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Why is it that Americans have the lowest percentage of passports as compared to Canada, Europe or Asia? The fact is, the United States has a wide array of places to travel from mountains in Montana, to beaches in Florida, to the deserts of Nevada, that Americans have the ability to experience different cultures and places without the need to travel far away or in obtaining a passport.

There are other reasons that Americans choose to steer away from international travel. One of them is that most Americans do not have the vacation time like the citizens in other countries. For example, “workers in mainland Europe receive between six and eight weeks of vacation, while Americans average about 16.6 paid vacation days as of 2005,” according to the Families and Work Institute. “Thirty-six percent of those surveyed didn’t plan to use their full vacation.” Americans have that work, work, work mentality, which makes taking a vacation more difficult.

The cost alone for a flight overseas is half the cost of the whole vacation. Since the United States is such a big place, traveling over each state is timely, let alone to Paris from the East Coast (about 6-7 hours). For Americans, time is money and access to other countries is much more difficult.

Another reason is the way other cultures are portrayed in the media to people in the United States. News usually that comes from abroad is negative, not as much positive, leaving Americans fearful of ever leaving home. Unfortunately, what makes it into the media, are concerns of bad weather or bad news.

Hopefully as Americans, we will take our chances and our vacation time to travel to places outside of our comfort zone to realize it is indeed a wonderful and worthwhile experience.