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According to the following article from the Huffington Post American people don’t travel much internationally for a number of reasons such as:

We have so much to offer in our own country This one is easy and is always my first line of defense. The U.S. is one massive country. Not only is it gigantic, but it is diverse.

We have extremely pricey passports Obtaining a passport isn't exactly cheap. At $135, we have the fifth most expensive passport in the world. That may not seem like a lot to some people, but keep in mind that takes 19 hours of work at minimum wage.

We aren't given vacation time The average amount of paid vacation time is two weeks. According to Forbes, the United States is the only advanced economy that does not require employers to provide paid vacation time. To make it worse, Forbes explains that nearly 1-in-4 Americans do not receive any paid vacation or paid holidays.

We don't use our vacation time That's right, the nearly 3-in-4 Americans that do receive paid vacation time fail to even use it! Oh my, are we that committed to work that we can't even take some time to enjoy ourselves?

We think you have to speak the language The only language I can speak fluently is English. It's embarrassing and I hate to admit it, but it does get me around the world.

Other sources appear to support the same view, as psychology.com for instance:

Five Reasons Why Americans Don’t Often Leave America

On a different note is The Telegraph which says:

But do not be deceived by the relatively low percentage of US passports holders. For the 42 per cent that do have passports use them - and frequently. One in five of all long-haul travellers has a US passport.

Are Americans far less likely to travel to foreign countries that the residents of other comparable western countries?

matt_black
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user
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    I mean, compared to Europeans I wouldn't be surprised. Americans traveling to another country usually need to fly, whereas Europeans can travel to another country in a day trip. What is "rarely" in this case? In comparison to all other countries? In comparison to developed countries? – DenisS Oct 19 '18 at 19:58
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    You can drive to Canada or Mexico overland, although the distances can still be large. I live in a border state (Minnesota), and if you're in mainland Europe and are as far from the nearest national border as I am, you're in Russia. – David Thornley Oct 19 '18 at 20:35
  • @DavidThornley - you mean that Americans don’t travel internationally much because of distances? A lot of Europeans fly within Europe but also overseas, to America, Asia etc. and the same is true for Asian people, despite distances. – user Oct 19 '18 at 20:41
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    The claim here isn't clear. "Rarely" is opinion-based. The Telegraph illustrates that different choices of metrics (Do you have a passport? Did you leave the country? On average, how often does an American travel?) have different answers. – Oddthinking Oct 19 '18 at 21:42
  • I want to forestall a lot of quibbling about how international travel has different meanings in different cultures. An Australian, a German, a Scandinavian, an American, a Russian and a North Korean are all going to have different experiences and expectations of what it means to take a big vacation or to travel for work. – Oddthinking Oct 19 '18 at 21:46
  • Say it a different way: Americans rarely travel more than a thousand km from home. – GEdgar Oct 20 '18 at 01:07
  • @Oddthinking - probably the title is not the best I could come up with, but the body of the question is clear and supported by reliable evidence. Closing the question as “unclear” is just specious. – user Oct 20 '18 at 06:00
  • @user070221: That is not a response to my points. – Oddthinking Oct 20 '18 at 14:25
  • @Oddthinking - you were the only to VTC the question as unclear, nobody else did. – user Oct 20 '18 at 16:49
  • @user070221: The Telegraph article you read hinted at another reason many Americans didn't have a passport: They have a formerly passport-free playground (Canada, the US, and Mexico) that is more than twice the size of all of Europe. A passport is now required, which has been a driving factor in the huge increase in the number of Americans who do have a passport. – David Hammen Oct 20 '18 at 20:10
  • @user070221: Also, not a response to my points. See the other comments and the answer that fails to hit the mark. Let's fix the question before others waste their time. – Oddthinking Oct 20 '18 at 22:52
  • There is a huge number of visitors to Australia from USA, page 59 http://www.tourism.australia.com/content/dam/assets/document/1/6/z/6/s/2005156.pdf (maybe second only to china? A bit more than from UK) – daniel Oct 20 '18 at 23:02
  • US is hard to compare to other developed countries due to its unique geography: it is large and relatively isolated. The valid comparison could be something like "what % of people went on a foreign trip that is more than 500 miles?", or compare Americans travelling out the US to Europeans travelling outside Mainland Europe (Schengen area?) – Bald Bear Oct 22 '18 at 15:27
  • @BaldBear -I think the issue here is not only a geographical one, but also, and probably mainly, a cultural one. Do American care about what happens outside the USA? Are they curious to know and learn about other cultures? Probably much less than Europeans and Asians do. – user Oct 22 '18 at 15:33
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    @user070221 OP asked specifically about travel. What people "care about" is much harder to define. But even then, you can control for geography: American caring about European events is equivalent to European caring Asia, and not a to German caring about France. – Bald Bear Oct 22 '18 at 18:59

