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Americans fear solo travel

Americans fear solo travel

Old Sep 14, 2017, 3:38 am
  #46  
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Re: OP. Well, I definitely buck the trend. Though the whole point about the workaholic culture is a good one, and if you look over the long view you see people giving up more and more personal time for....what? More "stuff" that doesn't get used and more money going to the 1%.

You've also got the bad foreign-language proficiency and the "gap year" not being the done thing, especially for kids from families who can't afford that sort of thing. When few or none of your friends are doing it, it tends to drop from the radar screen and start a lifetime of not-so-challenging things like Cancun being exotic and looking for the Jimmy Buffett Margaritaville there (or some similar corporate spot).

The first trips can be intimidating...like jumping off the waterfall in that scene in "The Beach." I did my first Europe trip with two friends and first Asia trip with a tour, but slowly built up confidence after that.
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Old Sep 14, 2017, 3:57 am
  #47  
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Originally Posted by k374
Talking to various people I find that Americans have a gripping fear of travel alone.. why? I notice most solo travelers abroad are mostly non American.
Couldn't we just generalise even more to say that Americans have a fear of travelling?

HuffPost: The Great American Passport Myth: Why Just 3.5% Of Us Travel Overseas!
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Old Sep 14, 2017, 4:16 am
  #48  
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Originally Posted by whimike
How are you noticing this, are they not wearing an American flag shirt?!
Most solo travelers abroad aren't American. But that shouldn't be a surprise, flag shirt or not.

No single country's citizens constitute most solo travelers abroad.
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Old Sep 14, 2017, 4:20 am
  #49  
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Originally Posted by wolf72
Not really. Mostly american's travel in groups. Or pairs. Rarely solo.
Except for business travel and leisure travel to an international destination where friends/relatives live, most other international air travel seems to involve people traveling as a group of 2 or more persons. It's far from being a uniquely American dynamic.

Originally Posted by wolf72
When they open their mouth's to talk?

It's not difficult.

Esp. when they are travelling in groups or pairs.
It's not so easy for even most Americans to tell who is a Canadian by briefly listening in on the spoken words of Canadians.
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Old Sep 14, 2017, 4:31 am
  #50  
 
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FWIW, I have had some coworkers who cringe when I mention that I'm going to Europe by myself. Some fear terrorism, some fear general anti-American behavior, varying levels of crime, and others think that the film Hostel is real.

Despite the fears of others, I suspect that for most, it's either family responsibilities, a lack of money, or little to no paid vacation time that hobbles their ability to travel.
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Old Sep 14, 2017, 4:53 am
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Originally Posted by k374
Not 323 million, as only 30% of Americans even have a passport so at least not internationally LOL!
You are off by 15-17%
The percentage of Americans who have a valid passport, according to the most recent statistics as tabulated by the State Department, is about 46%.
http://www.theexpeditioner.com/2010/...-a-passport-2/


Originally Posted by wolf72
and you can spot them a mile away because they are generally very very loud.

You have not seen ozzies in Kuta and Phuket....
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Old Sep 14, 2017, 5:01 am
  #52  
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Originally Posted by 84fiero
Wow, how did you manage to meet all ~323 million Americans?



I've never understood people who think their very, very limited personal experience can be extrapolated to hundreds of millions of people. It's a rather ignorant way of perceiving the world.
Their world revolves around them, and their experience is the ground truth and the only one that matters.

I travel alone more than I travel with others. I guess I'm not an American.

Oh, and I'm leaving on a TATL trip next week - alone. A trip to South America two weeks after that - alone. Another TATL 3 weeks after that one. Alone.
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Old Sep 14, 2017, 5:02 am
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Originally Posted by PilgrimsProgress
Human beings are social creatures...
Wow - that's even more of a generalization than what we started with
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Old Sep 14, 2017, 5:15 am
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Originally Posted by mdkowals
If you're talking about foreign travel I think the following end up hurting Americans.

1) Heavy work culture with limited vacation, with many people having only 2 weeks vacation during their working years you really have to go out of the way to travel abroad.

