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It's culturally diverse if you want. There are still many Americans who are stuck on burgers and fries, meat and potatoes and fast foods and chain restaurants. Not me, but many Americans have not eaten more than two or three of the cuisines you mention - and have no desire to do so.
Of course, but this doesn't support the singling out of Americans as not being adventurous eaters. There are people in China who only want to eat noodles/rice/dumplings, there existence doesn't mean we would say Chinese are not adventurous eaters.
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Originally Posted by sheena12
Just because the restaurants exist, doesn't mean they have any desire to eat there.
Restaurants don't exist unless enough people have the desire to eat there.
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Originally Posted by sheena12
I live in a smaller city, about 45 minutes away from Cleveland. It isn't rural. Out of the cuisines you listed, we don't have anything very exotic here - Mexican, Italian, Thia, Japanese, Greek, Lebanese, and Korean in my are available in my city.
That's my point. Pick a smaller city in Brazil, Korea, Nigeria, or Sweden. Do you think they'd have all those types of cuisine that you as an American in a small city have available?
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Originally Posted by sheena12
If you can't live with out a cheeseburger and Bud or Coors are the only beers you drink, the allure of other cultures is lessened.
So what is the impact of this on Americans traveling overseas? Like what percentage of Americans choose not to travel because they can't live without a cheeseburger (which you can get anywhere in the world) or a specific brand of beer? I'm not doubting most of what you're saying, just questioning the implication that American eating preferences has any significant impact (compared to other reasons given in this thread) on whether they travel internationally.
A lot of people live outside major cities. A lot are even multiple hours away from a regional airport with flights to those cities so going overseas means a lot of difficulty for people who probably have families. That’s why the common places many aspire to go to are Hawaii (if near the West Coast), Mexico and the Caribbean. Anything else is a too far given the time off they have. Europe is the easiest option for the big trip. Being in NYC many places are accessible but 8 hours was really the maximum I’d want to fly in economy. Since I discovered business class and will not go back it opens a whole lot of possibilities. 13-14 hours to Japan doesn’t seem like a problem anymore with a bed but in economy it was a no go and only stopping for a day or two in California or Vancouver was an option. Most could afford to go comfortably like this but when you add in multiple people no.
The U.S. is huge by comparison to most countries so many don’t feel the need to explore other parts of the world so far away when there are a lot of different regions within. NZ is isolated so internstional travel becomes standard and in Europe there is North Africa and places like Jordan and Dubai accessible on a short holiday.
Compared to Aussies (Australians), Kiwis (New Zealanders), Canucks (Canadians), Brits, Irish, Continental Europeans and potentially others too, it seems to me that so few Americans (Yanks) visit other countries in the world, I read on some website that only a 1/3s of Americans have passports which is 35% of Americans which leads me to believe from that statistic that 2/3s of Americans don't (65%) and hence as a result never have been abroad.
PS. Don't mean to disrespect y'all.
And that doesn't count many Americans who have passports but no intention of ever leaving the country. Because passports are acceptable ID, many State drivers licenses soon won't be.
And that doesn't count many Americans who have passports but no intention of ever leaving the country. Because passports are acceptable ID, many State drivers licenses soon won't be.
Has there been a sharp uptick in passport applications since the Real ID Act? I have a valid passport which I got for the purpose of travel, but if I didn't, I would go to the DMV for a Real-ID-compliant driver's license or ID card before I'd go to the trouble and expense of getting a passport.
Has there been a sharp uptick in passport applications since the Real ID Act? I have a valid passport which I got for the purpose of travel, but if I didn't, I would go to the DMV for a Real-ID-compliant driver's license or ID card before I'd go to the trouble and expense of getting a passport.
There has been an increase. It's hard to figure how much is due to the Real ID law. Many States are just now compliant. A few years back, many domestic flyers just didn't want to wait, perhaps figuring there would only be a short window between their State being compliant and the law being enforced, and they could be out of town then.
So approximately 300 million people are within reasonable distance to air travel.
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