I can understand if you live in some little armpit country in Europe, but the US goes from coast-to-coast across an entire continent. You can travel all over here to almost any climate and there are so many things to see that it’s easy enough not to really feel a need to go to other countries.
Then what’s left within driving distance is Canada and Mexico, otherwise known as Diet-US or Cartel land. Meaning that if you want to go anywhere meaningful out of the US you’d need to fly, and that’s just not in the budget for most families at this point in time.
Uh, yeah, we have a great country. Lots to enjoy.
No reason that should mean, "...so never bother with anywhere else."
Domestic flights are not cheap, either. And there are plenty of places in the world and ways to travel that are much cheaper than the US. And vistas and activities (and you know, art and culture and food) that are not unlike what's in the US.
I don't know, I get that people like different things and have different comfort levels (and budgets and priorities), but to write it off completely? To have zero interest or curiosity? OK.
tbh the united states is so huge, there isn't much you're missing out on by staying there. humid swamps in florida, arid desert in nevada, snow and ice in alaska, there's pretty much everything except maybe tropical rainforest.
also most 'traveling abroad' usually just means people being lazy gluttons in all-inclusive tourist resorts, which are the same no matter where you go. i've been to them in five different countries (italy spain turkey tunisia greece) and they are completely interchangable, only difference you notice as a guest there is the language the hotel employees speak among themselves. for the vast majority of people 'traveling makes you cultured' is just nonsense.
100%. I was peer-pressured into one of those for a kid's senior spring break trip, with a group of kids, most parents, and some siblings. It was obscenely expensive, and while having ceviche and wine brought to me every afternoon by a lovely pool and watching whales frolic in the sea beyond was nice, it was not anything I couldn't have done in a million other places, it hurt to pay for, and I will never do that again.
For
the less money than for that week, I've spent 10-14 day independent travel trips that combined hiking to one of the seven wonders of the world, with several days in a no electricity research ecolodge in the jungle 8 hours from everywhere and watching macaws lick salt off cliffs at dawn. Or combined going to and around Cape Horn, a working dude ranch, and a high-end stay in the enormous, beautiful capital city. Those were not cheap trips, but they were memorable, and they truly enriched my life. ...So has going to Yosemite many times, visiting Gettysburg, mountain biking in Crested Butte, having an entire pristine beach on St. John to myself (bc I travel in shoulder/early off-seasons), going to Spoleto in Charleston, and hiking in the Smokey Mountains in peak leaf season.
One's (domestic/intl travel) not better than the other, but they're also not interchangeable, which is the point I was getting at about passports and how much there is in the world, both within and beyond our borders.
Or, be like Russ and live in the desert and focus on hookers and unattainable thots. Same diff