2) The United States is fairly big as it is, and has plenty of opportunity to travel within.
Affirmative on both points. I work for large Fortune 500 european company with really good vacation benefits - after 5 years you can get 23 working days and after >10 years you pretty much can take like 2 month paid vacation as a reward and to figure out what you really want to do in your life.

Have been with the company for >8 years and I have not seen a single person in our US office who ever took more than two weeks vacation. At the same time my european colleagues every year go for month-long vacations and this is normal.

Would add another thing to #2 as well - getting from US to anywhere except Canada or Mexico would require at least one day travel by air in either direction. If you want fly from US to Bali/Singapore for example, you need to spend 3 days on travel only on both directions. This combined to limited vacation time really puts Americans into disadvantage.
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Old Sep 14, 2017, 5:16 am
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Most of my business travel was and is as a solo. No problem with that and I actually found it a bit annoying when I had to travel with another person or group of people. At times in my career I traveled a lot and often to places I'd been to numerous times. So much so that when I had people traveling with me they looked to me to be the expert on where to stay, where to eat, etc., not a role I particularly liked. Now as for "gripping fear" traveling alone when on vacation.....well seems like I've been married my whole life and generally I've found my wife not to look kindly at me going on vacation by myself. That "gripping fear"!
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Old Sep 14, 2017, 5:39 am
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Originally Posted by halls120
Their world revolves around them, and their experience is the ground truth and the only one that matters.

I travel alone more than I travel with others. I guess I'm not an American.

Oh, and I'm leaving on a TATL trip next week - alone. A trip to South America two weeks after that - alone. Another TATL 3 weeks after that one. Alone.
I'll call the White House to have your citizenship revoked!
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Old Sep 14, 2017, 5:45 am
  #57  
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Originally Posted by GUWonder
Most solo travelers abroad aren't American. But that shouldn't be a surprise, flag shirt or not.

No single country's citizens constitute most solo travelers abroad.
Well one country's must!
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Old Sep 14, 2017, 5:47 am
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Originally Posted by 84fiero
I'll call the White House to have your citizenship revoked!
Easier to get the US passport invalidated.
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Old Sep 14, 2017, 7:13 am
  #59  
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Originally Posted by invisible
Affirmative on both points. I work for large Fortune 500 european company with really good vacation benefits - after 5 years you can get 23 working days and after >10 years you pretty much can take like 2 month paid vacation as a reward and to figure out what you really want to do in your life.

Have been with the company for >8 years and I have not seen a single person in our US office who ever took more than two weeks vacation. At the same time my european colleagues every year go for month-long vacations and this is normal.
There's that and also the fact that overseas travel beyond Canada and Mexico is pretty expensive. A lot of people simply don't make enough to justify doing so more often than maybe once or twice in a lifetime, let alone able to take the time off to do so.
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Old Sep 14, 2017, 7:59 am
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Originally Posted by aquamarinesteph
I think some Americans equate doing something alone with that dreaded hangover from high school of being unpopular. If someone won't dine alone or go to a movie alone, they're not really going to go abroad for a solo adventure.
This. And I don't think it's just the USA.

There's a lot of social stigma associated with doing things alone. I've wasted so much time and lost so many potential experiences because I didn't have anyone to go with. I since learned how to be alone, and now doing things solo is perfectly natural to me. I've had many more positive experiences because of it. I've had friends really want to see movies in the cinema but never actually went in the three months it was showing because 'they had nobody to go with' and it baffles me now.

I do find there's an underlying assumption that if I'm alone in a tourist hotspot, I must be waiting for someone. I regularly had an 'Are you waiting for your friends?' inside Las Vegas shows from those people wanting to take pictures of you. No, I'm on a business trip here, and I'm seeing these shows in the evening because I can.

As a solo female traveller, South Africa was pretty bad. Every restaurant I went to usually involved the server thinking something was wrong with me that I was on my own, with many questions fired at me about whether I actually have friends. At one point I was very nearly refused a table because of it. I found women were generally worse than men. But that's cultural variation.
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