There are cities in the middle of the US, too. Chicago (and O’Hare Airport), anyone?
I am an American currently living in the UK. I’ve been to Canada, Greece, Italy, England, France, Holland, Belgium, and Germany (where I lived for a few months).
I have a bachelor’s degree and am applying to graduate school next year (probably to stay here in the UK).
I speak decent German, can read French and Italian, Latin and Ancient Greek.
Countries visited: One hundred and eighty three.
Ethnic cultured experienced: Six hundred and twelve, at least.
Languages spoken: Over two hundred, although a good number of these are extinct.
What do I win?
To Americans on this board: Sorry for the implication that Americans are indeed insular.
I thought this thread would offer an opportunity to dispel the stereotype, and in many ways it has.
The stereotype is not dead (there’s still a bit too much rationalization from some Americans 
), but it seems that it has contracted a terminal illness.
Now, if we could just get the Swiss to visit Germany … 
I’m sorry that you felt the need to apologise IAMBIC, I thought your questions were a genuine attempt to dispel any possible myths about “American Insularity”
It appears that this subject has occured before but as a guest you wouldn’t be able to access the search function to know that.
However, I think that most responces have entered the spirit of the original post.
American here, grew up in NYC and lived in Boston before moving back to da Bronx.
Countries: Canada (visited grandma’s Scots-Gaelic speaking relatives in Nova Scotia, Ontario, New Brunswick, Halifax, lots of T’ranna), Mexico (just near the border), Bermuda, about 30 US states.
However, I do have a brother who’s travelled most of Europe, and an uncle who speaks fluent Arabic and studied in Cairo for a while, then travelled to Taiwan and then to China proper where he picked up Mandarin and his wife, my Aunt Lili.
Ethnic influences: Yikes! I suppose the most influential would be American Irish, Italian, Jewish (secular, Orthodox, a little Hasidic), Latino (mostly Puerto Rican and Cuban in my youth, more Dominican Republic and Central American now as the Boricuans all got better off and moved to the 'burbs), and African-American and Caribbean black. Dated Irish, Italian, (secular) Jewish, WASP guys. I’m Irish/Scottish and Catholic myself but have French Protestant ancestry dating back to the Mayflower era. Roommates with Russian-American Jewish girl, mainland Chinese girl, Chinese-ancestry Vietnamese girl, Taiwanese girl, American black guy, Bangladeshi-American guy, several WASP girls (not all at once!) My state’s governor is Hungarian, my mayor Jewish, my county’s president Puerto Rican, my President Texan (it’s exotic to me).
Languages spoken: The Bronx, trendy Manhattan, Bostonian dialects of English. Basic Spanish. ‘Hello’, ‘thank you’, ‘goodbye’ in Cantonese and Mandarin. Enough Yiddish to amuse all the WASPier girls I knew in New England.
Bachelor’s degree from a Seven Sisters college (old women’s colleges that were the female Ivy League before women could go to the real one). Medium income. Northeasterner all my life. Here’s something interesting that might help you understand us a bit better: There’s not much subsidized education here in private schools, and I had to spend every summer working at service jobs to afford college again in the fall, and also had a generous scholarship that paid about half of the cost of college. It was worth it, but it did come with strings attached. In junior year, I applied to go abroad to study; in fact, junior year abroad is/was a very common custom for Americans. However, the programs in England, France, and Spain that I checked out would not take my scholarship money. I couldn’t subsidize myself and could not bankrupt my parents, so I had to stay right in Boston. There are worse fates, but that sort of thing makes it hard to travel. Trips after I graduated were out of the question–I had student loans to pay back, and had to get right to work, in jobs that offered one or two weeks of vacation a year.
One last example: my Dad has a doctorate and teaches in several prestigious New York City universities as an adjunct professor; he is cultured and speaks a few languages. But the first time he ever could afford to go overseas was early this year, when he was 68 years old. Travel overseas is often a once-in-a-lifetime adventure to be saved up for for many years. Yet, Dad has travelled all over America and met foreigners who have come here and has standing invitations to Cuba (tricky, that one), Australia, Sweden, and the UK. Someday maybe he’ll do it. But it’ll take a major chunk of income–everyplace is so far from here!
I find this to be a very strange claim. How much do you think it costs to go to Europe for two weeks?
I know many working-class people who travel overseas every couple of years. Where do they get the money?
