As an expatriate, I have seen more than my fair share of ignorant European yahoos traipsing through Asia and looking down on the local culture and refusing to learn anything about it. Same as Americans, of course.
Sorry, not buying it.
ETA:
No, it hasn’t. I’d even say that motivation is in the minority of travellers I’ve seen.
Yeah, you can get into pretty much all of South America and western Europe just with a passport, and when we were in Spain we took a day trip down to Morocco without anything but our passports and the standard customs forms. And until the last 3 years, you didn’t need anything but a driver’s license to go to Canada and Mexico. Unless you were leaving the continent, you had no actual use for a passport, and they’re too expensive and inconvenient to get if you don’t have any use for them.
And I don’t know that I’d call it a distaste for traveling abroad, exactly. More a view that the increased expense and PITA factor isn’t necessarily worthwhile, really. And it really is more expense and PITA–you have to get a passport, tickets are usually more expensive, travel times are generally longer (hugely so, if you’re going to Europe), and there’s often a language barrier that you don’t have staying in the States. Having traveled abroad, I certainly can’t bring myself to fault someone for deciding it’s more trouble than it’s worth.
That’s fine, but if you don’t know the numbers, then isn’t it a mistake to keep stating as fact that more European teens travel to the US than vice versa? Maybe you’re wrong about that.
Hell, my rural public school organized a trip to Europe each year for a dozen or so juniors and seniors. I imagine our school wasn’t alone in this.
By the way, since I think it was my post that began the thread hijacking, when I said my teenage peers regularly went abroad, this was, for the most part, with their families.
In addition to the other things mentioned, I think there is also a general feeling here in the U.S. that Europeans look down upon and resent Americans while feeling envious/jealous of us at the same time, and this creates the impression that we’re likely to feel unwelcome when we get there. People want to go where they’re likely to feel welcome and have a good time, and I think a lot of Americans feel they’re likely to feel more welcome and have a better time sticking closer to home. Why go through two or three flights (and airports) just getting out of the U.S., fly eight or nine hours over the ocean, hassle with customs, transportation, money changing and all the rest, just to be looked down upon and scorned and made to feel like a jerk because you’re not only a tourist, but an American!
And then there’s the impression that by and large the larger cities in Europe are crowded, the traffic is chaotic, tourist traps abound, and hotel rooms are small and conveniences lacking.
All in all, I think most Americans - given that they have only so much money to spend and only so much time off work to spend it in - would rather go to places like Colorado for skiing, Florida or the Bahamas for sun & fun, or San Francisco or New York for an exciting big-city experience.
Personally, I would love to go to Europe - especially France - and hopefully one day I’ll get there. But I do think a fair number of Americans lack interest in going to Europe for the reasons I just listed as well as those already mentioned by other posters.
So given that your more adventurous Europeans are unlikely to have these same reservations about coming to America, I think it stands to reason that it may well be the case that more Europeans come here than Americans go there.
Wanted to add that of course I’ve seen at least as many thoughtful and culturally appreciative Europeans as I have North Americans as well. I just dispute that one group has a lead over the other.
BTW, if any Americans want to visit Europe and get a great reception, go to Albania.
Yes, I realize that may sound bizarre, and it’s true that Albania has a slight problem with, um, infrastructure.
But it’s beautiful (it’s along the same shoreline as Croatia, which people flock to en masse), very inexpensive, and Albanians LOVE Americans. I was there in 2008 and there were American flags flying from houses and buildings, and my friends and I got a fabulous reception from people. I wouldn’t say that I’ve gotten a bad reception other places, but this was the first time I’ve ever had people say stuff like “you are American! Very good people!” to me. A guy in the patio of the main mosque in Tirana, upon finding out where we were from, linked his index fingers together, gestured forcefully and said (and it’s important to know that the most common second language in Albania is Italian) “Albania e America!” before adding, “Bombardiamente Serbia!”.
It was weird.
It’s been my experience (although I don’t claim it as an absolute statement of truth) that a large number of Australians who’ve travelled overseas have been to one of the following five places:
Bali (Indonesia)
New Zealand
Thailand
US
UK
The thing is, it’s a long way from here to anywhere except New Zealand- but it costs a fortune to have a holiday somewhere interesting in Australia. The sort of money it costs to have a week at Ayer’s Rock will take you to Bali or Vanuatu or Fiji or even Hawaii, and as much as I’d like to see Ayer’s Rock, I’d rather lie on a tropical beach and drink cheap cocktails from a cocount with a little umbrella in it.
