SnoopyFan,I agree with that, I was alluding to this comment (not so effectively I might add):
Bolding above is mine.
Anyway, my point is that a lot of the people that use cost and time as a reason not to travel out of the US, are the same people who go to Disney with the family every year.
I am not saying that Disney is priced for everyone, but my point was supposed to be that Disney, or a Cruise, or Ski Vacation, or whatever, in the US is pretty comparable to a European Vaction.
Slu? Uh… cite? Everyone I know would jump at the opportunity to travel abroad regularly. No one I know can afford it. I have been to Europe twice. I loved it and am looking forward to going again. But it won’t be anytime soon, because it’s expensive.
Time off? My husband gets 2 weeks off per year, and generally speaking he can’t take it all off at once. Usually it’s 3 or 4 days in a row TOPS. Going to Orlando? Not very often. We recently did go down to Florida (to visit my dad and his family–we didn’t actually leave their house except one time to go to the grocery store… it wasn’t a touristy vacation) over a weekend and he took off a Friday and Monday. It was tricky to plan. Oh, that’s a 900 mile trip, by the way. In addition, the nature of his job is that quite often, they don’t know if they will need him urgently at any given time–he has had to cancel more than one vacation because they just said, at the last minute, “sorry! You can’t go.” So if we want to make sure we get to go, we don’t set final plans until as close as possible to the time we’re leaving. That’s the reason it was so expensive last time!
It is also generally a really long way to go to get “abroad” from here. In the UK you can get a train or even just drive and be in Italy or Spain or Switzerland or wherever.
I just used a piece of string on my globe to determine the following:
I’m going “back home” to visit my mom over Christmas* (she has oodles of frequent flyer miles and gets free tickets all the time. Yay mom!) in Tucson. It’s far away from here.
From London, I could travel the same distance and be:
Anywhere in Iceland
Halfway across Greenland
Anywhere in Norway, Sweden, or Finland
Anywhere in Ireland, France, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Belguim, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Belarius, Ukrain, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Switzerland, Italy, Greece, Bosnia, Albania, Bulgaria, or any other small European country I have missed.
Russia, as far as 500km East of Moscow
The Western shores of Georgia
Most of Turkey
Half of Cyprus
Most of Morocco, Algeria, and Libya
All of Tunisia
Half of Mauritania, parts of Mali, the uppermost edge of Niger and possibly even Chad.
Alexandria, Egypt
Numerous islands including the Canary Islands, Madeira Islands, Azores
Virtually the entire Mediterranean Sea
…it’s a long way. A lot of those destinations would probably be considered “quite a long trip” to most people in London. But even then, they could take a train to most of them.
…and that’s the distance I have to go just to visit my mom in my own country.
I guess my point is that I think that a lot of non-Americans (especially in places like Europe where things are close together) don’t always totally realize the scale involved… both for what is available here in the US to see, and how far it is to go to leave the US for overseas destinations. I think it’s even moreso in Australia where you have to go overseas to leave the country at all! (What percentage of Aussies have passports, out of curiosity?)
*in a rare streak of luck, his company owes him bigtime for jerking him around all summer and working him to a bloody, raw pulp, so they’re letting him take two weeks off all at once, some of which is technically above and beyond the vacation time he “has available”.
Holy crap! I didn’t even notice that! A WEEK!?!?!? I’ve gone to Disney World for a day before and it was expensive as hell. Do people (other than the extremely wealthy) do stuff like that for a week!??!!? I don’t know anyone who could afford that. Or who would do that with their money if they could (unless by “afford” it meant “won the lottery and could do any damned thing they wanted and still have more money”).
I can understand why people with small children would prefer to holiday in Disneyland, rather than going to places (foreign or otherwise) where the parents would have to figure out how to keep their kids amused for a week or longer away from their friends, toys etc.
no, that isn’t what people are saying.
no, that isn’t what people are saying either.
They are saying that most people do their travel within the US because within the US there is still a lot of interesting travel to do, and it’s a lot more accessable (financially and other). No one that I have seen has said there is “no need to” see stuff outside the US, they’re just saying that there are plenty of opportunities within the US and for various reasons (money being probably the largest) a lot of Americans choose those options first. Again, NO ONE–NOT A FRICKEN ONE THAT I HAVE SEEN–has said that there is ‘no need’ to see anything outside the US or that our diversity is so vast that it dwarfs the rest of the planet.
