What percentage of Americans don’t have passports? And why not?
I’m not sure if anybody knows the answer to the first question, although I’ve seen all sorts of (unsupported) figures thrown around. The U.S. Passport Office lists figures on the number issued per year, but that doesn’t really tell you very much.
As for the second question, some Americans either (a) never travel abroad, or (b) only travel to Canada, Mexico, or the Caribbean countries that don’t require U.S. citizens to carry passports. There have been numerous threads exploring the reasons why this is so.
To add some perspective on the second question (can’t find any statistics on the percentage,) Americans tend to vacation elsewhere in the country. One of the benefits of having a country that is 3,618,770 square miles (9,372,571 square kilometers) is that you can visit the mountains, or the beach, or a wilderness area or a city without leaving the country.
So why don’t most of us have passports: we simply don’t need them unless we’re traveling for business or specifically going overseas.
Also, to state explicitly something implied in the other replies, there is no legal requirement that a U.S. citizen have a passport.
According to this site (alluded to by ruadh), the Passport Office issued roughly 64 million passports in the last 10 years (which is the amount of time an adult passport is valid.) So assuming that “issued” includes passport renewals, about 20% of U.S. residents have passports.
Eh, you mean “citizens” not “residents”. I don’t really think you can make a judgement based on those numbers - there’s no way to tell how many of them were renewals, how many of the people they were issued to have since died or let them lapse, etc.
Yeah. Basically it’s because we don’t need them. We have a country that’s larger than Europe (if you ignore Russia) and has hugely different terrain. If I want to go to the Pacific I can go to Hawaii or American Samoa. If I want the Caribbean, I have Puerto Rico or the U.S. Virgin Islands. Plus, there’s Florida, California, the Carolinas for nice beaches. Or the Rockies if I want a nice ski resort. Or the Southwest if I want a nice desert area.
For instance, I’m looking at the State Department’s Foreign Entry Requirements and the countries I can visit without a passport are:
Antigua and Barbuda
Aruba
Bahamas
Barbados
Bermuda
Canada
Dominican Republic
Grenada
Jamaica
Mexico
Micronesia
Miquelon Island
Netherlands Antilles (Curacao, etc.)
St. Kitts, St. Lucia, St. Pierre, etc.
British West Indies or British Virgin Islands
So basically, anywhere I want to go in the Caribbean or in North America I really don’t need a passport. And those are where the most popular resorts (Sandals, etc.) are located and where Americans tend to go on vacation or within the country itself.
We may be insular, but I’m not sure that a lack of passports is evidence of it.
There’s also the fact that they soak you 85 bucks for one. And that’s not counting the photographs. So, unless you really are going abroad, 85 bucks is 85 bucks, so why spend it?
For some perspective: If the European Union stopped requiring passports for travel between the countires, and the UK joined the EU, how many Europeans would get passports?
The UK is in the EU. I believe no passport (only a European identity card) is required for travel among the member states. A lot of Brits holiday in places like Dubai, though, so they’ll probably still continue to get passports.
Actually, according to the UK Passport Service, UK citizens are still required to carry a British passport - even for daytrips.
Well we did this thread before Neurotik and somebody came up with a cite which said they aren’t … but I’m not going to try to find it now 
Okay I agree with the notion that America geographically has pretty much everything. But what about culturally?
Why not pay the $85 bucks and come over to the good old UK and escape from all those Mc Donalds, Shopping Malls, Multiplex Cinemas… no wait that is the UK. Ahhhh, now I see why you don’t bother travelling outside the US. 
There is no need
But seriously, there are more to holidays than geography. I consider different cultures a big part, but that may just be me!
$85?! How in God’s name to you expect someone to travel from the US to the UK for $85?
If only it were a mere $85. Overseas travel is prohibitively expensive for most Americans.
Sorry. Good point. I was talking about the passport costs.
Yeah. I suppose it can be pretty expensive. I have been to Europe and was looking to going to New York, the flights were pretty reasonable (BA about £200) but the hotel bills would have been HUGE!!! And being a student, it wasn’t going to happen. 
maybe in the future when I have a job
It may be. An awfully large percentage of the Brits I know take package holidays every year to identikit beaches where everybody they meet is also British (or Irish) and they don’t even experience the local culture, except MAYBE in the airport.
That might technically be “going abroad”, but it doesn’t really count IMHO.
You can find other cultures in the US, if you bother to look for them. Regardless of what our TV and movies may portray us as, there are often more differences than similarities among Americans.
Some families use travel as a teaching opportunity as well, to show their children how this country developed. My family never had a lot of money, but my parents took us around the state and we learned a lot about state history in the process. (I stunned a teacher in my grade school by knowing that the Peshtigo Fire happened on the same day as the Chicago Fire, and that it was actually worse in some respects, but was overshadowed.)
Travel outside the US can get expensive, especially when you add in the cost of overseas airfare. Consider that most US states are the size of - or larger than - most European countries and you can understand the situation with travel. Add to that the talk about how Americans are not really welcomed in other countries (which I’m sure is overstated and mostly aimed at our government, but some folks believe it wholeheartedly), and that’s even less of a reason to leave the country and immediately-surrounding area.
Here is an additional perspective on why many Americans only travel within the United States.
The distance between San Francisco, on the west coast of the US, and New York, on the east coast, is roughly 2,500 miles.
This is roughly how far Madrid is from Kiev.
This is also roughly how far London is from St. Petersburg.
The United States is a very big country. That is also why a lot of Americans only speak English. Look at how many countries and languages you’d pass through to travel from Madrid to Kiev. Imagine that was all one country, one language.
Also, there’s the fact that most Americans get two weeks or less holiday per year, and often have to spend it travelling to visit their families in other parts of the US.