Is the average American well travelled?

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liz down under

Definately not. They have the lowest rate of passport ownership in the developed world for a start. If they do get one they tend to travel to Canada/Mexico/Caribbean. They don't get as much annual leave (more like 2 weeks) compared with Europeans or Australians (more like 4-5 weeks on average). Their young people don't have a culture of travelling the world before they settle down with a mortgage and kids so they tend to wait until they are retired before they travel much and then they like to go on cruises and bus trips which aren't great for mixing with locals and getting a real insight into the countries that they visit (more like a series of photo stops to prove that you have been somewhere!).
I've travelled a lot and your always run into far more Australians than Americans in far flung corners of the earth and yet Australia only has a population of 21 million versus over 300 million. I have also spent 3 months travelling in America and they really are generally pretty ignorant about anywhere else.

mekku

I have found that most of the Americans I have met are not well travelled. Many haven't even been out of their own states!!! There are quite a lot that do travel but the vast majority is not as much. Most of the people I meet when I am abroad are not Americans, which seems to help indicate they are not as well travelled.

Ozmaniac

The average American tends to be very insular and focused on his own country to the exclusion of other countries. A very large percentage have never travelled more than a few hundred km from home and very few (% wise) have travelled overseas. Of course, there are millions of exceptions who have travelled extensively and are very well informed about the world, but they are a minority.

EDIT:
Charlie, what you say is true, but 'well travelled' is not the same as 'travelling a long distance'. If you only travel within your own country, you don't learn about other cultures, attitudes and beliefs and that's particularly true in the US where very few people know about or have any interest in anywhere other than their own country. It's far, far more difficult for Australians to be 'well travelled' because of our distance from most other countries, but a very large percentage of Aussies have made the effort. Everywhere you go overseas, there are Australians - the same can't be said of Americans.

beerbottle420

Some

dock

no, they make world views in their living room.

Charlie

Well, many who are "well-traveled" within their own country, have not traveled outside of North America. You need to remember, most states in the U.S. are bigger than most countries in Europe. Americans cannot just hop on a high speed train and be in another country in 2 hours. Also, there is so much to see within The U.S. and North America, one has many vacation choices for years and years.

msverychocolate

SOME ARE WELL TRAVELED AND SOME HAVEN'T EVEN LEFT THEIR FRONT YARDS HAHA!!

H K

In the US it is a bit like here. We have people in Australia who have rarely left their own suburb and still can't understand why the rest of the world do not speak their language.
From my experience of living in the US it is definitely worse than here, ignorance about the rest of the world that is.
Their TV news rarely covers much that is not centered on the president or countries with close ties to them, ie: Germany, France etc..
The majority of yanks would not have a clue where Australia is and one even asked "what state is it in".
Other countries have introverts too, try reading some of the clap trap that is fed to the Japanese that come here on holidays, it is unbelievable.
I suppose we are spoilt in Oz, while it is far from perfect, we do experience other cultures living amongst us and a wide variety of world news.
To the OP, yes I do agree.

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