Which brings me to the last part you quoted, which is such about the stupidest thing I’ve ever read and makes it abundantly clear that you have no idea what you are talking about. Accent? There are plenty of places in the US where the majority of the folk living there don’t speak English. Different way of serving hot dogs? Are you high? Do you know everything you know about the US from watching Frasier or something?
Please visit the Amish in PA, then go to South Tucson and spend a week in the hispanic community, then spend some time in the UP of Michigan with the Finnish population, then go hang out in the deep south for a while. Take a weekend to see New Orleans and another to visit Salt Lake City. Come back and let me know how bland it was to experience the same thing over and over with just those novel new ways of cooking hot dogs to entertain you. :rolleyes:
ruadh says: The only reason I can imagine this being a problem is Americans not knowing the meaning of the word “ensuite”.
Not sure what you mean there… The day we arrived in London we went to Slough and stayed in a sort of inn there. The rooms were about 5 to a building in several little outbuildings. Each building had a bathroom. It wasn’t even on the same floor as our room. It wasn’t “ensuite” and it was pretty freaky. The rest of the trip we stayed at bed & breakfasts, but that first night we were too tired to find one.
We did rent a car when we were there, because our vacation was basically wandering all over England, Scotland, and Ireland never knowing where we’d end up the next day. We’d pick a destination in the morning, find a B&B in our little B&B guide, call ahead, then make our way there by the back roads, seeing what there was to see on the way. When we went to Ireland, however, we returned our rental car back by the airport and took a train to Wales to catch the ferry across. Then we rented another car. Speaking of renting cars… it was a lot easier to get used to shifting with the left hand than I’d expected.
I know that overseas travel can be done cheaper–a lot of it, as I said before, relies on planning ahead. Next time we go I’m hoping we can do that. Last time it wasn’t an option, and since it was the summer of our 10th wedding anniversary we really wanted to do it THAT SUMMER so we just sucked it up.
Cheaper or not, however… it’s still out of the reach of a lot of Americans. Most of my friends have a hard time deciding if they can afford to take off Friday and Monday and have a four day weekend to sit around their house, let alone flying overseas. $1000/ticket or $200/ticket isn’t really the issue when you’re making $6/hour and need your whole paycheck to cover your bills.
I mean that if you know what “ensuite” means you’ll know to select a hotel room so described. If that matters to you.
OpalCat:
Ok, from expedia.com. Travel for 2 adults and 2 kids (Air and Hotel only) on March 7 to March 14, 2003 from any Chicago airport (picked it because it is kind of in the center of the country) to:
Miami: $1,464.27
Orlando: $1,271.02 (at a Super 8, w/no Disney)
Orlando Disney Resort: $3224.40
Breckenridge: $2,454.90 (w/out ski passes)
Rome: $2,981.32
Paris: $2,517.88 (there was one for $2,226.88, but it was at the Comfort Inn near DeGaulle Apt, which is not really close to Paris proper)
These were the cheapest ones for each destination. My point is that if you can afford one of the popular US family destinations, you can probably afford the European ones too.
As for your specific situation, I empathize with you. I used to have a job where my vactions would get cancelled at the last minute and I was always on call, so I know what that is like. That is one of the reasons I quit that job.
Your string trick does prove a point. Now take the same length of string and run in from where you live in VA across the Atlantic. My guess is that it is a pretty comparable distance from where you live to Tucson to Spain/France/UK.
Um, there’s a pretty big difference between $1,271.02 and $2,517.88.
ruadh: yeah, if you want to go all the way to Orlando with the kids, and hang by the pool (since the price did not include a car, which you need in Orlando, but do not in Paris) at the Super 8 rather than go to Disney, there is.
Nope. String goes barely halfway across the ocean.
I agree that if you can afford one of those expensive destinations, it doesn’t matter if it is in the US or abroad… but most of us can’t afford any of them.
The majority (like 99%) of my travel involves driving around the US to visit relatives. No hotel costs, no real food costs, etc. My annual New Hampshire vacation is the same way–family owned property so the whole cost of the vacation is gas and groceries. When I do fly, it’s usually because I got free tickets from my mom, who racks up frequent flier miles because of all of her business travel. I think that it’s pretty common for people in the US to travel primarily to visit family or friends, and not to travel to expensive vacation destinations.