You’re not the first person in this thread that has mentioned money as a reason for why some Americans don’t travel abroad. Isn’t the U.S. the richest country in the world?
There’s a simple reason why some Americans don’t travel abroad: They don’t want to. The U.S. is a large, diversified country with much to see and explore. Why go anywhere else?
Great argument.
But it’s not about the money.
It’s not? That’s news to me. Sure, I could spend every penny I have and go slumming in Europe for a couple weeks. I couldn’t pay my rent, feed my cats, or pay off my bills in the meantime, however. I work my butt off for what I have, and I’m doing my best to improve my life by saving up money for college. Considering that, it’s rather irresponsible for me to blow what little savings I have on a vacation.
I tried desperately to travel overseas. I actually got an offer to au pair in France, which I was over the moon about, but due to visa problems I was never able to go. I still dream about doing an IPSL program in India. If I can’t get a job in the EU, then I can’t afford to go right now. The U.S. may be a wealthy nation, but that doesn’t mean every one of it’s citizens is of means. I guess it’s my own fault, however, for being born into a poor family.
Well, my grandparents each went abroad–once. It cost about $6,000, about five years’ worth of savings, and that was back in the 1980s. My parents went to Alaska and Canada last year on a cruise and it cost $12,000, and we all chipped in because it was thier 40th anniversary.
I would assume it would cost about $3-5,000 for European travel, but I’ve hardly dared to look. It is out of question until I pay off my mortgage and student loans.
Oops. Sorry people, the above post was written by me, Mississippienne, not by Agent Foxtrot.
Sorry, but this is really about priorities and spending habits.
I’ll bow out now.
I beg your pardon.
The first time I traveled abroad my (mid-middle class) parents paid for it and it wasn’t supposed to happen again for a long time, if ever because it was a huge expenditure for them–we were used to driving anywhere we went on vacation and usually camping once we got there. Since then they’ve gotten quite a bit wealthier and so there have been more trips.
I love traveling, but now that I’m on my own I don’t expect to be going abroad or even to the western US for a very long time. I’m far from living in poverty, but I would have to scrape together way more of my income than I’m comfortable with to make a worthwhile trip to Europe, Asia, etc. right now. Sure, I could give up luxuries like cable TV and high speed internet and buying books and music and DVDs and going to the movies, and so could a lot of other Americans–but unless you value traveling above all else there is no reason to put it before leading a comfortable life at home.
I know a lot of people who have never been off the east coast of the US and would absolutely love to, but for most it is a big, expensive thing even to go to other parts of the country, never mind outside it.
BTW, I don’t deny that some Americans aren’t really interested in traveling out of the country, but a) I don’t necessarily see this as much of an issue as long as they’re not swearing off any interest in the rest of the world and b) I’m not really sure that this doesn’t also come into play in Europe and elsewhere. After all, there are also people even in western Europe who never travel outside their country of origin even though they could.
I’d love to go on another trip abroad. But you know, I have a mortgage to pay and a home and two kids to send to college and a retirement to save for. Maybe it is about priorities; but I’d rather help my daughters to a decent education and be able to live after 65 than go to Europe now (even if Dangerdad could get that much vacation, ha ha). When we have more time and income, we’ll travel as much as possible, but for now, it’s daydreams.
You may not be taking into consideration the differences between American and European spending/saving/income. On the whole, we have to pay more for our own healthcare, save for our retirement, and then college and home costs are going up far more quickly than income is. 10 years ago, I could not pay for college by working (as my parents could in their day); by the time our kids are grown, it will be nightmarish. Faced with the facts, many Americans undoubtedly feel that leisure travel is an unaffordable luxury.
I don’t even know if it’s necessarily due to higher retirement/medical/education costs.
I think it comes down more to the absolute cost differences between a European traveling in Europe vs. an American traveling to Europe.
Like others have said, Europeans traveling in Europe is more equivalent to interstate travel in the US in cost, while transcontinental travel is quite a bit more expensive, and at somewhere upwards of $800 a ticket, is prohibitively expensive for many people, while a $100 ticket to Chicago on Southwest is much more reasonable.
I’d like to know how many Europeans have gone outside of Europe vs. how many Americans have gone outside of the US, Mexico and Canada.
As to the op:
I’ve been to England, Scotland, Wales and France. I’m going to Mexico in November, provided that work will allow me the time off at that point.
