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It's a lot closer for Asians and even some most to get to Australia, which is probably one of the reasons you see more of them.
Yet I find there are more Canadians than Americans on holidays in Australia. Americans do not see travelling to places such as Australia and even New Zealand as well as Asia as a high priority to travel to. Yet there are exceptions of course but they are only a minority of travellers.
Yet I find Americans that tour Australia and New Zealand are very impressed about those countries and one of the best things they find about those countries is the friendliness of the people that live there.
I think Americans do travel abroad but not as often to Asia and The So Pacific. We have so much to see within our own continent, and the cost, particularly of airfare anymore is making it more difficult to justify the long flights. Many of us when we think of traveling across the pond, for instance think of cruising, when we get to Europe, you can see so many more places, even though you don't get the whole feeling of the country, you get something.
It's a lot closer for Asians and even some most to get to Australia, which is probably one of the reasons you see more of them.
Indeed.
The scale of distance is something that is only appreciated by travellers. It's difficult to get purely from maps.
For the sake of reference/comparison:
Singapore to Sydney is 7 hours.
Hong Kong to Brisbane is 9. (From Guangzhou is basically the same)
Shanghai-Sydney should be around 10-11 hours
Bangkok to Brisbane is 8'ish.
Hong Kong to Singapore is 3.5 hours.
Hong Kong - Bangkok is under 3
NYC-LA is 5-6.
LA to Sydney is 12
NY-Australia is 23 hrs+ factoring in connections.
New York to London is 6 going and 7-8 returning (tail/head winds)
London to Frankfurt, Germany is roughly 75-90 minutes.
Notably, fares between China and Australia tend to be more competitive than west coast US to Australia, despite the similar travel times. Round trip prices from Brisbane, Sydney, and Melbourne to China can be had for just under $900-1400. Ticket prices between LA and Australia, barring some discount, begin at $1,500 and proceed from there. I had contemplated a trip home around Christmastime, but ticket prices with the Christmas premium were approaching $3,000 for economy.
Yet I find there are more Canadians than Americans on holidays in Australia. Americans do not see travelling to places such as Australia and even New Zealand as well as Asia as a high priority to travel to. Yet there are exceptions of course but they are only a minority of travellers.
Yet I find Americans that tour Australia and New Zealand are very impressed about those countries and one of the best things they find about those countries is the friendliness of the people that live there.
We plan on visiting within the next five years or so and can't wait!
I've been pricing tickets from my local airport to western/central Europe lately, and save for like going into Dublin on odd Tuesdays in February, it's almost impossible to find a sub-$1K ticket from here to there anymore.
America is very big and pretty diversified and does not necessarily force anybody to go to other countries for the sake of sight seeing. States such as California and surroundings offers almost everything in terms of terrains, weather and sights. Probably that explains only 30% of the population having passports and only about 30 Million traveled abroad last year (other than Mexico and Canada).
Those who do travel outside are mostly the cultural tourists and business/official trips, which are much lesser in numbers than the general backpackers or family travelers which we see all across the country.
Canadians traveling more can be attributed to the extreme weather conditions there with limited variability. Most European countries are much smaller and self contained with limited options.
This has got to be about the stupidest blog I've ever read in my life. What's more, I can't believe people actually buy his brand of baloney. I realize that Nomadic Matt is a shill for the travel industry, but let's get real. Sure, there are a very small percentage of Americans who wouldn't cross the border if their life depended on it, but the guy's contention that Americans are afraid to travel overseas is not just incredibly stupid, but also shows a lack of understanding for the working lives of most adults in this country. It borders on weird.
My guess? Nomadic Matt comes from a pampered childhood, one where parents funded every single whim he ever had. He also has no real obligations in his life other than cranking out a self-aggrandizing website. The true irony is that while he's lecturing us on our limited perspective, it's never occurred to this nitwit what kind of obstacles prevent the average American from enjoying his lifestyle. Funny, Matt, but most of us can't just quit our jobs and leave our kids at home while we seek self-actualization in the Andes.
The reason most Americans don't travel that much overseas isn't because they are a bunch of knuckle-dragging cultural know nothings, but rather for two simple reasons:
1) The average American gets 13 days of paid vacation every year. That's it. 13 days. The next lowest industrial country is Japan with 25. Meanwhile, most industrialized countries get six weeks.
So what do we do with those 13 days? Let's see. Plan on on burning at least a few of those vacation days attending family get-togethers such as Thanksgiving or Christmas or family weddings. Or you need to take a day off here or there to attend to personal business. Take one or two more vacation days to have a nice three-day weekend and you're down to one week of vacay. That's it.