(On rereading some of my posts here–which have posted all out of order because I keep losing track of all of my browser windows–I sound really cranky today. I apologize if I’ve come across as being really crabby. I’m not feeling that way, I swear. I am just coming across particularly poorly today for some reason.)
More. Same details as above:
Cozumel: $2,331.86
Hawaii: $3,801.41
Lake Tahoe: $2,916.48
Jamaica: $2,308.91
Boston: $1,639.69
I don’t think you’re being cranky.
I also think you are right that the majority of the people travel great distance to see family and friends and that is the most economical way to do it.
I am not trying to come across as some pretenious traveller who thinks that everyone should summer in France.
Again, my whole point is that unless you have family/friends there, vactions are expensive no matter what side of the pond they are on.
Ah… see I didn’t get that that was your point. From here it seemed that your point was more that people were using cost as a lame excuse not to travel abroad.
That really depends on which Disney vacation, or ski vacation or cruise , etc you’re talking about. Sure, I could spend as much on a ski vacation as a trip to Europe would cost. But I don’t. For one thing, if we go skiing, we stay two nights, maybe three. It’s worth it for me to go skiing trip for only a couple of days, because it’s only a 2-3 hour drive. I don’t think a trip to Europe for three nights would be worth it.
As far as Disney vacations- well, I cheated. I checked the Universal Studios Website ,since I wanted to get an idea of what that would cost anyway. I could leave on Monday, return on Sunday and pay $748.98 for a package for four including airfare , hotel, theme park admissions and transportation between the hotels and the park for the whole trip. I didn’t think I could travel to Europe nearly as cheaply, and checking on Expedia, the least expensive airfare and hotel package to London for six nights came to $2271 for four. And that doesn’t include the cost of anything I might do when I get there.
I’m sure this is part of it. My husband and I went to Italy with only the barest amount of practice and some phrase books, and managed to get around Rome just fine. We knew our grammar was horrible, and made a few mistakes but nothing major. Just about everyone we interacted with was very pleasant, and we didn’t resort to English until the person we talked to did. Other people that we’d traveled there with were paranoid about what to do from nearly the minute they stepped off the plane.
The perception of “other people don’t like Americans” is certainly wrong overall, but it is somewhat common here. Especially after the war started in Iraq, I heard even educated friends saying, “I’m not going to visit (insert European country name here) this year; you’ve seen all the protests on TV about America.”
I’m putting a lot of the weight on the vacation time issue, personally.
This is a bit diseigenuous. Most people fly to Denver, not Breck. I go every year for a week at the cost of $500, lodging and ski passes included, leaving from Iowa…Des Moines Specifically. That $500 wont get me to New York, let alone Europe.
Remember that more people do NOT live in a major US city with international destinations than do. Add those expenses to get to the “cheap” airports before you compare how cheap it is to fly.
You can’t fly to Breck. No airport. slu’s quote may have included a shuttle bus, rental car, limo ride, or a charter flight to Vail followed by bus/car/limo. Just goes to show how pointless these comparisons are if we’re just quoting prices.
Hey slu, sorry for misunderstanding what you were trying to say. My fault.
What’s this “time off” that everyone keeps talking about?
The “average” American may get 2 weeks of paid vacation time, but that does not mean it is the norm. And I don’t know anybody who DOES get that much vacation time that 1. hasn’t worked where they work for at least 2 years and 2. gets to choose when they take it and 3. is allowed to take the whole 2 weeks off in one big chunk.
While our economy is on the upswing now, a lot of American workers are glad just to have jobs. Employers know this and screw them over accordingly.
And then you have to take into consideration that lots of American families are spread out all over the place. (I live 400 miles from my mom’s side of the family and haven’t seen any of them in a year and a half.) Lots of Americans end up using their vacation time to go see their family: it’s either go see Grandma or run off to Europe. Most people are gonna pick Grandma.
You can’t have travelled much. Despite the worst efforts of our current goverment multiculturalism is alive and well here. We value cultural diversity, America assimilates it (generalisations, I know).
AndrewT: Um… Stop watching Frasier.