I know many, many people who have been to both Mexico and Canada- it’s not at all uncommon for Americans to have gone to either or both of them.
Hell, Mexican culture is pretty prevalent around here, and depending on where you go, the billboards and stuff are all in Spanish.
Countries visited
England, Wales, Belgium, Holland, Germany, U.A.E. (Dubai)
Ethnic culture experienced
German/Dutch, Italian/Spanish, Russian, Malaysian, Arab. These aside, north Indian, south Indian, east Indian, north-east Indian - yup, they really are that different.
languages
Fluency in English, Hindi and German. Extremely weak Spanish. With a little help, I could read local auto magazines my Dutch friends brought with them to Germany. I can also understand to a very large extent Marathi and Gujarathi, and to a lesser extent, Punjabi and Bengali.
Yes, if you’re an Australian resident. It takes 6.5 hours and 4100km as the crow flies to fly from Perth to Sydney alone.
How many countries have you visited? not sure more than 20
How many ethnic cultures have you experienced? (In person, not in movies or TV.)not sure, but certainly more than 20 if you count Chinese minority cultures (Miao, Dong, Zhuang, Naxi, Bai, Manchurian, Tibetan [if you count that as a Chinese culture], Buyi, etc)
How many languages do you speak?Other than Californian? Truely claim fluency in Mandarin; speak/understand varying degrees of Shanghaiese and Cantonese; can swear in about 5 Chinese dialects; basic Japanese.
Oh ya, lived 20+ years in Asia.
An “other” response (I’m Australian).
Countries visited
Belgium, China, England, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, New Caledonia, Switzerland.
Ethnic cultures experienced
Anglo-Celtic Australian, Lebanese Australian, Italian Australian, Anglo-Celtic English, Gujarati, Goan, Sindhis, Konanis, Khojas, Parsis, French, Afro-Carribbean, German, Roman Italian, Japanese, French Caledonian, German Swiss, French Swiss.
languages
English, French, and a smattering of Portuguese and Hindi.
Outside of Europe, Singapore, Malaya, Thailand, Hong Kong and Borneo.
As the UK is a cosmopolitan place I have I have worked with the people and enjoyed the food of many of the cultures (if that counts) and what’s more I shall be doing it again this evening
Regarding languages I have a smattering of schoolboy French - and I wish I had persevered with that, but apart from that only English. I can’t even speak the language of my birth, Welsh.
By the way I’d like to thank those of you in this thread who make the distinction between the countries of the UK. Sometimes people outside of the UK give the impression that UK = England. I think that most people consider themselves as Scottish, Welsh etc. first and British second.
In keeping with the OP though apart from the countries above, I’ve visited, France, Switzerland, Germany, Holland, Austria and Denmark. By the end of this month I hope I’ll be able to add Spain and Portugal.
I have to add though that when the Brits travel abroad (particularly Spain) some take their culture with them. They eat fish and chips and drink British beers.
It depends how you count; some were part of the USSR at the time, but are independent now. In chronological order: Mexico, Spain, Portugal, France, Italy, Russia, Estonia, Ukraine, England, Switzerland, and Canada (not counting layovers in then-Czechoslovakia and Germany).
As many have mentioned, how are you defining this? In addition to the above cultures, within 5 miles of my apartment I can experience pretty much any culture of South or Southeast Asia or the Middle East. I live within walking distance of a large Vietnamese/Thai/Cambodian/Laotian neighborhood. Mexicans in Chicago are all over the place; we have multiple radio and TV stations and newspapers in Spanish. I also host a monthly dinner for Russian speakers through a local NGO; last month we had 15 people, including two moms visiting from Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, respectively. Name a part of the world, and I’ve probably known someone from there personally.
Three and a half - English native, Spanish fluently enough to have been a court interpreter, Russian fluently (though with vocabulary gaps), half-assed French. I can puzzle my way through a number of Romance or Slavic languages well enough to, say, read a newspapr or understand the gist of a basic conversation.
I’m American and grew up middle-class. I’d just like to point out that you don’t have to be super-rich to be able to travel, especially in the off-season (and especially if you have friends to crash with - I think I’ve paid for a total of 2 nights in a hotel in a total of about 1 cumulative year in Europe). My semester in Spain was covered entirely by scholarships from my university, as was about 85% of the 1995 semester in Russia.