True…but even European drunken party tourists are getting some exposure (a little, at least) to a different culture (language, architecture, food, history) that Americans traveling the same distance don’t get nearly as much.
(Yes, I know, there’s McDonalds in London and Prague. And, you can find certain cultural differences across short distances in the US — ethnic restaurants, for starters. But still.)
(I teach cultural geography to mid-continent US college students. And, I’ve spent quite a bit of time in various parts of Europe. I’m pretty familiar with the links between cosmopolitanism and distance to other countries. It’s not a perfect correlation, but it’s real.)
Certainly true, but I guess there’s a case for foreign travelling broadening the mind - culture, language, history, architecture, food, relative wealth and services etc.
I just get a little prickly when people insinuate that the reason for Americans’ lack of international travel is anything other than distance, like somehow we’re willfully ignorant in a way that Europeans aren’t, because we don’t necessarily prioritize multi-thousand dollar trips that take a half-day of flight time each way, versus trips that are closer to home.
How many Europeans go to Nairobi? New Delhi? Those are in the same general ballpark flight-time wise as Europe is from much of the US.
Point taken. Many Americans (some of my students) are genuinely curious about the world, and work hard to overcome the economic and cultural obstacles that complicate their getting to travel in it.
And many Europeans (e.g., typical pro-Brexit English people — and I do mean English) are INcurious about the world, in a very Trumpian way.
Way back in the day I started a thread asking if you were dictator of the US what decree would be your prime one. My entry was that sometime between the ages of 18 and 21 Americans would have to spend a year off of the continent. It doesn’t have to be in a Third World country ala the Peace Corps. If you can swing a deal in London or Tokyo, go for it.
The point is to learn that The Way Things Are Done at home is not the only way things can be done, and different people have different cultures, as valid as yours is.
I just think of my parents. My father would have LOVED to have gone to Europe. But the cost was out of his reach for most of his life, and when it wasn’t, his health prevented it.
But he was reasonably well traveled domestically, because that’s what he could afford. So when people say things that imply that he was somehow provincial or blinkered because he never made it to Europe, it tends to get my hackles up, because it was primarily a matter of cost, not of desire or ignorance.
As support of the “visiting multiple countries is easy due to proximity” argument above, my eight year old will be in her twenty-first country in a month.
Doesn’t that depend on a lot more than just the fact that an international border was crossed? If someone traveled from Europe to spend a weekend in Vegas and spent all of it on the strip , they might possibly be exposed to a different language but not necessarily different architecture, food or history. There are many different reasons to travel and not all of them involve experiencing the local culture of the destination. I think someone earlier said something about international travel being part of daily life for Europeans - and I’m sure that’s true. But I’m sure that it’s also true that someone who drives two hours from their home in Austria to shop at at outlet mall in Italy isn’t really being exposed to a different culture.
True. I’ve been raised to travel in order to learn about other places and people. Over the years, I’ve learned that others were raised differently. It’s why (for example) I’ve never taken a (typical) “cruise” trip.
I dunno, if the only thing an international visitor sees of the US is Vegas, I still feel like they will have learned something essential about America.
Perhaps the concept of the Journeyman Years is no longer common in the USA, but in Germany, France and Scandinavia the tradition is still alive and well, minoritary as it may be. It is an old tradition that goes back to the Middle Ages and the guild system (and as such, is in origin protectionist!) but it has many positive unintended consequences.
Leave your home for at least three years and a day, you will come back a richer person!
Not to mention the massive reduction in DUI, DWI, MOUSE citations/accidents/deaths! And just think of the increase in grades and effectiveness of our colleges.
Alright, you group - OUT! Don’t come back for 366 days, or else!
We are both privileged.