Why Americans Don’t Travel.
Jul 5, 2012 admin 6 20 Views
I’ve always considered us *lucky*. We’re Americans who travel abroad.
This seems to be a big deal.
I can tell you for sure, out of our group of friends, we’re the only ones who travel travel. Then when we meet other Americans who travel we’re like “OH MY GOD, you do it too, how do you do it? How do you manage?”
Traveling is not easy, for anyone. It takes cash and it takes time. How much of each is up to the traveler, but there’s no way to do it without either one of those things. For us, it’s mostly a time issue, John has a regular 9-5, but he demanded three weeks vacation. Even this was not easy to get. He takes no vacation days during the year, saves up every single day and then we take it all at once. That’s hard enough and I know for most of us, it’s not a logical option.
I’ve read a few articles about why Americans don’t travel. This article on CNN says:
The United States’ own rich cultural and geographic diversity, an American skepticism and/or ignorance about international destinations, a work culture that prevents Americans from taking long vacations abroad and the prohibitive cost and logistics of going overseas.
There’s this thoughtful article from Nomadic Matt, who also says it’s culture, fear and geography.
I agree with a lot of these, certainly America is pretty sweet and we have all kinds of things to see, from pretty, sandy beaches to rocky shores, to mountains to deserts.
Fear is certainly an issue. I get terrified every time we travel (but that’s part of the rush see). We may hear India is “dirty” and “dangerous.” But that’s not why we don’t go there.We’re smart enough to see through stereotypical fears.
These are symptoms. There is only one reason why we don’t travel, one: Our job culture doesn’t allow it. The Matrix cannot handle it when it’s citizens leave the country.
We get two weeks tops, most of us. Do you really think we’re going to load up our backpacks, spend 1-3 days on 24 hour flights to Delhi, then get 9 days in a foreign country where we don’t know the language, the culture? That we’re going to sweat our asses off after working ALL YEAR to save up two weeks, to work hard to see the world?
No, of course not. We’re going to go to the beach and have people wait on us and drink fru-fru drinks because we’re exhausted because we spent the past 340 days working like a dog.
Not only is it the limited vacation time, but our work ethic in the jobs we do have. I own my own business. I’m leaving it for three weeks in October. High season, good time to be working. I can manage the days off because travel is a priority for me, if you’re an actor, or an artist or a finance manager, three weeks off seems counter-productive to achieving the goal of the American Dream.
It will never come up in common, everyday American conversation to discuss leaving for months at a time. Only college students and people who work their butt off to make it happen get that kind of time. It’s unheard of to travel for three months. The majority of us don’t even let that thought enter our heads. It’s impossible. Why even try?
Yet all those reasons we don’t travel, from the US Geography to fear to ignorance, would all be solved, magically, if we had up to six weeks vacation. Americans would travel MORE, we would be LESS afraid of what we didn’t understand, we would cultivate curiosity, see the bigger picture. We wouldn’t be seen as ignorant and loud because we would have the chance to learn, to see, to feel it…feel it all.
Americans don’t travel because Americans don’t have the time to travel. I believe all other things are symptoms.
What do you think? Why don’t you travel? Why do you? What can we do about it?
JeffI
Posted on Friday 6th July, 2012, 6:11pm
I can tell you why I don’t travel. I don’t get much vacation and the time I do get must be pre-aproved before I can take. It is very, very difficult to get 5 days off in a row let along enough to make travel outside the country worth it. But I guess the main reason I don’t travel is I don’t want too. I get little enough time off as it is and I don’t want to spend half of my vaction in a car, bus, plain, or train. Plus it’s very expensive to travel. Look at the price of gas. And lastly I spend most of my vaction time taking care of stuff I can’t do when I am working. Fixing things around the house, cleaning up from storm damage, and finishing all those projects that you can’t do because you don’t have enough time after work.
admin
Posted on Tuesday 10th July, 2012, 10:46am
Jeff, totally. I absolutely agree with you. Who’s going to take their precious 5 days off, if you can even get that, and use it to travel far away? It’s not possible!
And you’re right on that too, when we do actually get vacation time, we use it to take care of everything we never have time for. I think it’s a vicious cycle.
Ari
Posted on Sunday 19th August, 2012, 10:52pm
This is the problem with travel as an industry. Travel is rarely talked about for any other reason than consumerism. All costs sky rocket and become luxuries for the wealthy whites of America.
In order for the Empire to meet it’s goals, Americans cannot all be spending time travelling. It’s a rather culturally discouraged activity for this reason. When travelling is encouraged it’s purely as a business. You get your hand held by travel companies and avoid any part of the real world. Just visit the pretty buildings you saw in the pictures and move on.
I travel because I don’t have a routine job. I don’t have cash. I have nothing but time. It’s just what happens when you live off the kindness or ignorance of others.
admin
Posted on Wednesday 22nd August, 2012, 8:51am
Ha Ari, this maybe one of my favorite responses ever. It’s true though right, if we were all traveling and understanding other cultures and stopped being afraid of the “other,” then what would happen?
My guess is, we’d spark creativity, more business, more money and everything would probably run more smoothly and peacefully.
So…that’s not going to happen.
Christy Russ
Posted on Friday 19th October, 2012, 10:05pm
I think it’s a many fold issue, though the symptoms you listed are definitely at the crux of the issue. I was able to travel after college, after the Peace Corps, and during summers as a teacher UNTIL I bought a house. Then all of a sudden I was cash poor but “house rich.” Ha. Ok, so it was bad timing and who knew that I would buy a house right before the whole market collapsed? But even if it hadn’t, I could no longer afford those trips, tho I had the tiime. I think any big life change in our country affects that, it could have been getting married or having a child that prevented it. But basically, I agree with your main premise. it’s our culture that doesn’t expect it, respect it, or value it therefore we as a people don’t demand it.
Being ignorant Americans is defintely a negative downward spiral too. We are afraid, so we don’t travel, so we don’t learn, so we keep our sterotypes, so we’re afraid, so we don’t travel…But try telling the business community or our gov’t that more vacation time for us all would actually make their employees happier, healthier and therefore more prodeuctuve and effective at work.
I think it would make us a much wiser, competetive country if more of us traveled regularly. Go Team Hixx!
admin
Posted on Sunday 21st October, 2012, 2:12pm
Christy!
Thank goodness you were out there to get me traveling, otherwise, I may never have known.
And it’s so surprising once you get out there to see how many people are doing it, because in America, you just assume since we’re not doing it, no one is.