Is it true that many Americans will never visit another country

[cinaminvanilla]

I remember reading an article where it says that many Americans don't have a passport or leave the USA ever in their lives. Just wondering does anyone with knowledge know if this true. Because the US is so big I could imagine people never travelling to another country. I think I read that for those who visit other countries the two most popular countries for people who live in the US to visit aside from their own is Canada and Mexico.

The UK. Slightly smaller than Oregon.
Look on a map of the USA. See how tiny our country is in comparison.
The geographical variety in the States is enormous, you can travel from desert to snowfields, mountains, lakes and a coast that stretches from the Canadian border to the Caribbean.
English speaking.
I’m not surprised that most don’t have passports.

If I lived in America I wouldn't ever feel the need to leave either, as others have said, it has it all really.

In order to leave America you have to travel long haul. Every single time.

Many can't afford that, or have the time to do it.

@Hemingwaycat

A lot of Americans have never even seen the sea so this doesn’t surprise me.

America has oceans, not seas.

I am American and one of the most amazing vacations I ever took was driving around the perimeter of the continental United States. We didn't even do all of it (skimming only the top of Florida and all of New England, for instance), but still, the trip took seven weeks and was 11,000 miles long. And yes, I have a well-used passport, as well.

@KobaniDaughters

We live in California and it is so goddamn far from EVERYWHERE!!!

It is easy to either lose perspective, or never have it in the first place that Europe can fit pretty much East of the Mississippi.

One very memorable thing for me...a friend of mine visited me here back after I moved to the states. He'd never been out of the UK. He flew into Chicago in August, and we had a four hour drive to my house. He was just in complete shock and awe of the corn fields and just how damned big the midwest fields are, and how they just go on forever. He lived in the midlands, so no stranger to agriculture, but he'd just never even imagined anything like what he saw. And to think, he didn't even get to see the really big fields in Kansas and Nebraska.

British people travel, sure, to a beach with a bar in many cases. Not so much to soak up the culture. So give it a rest

Yes, many travel to Spanish resorts where they only co e into contact with other Brits 😂 or to the USA and get no further than Disneyland.

I have never left Europe (the geographical one, not the political EU one). It comes down to not having enough money. And now, also because of additional travel rules. When I have enough money, I'll start flying westwards.

Well I guess America has every type of geography, so you would not really need to leave if you just wanted sun, snow, forest, dessert etc.

I think a decent amount of Americans travel, but not as many as you would have thought considering that salaries are a fair bit higher than the UK.

TheyAreMinerals

Don’t take it to heart - there are a fair few mn posters who believe that everyone who doesn’t live the same way they do are all thick bigots, best just ignored.

I've been to most countries in western Europe, but dont think I am any better travelled than someone who has travelled within America and it is not a huge shock that they choose to stay mostly on their own continent when it has so much diversity on offer.

@dreamingbohemian

It's true that the US doesn't have many ancient man-made tourist sites but it does have lots of dramatic natural wonders that give you that wow factor -- the Grand Canyon, Niagara Falls, the Rockies, Redwood Forest, etc etc

The US has rather a lot of ancient man-made sites to visit, built by the indigenous population.

Castles are a bit thin on the ground, but if you want ancient burial mounds and dwellings, they're there.

I am American and I lived in England for nine years (my husband is English) so I am a passport holder. I was living in Greater Manchester and several of my neighbors had never been outside of the NW and had never been to London. To me, that's very odd.

My hometown is on the farthest west tip of Texas. My city is closer to the Pacific Ocean at San Diego, California at 725 miles than it is to Galveston, Texas and the Gulf of Mexico because it is 795 miles away. That is the same state!!

My hometown has the Chihuahuan desert and a mountain range in the middle of the city. It borders the state of New Mexico and the city of Ciudad Juarez in Mexico. I literally went to Juarez, Mexico every single week. Until a few years ago, we never needed passports. Now, you can get a passport pass which is for those people who travel daily to Juarez and back. You scan the card and it lets you through. It's only usable at the border. If you want to go abroad, or to Canada and even other parts of Mexico, you have to get a full passport with pages.

In my state alone, there's several natural regions: Big Bend with mountains, the Hill Country, South Texas Plains, the Panhandle Plains, the Gulf Coast, Piney Woods with forests...Houston is the 4th largest city in the country, there are 145 different languages spoken in Houston. San Antonio, Dallas, Austin all have populations over a million with Fort Worth and El Paso not too far behind.

What I'm getting at is that our areas are huge with vast variety, especially in my area. Plus, as others have mentioned, we don't get as much vacation time and going to Europe is expensive and takes up our allotted time. It's not hard to understand why some people don't have them.

That reminds me, my passport expired. Add me to the 20% of people who don't currently hold one.

Anecdotal of course, but lived in an upper middle class area in the South East of America when I was growing up, most people hadn’t left the country. They had lake houses, mountain cabins and beach houses for their holidays. There was skiing, beautiful beaches and huge lakes all in one state. Now we are older most just seem to go abroad for their honeymoons, almost exclusively to Italy.

I remember years ago starting a new job with an American boss. He was due to visit me in our UK office and he called me, mortified, from the airport to say his passport had expired ... 5 years before. High earner, professional, relatively liberal and hadn't been out of the country for 5 years!!

So yes I believe many won't ever leave.

