Originally Posted by greenery
Recently I traveled through Europe. Europeans are travelers. Is there a huge underclass in Western Europe who are middle age and have never left their hometown-ever?
I don't think they would count as an "underclass", but in our, primarily rural, part of France, there are a good many middle-aged folk who have never travelled outside the region. (Their children probably have, however.)
That being said, it is my perception that an awful lot of Europeans do travel far and wide and that a larger proportion of non-wealthy Europeans own some sort of vacation home than is common in the US.