Of course, I know a lot of Australians who’ve travelled extensively and to some really out of the way places (“You’ve never been to Sarmaqand? Really?”) and lots of people who’ve travelled extensively within Australia, so I definitely wouldn’t say that Australians aren’t big on travelling (because that’s clearly not true)- but I would say there’s a fair number who can’t quite be bothered with all the hassle and mucking around to get a passport and organise an overseas trip, when they can go and see their cousin in Rockhampton with little more effort and planning than “booking a flight”.
One of the other reasons more British people have passports is because, as mentioned above, fewer people drive, or learn to drive later, and you need something as ID; most places like banks will only accept passports and driving licences as ID. I imagine this is true in some other European countries too.
I thought he was saying that he wasn’t sure it really was true that so few Americans visit Europe?
One thing to note, although you may not need passports to cross borders, very often you do need them to get on a plane. I dont know if every carrier has this policy, but the last few flights I took, I needed a passport to board the plane, and not just photo id.
Just another reason why almost everybody over here will get a passport as a matter of course.
I’m sure most American teenagers would rather save up money to buy a car rather than blow it on a over-seas vacation.
Most states (all states that I’m aware of) will issue a “state ID” to non-drivers (sometimes affectionately known as a “walker’s license”) that has the same legal weight as a driver’s license.
My passport was actually refused as ID at my local DMV, the agency that issues driver’s licenses. For some reason their rules required them to accept only a Social Security card (a slip of easily forged paper) a.nd refuse my plasticized, RFID-equipped bar coded hologrammed passport.
Back to the OP, from past discussions I’m given to understand that American teens are more likely to work, and it is more looked down on if they don’t work than in Europe.
I don’t know how it is outside Ireland, but most kids in their late teens here will seek jobs (whether they get them nowadays is another matter). Many of my friends started work of some sort when they were 14, in some cases earlier. Packing in supermarkets, retail jobs, delivering milk/leaflets etc, I find it hard to think of friends of mine when I was that age who didn’t have some manner of part time job.
It would certainly be wrong had I done so. Luckily for both of us, I haven’t.
In fact, I’ve said a few times that I’d wager (not that I know) that there isn’t really any appreciable difference between the two and hyopthesising various lines of reasoning that led me to that theory. Are you, perhaps, confusing my posts with someone else’s?
The UK doesn’t have non-passport ID cards for nationals. It was batted around under Labour and a bill was passed, but the scheme was eventually scrapped (with much embarrassment and expense, IIRC). It’s passport, driver’s licence or nil.
You’re right. My error.
My understanding was that that scheme would be mandatory issuance of ID cards, or am I misremembering?
The state ID thing is voluntary. I didn’t get a driver’s license until I was 22 or 23 and I never had one - if necessary, I used my passport as ID.
And a state DL/ID doesn’t identify you as a US citizen (or the much more rare cateogry of non-citizen national), anyway. Depending on the state that issued it, it identifies you as a resident of that state at the most. Mostly, a state ID/DL verifies your age and your identity, that’s it.
Yup, it was mandatory, expensive ID cards that was on the, er, cards. There’s no non-driving national ID, voluntary or otherwise. Some councils will issue a card to try and prove your over 18 (for buying booze, etc) but not many people take it up because hardly anywhere accepts it.
Are we forgetting about rail travel here too? I’ve only been to France and England in Western Europe, but ISTR rail travel being a) ubiquitous, b) fairly inexpensive, and c) speedy enough. While you certainly can air-hop around Europe, you can also just hop on a train without totally blowing your travel time budget. (The more compactness helps with this, of course.)
You can’t really do that here in The States. Yeah, we’ve got trains, but train stations aren’t necessarily to be found in every major city. And they’re slow, maybe because there’s so much more ground to cover - it’s a huge amount of time to take the train from Minneapolis to Denver, for example, because you can’t go directly there. Instead, you connect through Portland and Sacramento. And it’s about the same cost as flying (or more expensive), so not only does it take longer, you haven’t saved any money either. Out east it’s better - the trains are more plentiful and a viable travel option - but that stops being true west of western Pennsylvania and south of Virginia.
In a lot of ways, it’s just harder to get there from here, whereever “there” might be.