Passport

[Liniah]

It bothers me when Europeans are like 'And most Americans don't even have passports!', like that makes them superior or something. Sure, it's true that most Americans don't have passports and most Europeans do. What the Europeans don't think about when they make those kinds of statements is that within America there are deserts, tropical islands, mountains, beaches on two different oceans, etc. (And until recently no passport was required to enter Canada.) In Europe if people want to go skiing, they usually go to another country (Norway or Switzerland frequently). If people want to go to a warm, sunny island, they go to another country. I don't think they even have any deserts in Europe, do they? Not to mention it's way cheaper to get from one European country to another than it is to get from America to Europe. It really bugs me that many Europeans act superior over the fact that they have a passport and most Americans don't. Instead of pondering the reasons behind this fact, they just act smug.

[DV8]

While you are absolutely correct that it's usually an ignorant and smug statement, you have to keep in mind that culture from one end of the U.S. to the other doesn't differ as much as from one end of Europe to the other. This homogeny is usually what this smug a-holes trying to point out when they make a statement like that.

[Jestyr]

Australia is much like the US, in terms of the variety of environments to be found within its borders - everything from tropical rainforests to deserts to ski fields and everything in between. However, 60 percent of Australians hold passports whereas only approximately 20 percent of Americans do.

[jo_alex]

And you don't need a passport now to travel within EU, which encompasses most of the European countries at this point. And still we do reapply for new ones.

[jo_alex]

I don't think they even have any deserts in Europe, do they?

We actually do have one in Poland. It's small, but it counts.

[3278]

While you are absolutely correct that it's usually an ignorant and smug statement, you have to keep in mind that culture from one end of the U.S. to the other doesn't differ as much as from one end of Europe to the other.

I think the cultural homogeneity of the United States is over-estimated. Cultural divisions in Europe may be more obvious, but there is as large a range of cultures in the US as there are in Europe.

[3278]

It bothers me when Europeans are like 'And most Americans don't even have passports!', like that makes them superior or something.

I'm certainly not sure what makes people smug when they say that, as if "travel" is the pinnacle of civilization, as if all Americans are ignorant backwater hicks because they don't travel beyond the bounds of their enormous nation. Frankly, I have yet to have a European explain to me why their globetrotters are superior to our ignorant backwater hicks; I hung out with a "good ol' boy" for a while last night, and frankly, I found him superior in nearly every way to most any European I've encountered. Europe has no monopoly on this, of course; America's smug are just as guilty of the same mis-estimation of absolute human value.

[Jestyr]

One would have to agree that travel is, by itself, no guarantor of enlightenment, broad horizons, intelligence, civilisation, etc etc.

[MissTeja]

Many U.S. citizens simply are not raised to value frequent travel as something important to be had in one's life.

I know many people from back home who never traveled outside the state before their adulthood, if at all. For a person from Detroit, Michigan to travel to Winterset, Iowa then to Hollywood, California, and then Tavenier, Florida - finishing up in Barrow, Alaska - sure they may get away without having to change their language beyond dialect, but those places are going to be quite different from one another in many, many ways.

You pull one of those folks from Vestaburg, Michigan and stick them in the middle of Tokyo or Cairo for a day - while they may find some things kinda cool, they'll likely hate the experience and want nothing more than to be home. Not because of a lack of want to see the world, but because its simply scary to be overwhelmed by so much change when you've not been raised in an encouraging environment to seek out that experience.

There are many contributing factors to why people everyone choose to either travel or not to travel, but I also have experienced a significant amount of frustration when overseas by certain people who label the United States as one homogenous population, or moreso by those that criticize rural U.S. citizens, on an individualized basis, that is, for not being more world-aware. I mean, try to convince me the sky is red. Really. It's kinda like that.

However, I do think - particularly in Europe, that people are taught to hold travel and inter-cultural awareness as very important, leading many to seek such experiences far more often than U.S. citizens. (I hate the word "American" - what is that??). And that is, in my opinion, cool as hell. I want to raise my children with that outlook, to be aware of the world and to see it as often as the opportunity presents itself.

[Serious Paul]

Although I have traveled extensively, I have never had need of a pass port.

[DV8]

Although I have traveled extensively, I have never had need of a pass port.

Semper fi.

[MissTeja]

Ahh...yeah.

[Angel]

Although I have traveled extensively, I have never had need of a pass port.