Okay. So let's just say you have that one week of vacation and decide to hit Paris. By the time you travel from anywhere but a handful of cities with direct flights from the United States to Europe, you'll be looking at 11-13 hours of flying at a bare minimum, once changing planes is taken into consideration. Add two hours on the front end for checking in and another two hours on the back end clearing customs, and that means a full 15-17 hours of travel.
And if you aren't exhausted from your flight, you'll still be woozy from jet lag. I don't know about you, but the last time I was overseas was in New Zealand on business, I needed 2-3 days to reset my body clock. I've tried everything from the Jet Lag diet on. It's a real deal challenge, especially when you have a very limited amount of time abroad.
That means Days 1-3 of your European vacation is spent traveling and shaking off jet lag. Repeat that on the back end of your trip, and that gives you perhaps 4-5 actual days of enjoying the Louvre, eating baguettes, and whatever.
2) The expense. The aforementioned flight to Paris costs roughly 3x what a similar flight to a Caribbean island will, without paying the huge penalty in jet lag. Just the airfare alone for my family of five to go to Europe would completely pay for a rather lavish vacation here in the western hemisphere, before I pay for the first taxi ride or croissant.
Don't get me wrong. I'll make it Europe with my wife. But only when we have the time and the moola to really enjoy it. Right now, with professional obligations, my children's school, etc., crowding our schedule, I just don't have the scratch or the time to make it happen. And that's true for the large majority of Americans.
NOTE: Sorry. I just realized this was a Lazarus thread and that I had actually made these same arguments several pages back. Evidently, it still ticks me off.
There was a similar thread recently, so apparently there is still some interest in this topic
I think of the lack of vacation time-a dictate of the Powers of Be-as the first bottleneck.
The second bottleneck? A bad economy. I understand that the USA has an image of being rich. Could that be due to the period of postwar (post World War II) prosperity? That prosperity peaked decades ago. I would say that the slide began with the OPEC oil embargo.
I think Americans do travel abroad but not as often to Asia and The So Pacific. We have so much to see within our own continent, and the cost, particularly of airfare anymore is making it more difficult to justify the long flights. Many of us when we think of traveling across the pond, for instance think of cruising, when we get to Europe, you can see so many more places, even though you don't get the whole feeling of the country, you get something.
Only in terms of nature. What if one is interested in seeing some human civilization that is more than 400 years old? After looking at a number of beaches and national parks, don't you start to find they are all similar and want something different?
More difficult to justify the long flights? Many don't see to have trouble buy expensive electronic gadgets, fancy kitchen appliance and over sized houses they don't necessarily need.
Plus, the world is much much bigger than the US + west Europe when the ancestor come from.
America is very big and pretty diversified and does not necessarily force anybody to go to other countries for the sake of sight seeing. States such as California and surroundings offers almost everything in terms of terrains, weather and sights. Probably that explains only 30% of the population having passports and only about 30 Million traveled abroad last year (other than Mexico and Canada).
Those who do travel outside are mostly the cultural tourists and business/official trips, which are much lesser in numbers than the general backpackers or family travelers which we see all across the country.
Canadians traveling more can be attributed to the extreme weather conditions there with limited variability. Most European countries are much smaller and self contained with limited options.
After visiting about 5 cities, 7 national parks, they all become repetitive.
Don't pretend it is because America has so much to see, the reason is simple:
1) Many Americans simply don't have the money for international travel (not that they are poor, but because they don't save).
2) they don't know much about the outside world assuming it is all backward (at least not as advanced as the US) and not really worth checking out. Many simply don't have the curiosity.
3) they are afraid of places where English is not spoken and going out of the different country is out of their "comfort zone" -" why are there so many Spanish speaking people in Spain??" "Why do the French give me a blank look when I talk to them (in English)"?
4) they don't have enough vacation days (lowest among rich countries)
After visiting about 5 cities, 7 national parks, they all become repetitive.
Don't pretend it is because America has so much to see, the reason is simple:
1) Many Americans simply don't have the money for international travel (not that they are poor, but because they don't save).
2) they don't know much about the outside world assuming it is all backward (at least not as advanced as the US) and not really worth checking out. Many simply don't have the curiosity.
3) they are afraid of places where English is not spoken and going out of the different country is out of their "comfort zone" -" why are there so many Spanish speaking people in Spain??" "Why do the French give me a blank look when I talk to them (in English)"?
4) they don't have enough vacation days (lowest among rich countries)
1. I think you make a lot of assumptions.
2. To an extent, yes. (I had a friend ask if she should pack TP fr her upcoming trip to Rome. )
3. THIS. The provincial mindset is the biggest challenge. I will freely admit that a trip to the UK is easier to plan, simply because there is no language barrier. But I have never let a foreign language challenge me to the point that I won't travel somewhere.
4. To an extent, although I think that the majority of Americans who can afford to travel to Europe work in jobs where they get a minimum of two weeks a year.
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review and elaboration
