybe times have changed; or maybe it was 80% at any one time, but a higher percentage have one at some point in their lives. Anyway, I literally don't know anyone in Europe that doesn't have a passport, so any number less than about 95% was going to astound me back when I studied that course.

Oh lordy lord, where to start with that utter piffle...

You think a piece of legislation that has transformed the American economy and created an upwardly mobile society since the year it was passed has been a bad thing. You think a piece of legislation that resulted in third level training and education for millions - and the massively positive economic consequences of all that, for everyone in the country - was a matter of one group being favoured above everyone else, that veterans steal from the rest of society?

You feel that improving the life prospects of 15 million men who would have otherwise returned to economic unproductivity, lack of opportunity, and consigning their families to the same prospects, would have been a good thing if it meant the US had set up the USNHS instead? All apparently based on an ideological fixation with the NHS and a conviction that the only way is British.

How do you think the Marshall Plan (please tell me you know what the Marshall Plan was..) would have been paid for if not the strength of an American economy fueled by the educational investment in the workers, newly minted engineers, scientists, mathematicians, and technology developers? And where would the UK and the rest of Europe be without the Marshall Plan?

What is your understanding of the role of money and opportunity in an economy if you think that one group getting it means everyone else loses out - the Great British Whack A Mole theory of how things work? What, in your opinion, is the role of education in an economy? In fact, how does an economy work?

Why did you quote me there and then reveal you possibly didn't read, and certainly didn't understand anything that I posted?

You denounced the $7 minimum wage.

I showed you it's an irrelevant number and that market forces play a role in economic reality. Shouldn't have been necessary, but heyho...

Then you came back and told me there's a minimum wage AND market forces in operation in Aus, NZ, and the UK.

Seriously?

America has a very large homeschooling sector. I wonder how much that has to do with the ranking.

It's currently around 5 percent and that's higher than normal as a carry over from the pandemic. Certainly not very large by any measure.

Maybe you should read the thread. There's quite a detailed discussion about how the numbers don't come close to explaining the differences.