Before you start with the hate, I myself am an American and was born and raised here. I noticed this when I spent 2 years in London.
I noticed Europeans travel all the time, like to Australia/Sweden/Germany/Japan….etc. They also seem to be more open minded to the cultures.Also A lot of Americans dont even have a passport, they think that passports are for illegals (not joking a majority think this).
My passport has about 4 pages full of stamps.
I came back to the states and when I tell people about traveling(they ask) and they seem to think "its too good to be true" and dont believe me. I explain that when I was in London it was normal to travel.
Why do people here rarely get out? I am not trying to start an argument just curious?
I do speak to Americans (all the time) I am American and work in US. I am telling you 90% of the people I talk to talk about international travel like its some far fetched dream.
I live and work in Manhattan.
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Let me answer this question although I usually don’t react on questions being asked two days ago, but this is a real interesting one and being born and raised on the European continent and somewhat older [not wiser] I may be able to provide you with an answer from a point of view which you haven’t seen before.
First of all I usually do not trust any statistics unless I have forged it myself. However the U.S. State Department claims to have issued more than hundred millions of passports during the last ten years.
http://www.travel.state.gov/passport/services/stats/stats_890.html ..
These numbers may include official and diplomatic passports as well as those being lost and replaced; however even if we deduct these and consider that child passports are only valid for five years it looks like about 25% of the U.S. population holds a passport.
America is a huge country and you can travel thousands of miles without crossing a border and needing a passport. On the European continent you can take a journey of 130 miles touching five different countries [Germany (Aachen), the Netherlands (Vaals), Belgium (Bastogne), Luxembourg (Luxembourg), France (Hettange-Grande)].
Since you have spend time London you might have been in the European country with the highest quota of passport holders besides Denmark and Ireland. British citizen need a passport whenever they plan to leave the island unless they go to Ireland or the Channel Islands. To go to the European mainland they need passports, hence almost everybody has a passport. The U.K. is just starting to issue national ID cards to their citizen, but they are widely not accepted since Brits think that their freedom of abode is hampered by being registered.
On the European continent it is completely different. In most European countries we have a registration system, nationals need to get registered at the town-hall of residence and need to report any change of residence to the government authorities. National ID cards are issued to all citizens and they are required for routine business like opening a bank account, renting a car, lease an apartment, get a non-prepaid mobile phone, and similar things. However they also serve as a passport waiver to visit all other 29 European Union (EU) or European Economic Area (EEA) countries, and to visit Albania, Andorra, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Croatia, Monaco, Montenegro, San Marino, Switzerland, and Vatican City. They also help to replace a lost passport within hours.
Based on the fact that the passport waiver agreement has already been concluded long before the Schengen agreement got into affect [1957] there were lots of people on the European continent which never ever have hold a passport in there entire live. My parents (born 1917 and 1921) never had a passport but have travelled to more than 20 countries on vacation to include Turkey [Asian part] and Tunisia [Africa] by just holding their ID card which is similar to the nowadays U.S. passport card.
http://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/en/Treaties/Html/025.htm ..
EU citizen living on the continent only need passports if they want to travel intercontinental or travel to some countries being former members of the Soviet Union or of Yugoslavia.(Kosovo, Macedonia, Serbia). Hence more people in Europe did not have passports than in America.
I would disagree, I travel, and I know a lot of people who travel.
Maybe you should speak to more Americans, I know lots of people who travel internationally all the time.
You have to remember that Europe is not the only international travel destination open to Americans. I am sure that when you add up the numbers that travel to Mexico, Canada, the Caribbean, etc you will find numbers comparable to Europeans. Until just recently a lot of international travel for Americans did not require a passport.
As an american myself, This is a simple answer. European countries are closer together and easier to get to. If you live in Paris it’s much easier to get to London, Germany, Italy, Prague or the UK in a matter of hours. In America things are not as close together. It takes us days to get from one place to the other and most people think it’s a hassle. I love to travel and have been to many countries. I will be spending three years in Italy starting next year can’t wait!
what?
everyone i know travels!
i personally dont travel at the moment because i’m tight on money, but i used to go every summer
I am from Europe and now I live in America. I know a lot of people here who travel overseas but I think that it’s because the USA is such a big country with already so many great things to visit that it may be understandable that people prefer discovering their own country before thinking of going somewhere else. I love america and I would rather travel around the country than going anywhere else.
- Too expensive
- We have lot’s to do here
- Europeans are snobs
tradition and in many cases the southern beach type vacation is desired.also the euro exchange rate will buy you more than us dollars.many europeans speak more than one language mainly english