Does Flint and East Detroit actually count as having travelled extensively?

[Serious Paul]

I don't know, I've never been to either.

[MissTeja]

Although I have traveled extensively, I have never had need of a pass port.

Does Flint and East Detroit actually count as having travelled extensively?

Flint, Michigan should qualify as its own frakkin' country. They can call it "Hell." Wait, no, that's Saginaw. They should just block off that whole section of east Michigan.

[jo_alex]

However, I do think - particularly in Europe, that people are taught to hold travel and inter-cultural awareness as very important, leading many to seek such experiences far more often than U.S. citizens.

Add western before Europe and you'll be closer on the mark. In Poland, for example, traveling is still not appreciated enough, IMHO. Sure, since we can travel (read since obtaining a passport stopped being a reward for spying on your neighbours) you may see more and more Polish people spending their holiday abroad but it's mostly just for show off. They visit usually these isolated all-inclusive resorts and don't leave them through the duration of their stay there. If they go somewhere more exotic, it's usually just to be able to brag about it to their colleagues later on and it seems as they hate every minute of such holidays, actually. E.g. in Laos last year I run into one group of Polish tourists and overheard one of them saying: "another small village? why are we here? they all look the same!". Wrong country to visit, man!

[Jeff Hauze]

While you are absolutely correct that it's usually an ignorant and smug statement, you have to keep in mind that culture from one end of the U.S. to the other doesn't differ as much as from one end of Europe to the other. This homogeny is usually what this smug a-holes trying to point out when they make a statement like that.

Yeah, I couldn't possibly disagree with you more Deev. For the exact same reasons that a whole shitloads of American don't know geography or cultural differences in Europe to save their life, a whole shitload of Europeans don't seem to understand some of the rather huge cultural differences between regions in this country (and in some scary cases, regions within a state). Then again, that should be somewhat expected when I live in a country that has a number of states bigger than a few European countries combined. (Silly Texas.)

I think one of my funniest encounters with this was at GenCon last year. One of the folks from the Totaltech MegaMek server (a German fellow) commented that Indianapolis really didn't seem at all different from Atlanta, New York, or Los Angeles. It took me a good five minutes to stop laughing. The hotel and few major sights a tourist might see in a major city (whether a furriner here in the States or a hick abroad in Euroland) do not a culture make.

Now granted, the above statement doesn't apply to the large majority of the travelers on this board. But then again, find ten Bulldrekkers that generally fit the mold of the "average" traveller, and you can have my next paycheck.

[UncleJoseph]

I have a theory about the low rate of people from the U.S. not having passports. Unless you live in a coastal city, you have to travel very, very far to get to a different country. Heck, even if you live in a coastal city, you still have a long way to travel before you need a passport. Travel is expensive, and the distances we have to go to experience different cultures are vast. Plus, "Americans" are very geo-centric. There is so much to see and do in this country (and sub-cultures here vary greatly) that many people don't feel the need to travel outside of it. In addition, most "Americans" I know will not go to a country where English is not the spoken language (out of fear primarily)...indeed many of them won't even watch a subtitled movie. And like Teja said, our culture does not value international travel nearly as much as some other cultures.

[Reika]

I'd love to be able to travel internationally, but I just can't afford it. Have to agree with Jeff and some of the others, having traveled around the US there really are a variety of sub-cultures that are very different from one another.

Moving from NY to FL involved a good bit of culture shock on my part. There really is a difference in how things are done both personally and businesswise between the two areas. And some areas of Georgia when I was called a "damn yankee" they meant it and not in a good way.

[Jestyr]

Also, travel out of the US is ridiculously expensive compared with travel into the US. I don't know what the rates are like right now, but it always used to be the case that a LA->Brisbane return ticket cost literally twice as much as a Brisbane->LA return ticket. Insane.

[Marius]

Eh. It's expensive, but let's not go overboard. Nominally, it will cost me the same to fly to LA as to Amsterdam. Of course, then there's the European taxes on air travel. But those are only, what, like 80-120% of the ticket price. So almost nothing.

Anyway, the thing Americans tend to forget about traveling is that outside of Europe, your airfare is the bulk of your cost. I just finished a week in Singapore (airfare $1060 - bloody train ticket within the states ran me an additional $90. Fucking stupid trains), which is an expensive city, and I had a decent hotel room for $50 a night.