1 Answers1

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True.

In 2016 less US Americans travelled abroad (~67 millions) than foreigners who visited the US (69 millions). I couldn't find information how many visitors of those 69 millions visited US with business purposes but this number cannot be larger than the number of tourists all over the globe who traveled abroad but not into the US in any country.

France alone had more than 80 million foreign tourists in 2013 and just about 3 millions of them were from the USA (source). This means that there are more foreign tourists in France than Americans who traveled abroad.

I assume that the statistics doesn't differ much in period between 2013 and 2016.

Common Guy
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    These comparisons are meaningless. – Oddthinking Oct 19 '18 at 23:44
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    Do you have any more relevant statistics that show Americans travel abroad significantly less than other nationalities? Our definitions of rare must be different, because a fifth of the US traveling abroad makes it seem like a pretty common thing for Americans to do. – Giter Oct 20 '18 at 01:27
  • Not the best of statistics, probably, but you clearly understood the question. Thanks – user Oct 20 '18 at 06:33
  • Here are better statistics to use: https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/countries-whose-citizens-travel-the-most.html In short: you answer still holds up. Americans travel abroad 0.20 times per year and person. Compare to, Hong Kong: 4.30, Norway: 2.00, Finland: 1.70, Sweden: 1.50, Denmark: 1.40. –  Oct 20 '18 at 21:55
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    @Michaelk: why compare to those countries? You are cherry picking. – Oddthinking Oct 20 '18 at 22:54
  • @Oddthinking Those countries are those where the people are most traveled abroad in the list. Call it cherry-picking if you like but the comparison is still relevant. –  Oct 20 '18 at 23:01
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    This answer demonstrates that a higher proportion of US citizens traveedl outside the US than non US citizens traveled to the US in 2016 and that more international travelers visited France in 2013, but, as @Oddthinking suggests, those statistics don't have much to do with the question. – De Novo Oct 21 '18 at 00:43
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    @DeNovo: "This answer demonstrates that a higher proportion" - no, it demonstrates a higher *absolute number*, not proportion, which is one of the reasons it is meaningless. – Oddthinking Oct 21 '18 at 00:57
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    @Oddthinking it demonstrates both. The relative size of the proportions is obvious with similar (~70 million) numerators. I don't think anyone thinks half of the world's population are US citizens. All the same, the comparison doesn't address the claim. – De Novo Oct 21 '18 at 01:05
  • It's worth noting that according to your source about 76 million of France's foreign tourists were eligible to enter France without a passport and to live there indefinitely (those from the EU and Switzerland). Most of those could also travel to France from their countries of citizenship without passing through an immigration checkpoint (Switzerland plus EU countries other than the UK, Ireland, Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia, and Cyprus). – phoog Oct 23 '18 at 15:24
  • @MichaelK Hong Kong has only 3.5 times as much land area as New York City. Scandinavia has very cold winters with very little sunlight. Of course people in those places travel abroad frequently. By contrast, Alaskans can escape the long winter nights without going abroad by traveling to Hawaii, California, or Florida. – phoog Oct 23 '18 at 15:40
  • @phoog What is your point? OP did not ask for **reasons** why people travel more or less abroad depending on their nationality but **if** that is the case. –  Oct 23 '18 at 15:46
  • @MichaelK true. I lost sight of that in reading the comment stream. – phoog Oct 23 '18 at 15:50