this post was submitted on 23 Mar 2025
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with all the stupid shit happening around me (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 2 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[โ€“] [email protected] 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)

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.

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago)

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.