The United States has the geographical equivalents to pretty much everywhere else in the world. Take any holiday destination spot, and there is an equivalent within the United States

What a load of bollocks.
I often hear nonsense like this about America have every type of landscape and culture, there's no need to travel abroad to see the world. Almost always said by people who've never left America.
American is beautiful and diverse and I can understand why people might not want to travel further, but it's not the world and only has a fraction of what the rest of the world has.
Its absolutely fine for people to not want to travel and just be happy were they are. People don't need to defend it, in fact given the climate emergency, not travelling could be better.
Although, I did once meet a middle aged man in Brooklyn, born and raised in Brooklyn, and had never been to Manhattan. He just didn't see the need. In some ways I quite admired him, happily living his life, with everything he wanted.
I would also agree with posters comparing Americans never leaving America with Brits never leaving Europe. I wonder how those numbers would compare? We might not look quite so superior.
We're very lucky geographically in the UK. We live in the best continent in the world! Well placed with regard time zones and a short(ish) distance to the Americas, Asia and Africa.

I think a decent amount of Americans travel, but not as many as you would have thought considering that salaries are a fair bit higher than the UK.

Are they though when you take into account the exchange rate from dollars to pounds or dollars to euros?

@headintheproverbial

I remember years ago starting a new job with an American boss. He was due to visit me in our UK office and he called me, mortified, from the airport to say his passport had expired ... 5 years before. High earner, professional, relatively liberal and hadn't been out of the country for 5 years!!

So yes I believe many won't ever leave.

I just mentioned up above that my passport expired. I see that it did three years ago.

My in-laws live in England so we must travel to see them. Our last family trip cost us $7000 or £5100. That doesn't seem too bad but we spent our time visiting family. Yes, I love them so very much but that's a lot of money and time to spend to be in Wigan. If I had $7000 to go on a vacation, I could go to Hawaii for two glorious weeks or do several different short trips around the US and I wouldn't need to go all at once and I don't need to worry about renewing the passport.

We are planning to return to see the family once things get better, hopefully next year. For now, we are staying here.

I'm 42, never had a passport never left the UK.

I'm admittedly a bit weird, but I've never seen the point of the whole "Fortnight in the sun"
People work 50 weeks of the year and put so much stock in this fortnight away that if they can't have it, it causes mental health issues. Then there's paying for it, work god knows how many hours just to pay for 2 weeks in an hotel somewhere a bit sunny.
And the chaos of the flying and the organising and the packing... I'd need a holiday to recover from planning, packing and flying back from the holiday.

I'd rather a road trip to Scotland, or a weekend in the peaks or a romantic getaway to Milton Keynes.

But, like I say, I'm a bit odd.

I'm American. The amount of paid time off (PTO) varies depending on your job level and time in employment. Ten days would be typical for an entry level job, then it goes up over time.

www.zenefits.com/workest/how-much-is-average-pto-in-the-us/

I get 23 PTO days, plus 10 paid holidays. That's not unusual for someone in a management role.

I have a passport, but it's expired. Since they are only good for ten years there's no point in renewing it until I need it to go somewhere that requires it.

I'm admittedly a bit weird, but I've never seen the point of the whole "Fortnight in the sun"
People work 50 weeks of the year and put so much stock in this fortnight away that if they can't have it, it causes mental health issues. Then there's paying for it, work god knows how many hours just to pay for 2 weeks in an hotel somewhere a bit sunny.

I love travelling and have been all over the world, even my young children have been to 20 countries. Obviously nothing this year or last year and I have to admit, my life hasn't suffered for it. We're no less happy than we would have been had we done lots of travelling. I do miss it though and look forward to it though but a the same time I can see a lot of value and easy contentment in a life without wanderlust.

My in-laws live in England so we must travel to see them. Our last family trip cost us $7000 or £5100. That doesn't seem too bad but we spent our time visiting family. Yes, I love them so very much but that's a lot of money and time to spend to be in Wigan. If I had $7000 to go on a vacation, I could go to Hawaii for two glorious weeks or do several different short trips around the US and I wouldn't need to go all at once and I don't need to worry about renewing the passport.

Right. Visiting family is not much of a holiday to me if I’m spending it doing the same things I would do if I was at home. Despite the long trip that it takes to see my parents in the States, we do a lot in the 10 days we’re there and they do the same when they visit here. With every visit, I ask them where they would like to go in the U.K. and in Europe, we plan it out and then do it or I take them to places I’ve been here and in Europe that they haven’t with our sons in tow. They both love it, especially my dad since he never thought that he would ever be able to see the things he learned about in history books especially in the era that they were born and raised in.

The no time off thing is a bit outdated, people get plenty of time off at most jobs. It’s a big county so from most parts you need to fly to leave the country. Flying a family to Mexico or Europe adds up real fast so the average person would rather just drive or take a shorter cheaper flight and go to the beach somewhere within the US.

@phoenixrosehere

I think a decent amount of Americans travel, but not as many as you would have thought considering that salaries are a fair bit higher than the UK.

Are they though when you take into account the exchange rate from dollars to pounds or dollars to euros?

Cost of living is high as well. People think taxes are lower but there are lots of state and local and property and sales taxes (varies state by state) and then healthcare insurance and basically it doesn't leave you a lot better off. This is what I gather from conversations with American friends and family

I'm admittedly a bit weird, but I've never seen the point of the whole "Fortnight in the sun"
People work 50 weeks of the year and put so much stock in this fortnight away that if they can't have it, it causes mental health issues. Then there's paying for it, work god knows how many hours just to pay for 2 weeks in an hotel somewhere a bit sunny.

A 'fortnight in the sun' isn't the only kind of foreign holiday though. And do you really think people work long hours in jobs just so they can lie on the beach for 2 weeks a year? I presume you're joking about Milton Keynes though. My PIL live there and it's the most tedious, soulless place ever!