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Comment by readittwice | Hacker News Reader

Why should Americans bother to have a passport? Their country is so huge, probably more than you could visit in a lifetime. Deserts, mountains, cities, ... In Europe countries and the continent are smaller, Vienna for example literally has 3 other countries in commuting distance. It is quite obvious that you are more likely to need a passport here in Europe. A much fairer comparison would be to only count Europeans that use their passport to travel to other continents.

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Visiting a foreign country is regarded as an essential rite of passage in many parts of the world. Being surrounded by people who speak a different language, use a different currency and have a different culture provides a very valuable life experience. Your understanding of "normal" can shift very quickly when you get to experience being a foreigner.

I can't help but think that passport ownership is one of the fundamental cultural divides in the US. It's difficult to understand the value of travelling abroad if you've never experienced it and don't know many people who have.

Geography is no excuse - Australians are prolific international travellers, despite the size of their continent and their oceanic isolation. Spending a year abroad is the norm for young Aussies, but it's still regarded as a rare privilege for young Americans.

> Visiting a foreign country is regarded as an essential rite of passage in many parts of the world. Being surrounded by people who speak a different language, use a different currency and have a different culture provides a very valuable life experience. Your understanding of "normal" can shift very quickly when you get to experience being a foreigner.

True but America is a wide enough place that you can have most of that without leaving the continental USA.

Growing up in Podunk, USA makes people from Big City, USA feel like foreigners (and vice versa). I'm not saying don't go outside the USA (quite the contrary!) but there's quite a bit you can do and see here without a passport.

> I can't help but think that passport ownership is one of the fundamental cultural divides in the US. It's difficult to understand the value of travelling abroad if you've never experienced it and don't know many people who have.

Very true and I don't know anyone that's traveled extensively that doesn't comment on it being a positive experience in hindsight (aside from business travelers complaining about going back to the same places they don't particular like month after month).

>True but America is a wide enough place that you can have most of that without leaving the continental USA.

You absolutely, 100% can't. America has no end of wonderful places to visit, but there are so many parts of the experience of foreign travel that aren't remotely replicated in domestic travel.

Being on the wrong side of a language barrier is profoundly dislocating. A domestic visitor to Big City USA won't find themselves asking for directions in pantomime, they won't have to point at something on a menu and hope for the best, they won't walk into a supermarket and realise that they can't tell shampoo from conditioner. There's a deep sense of vulnerability when you can't communicate effectively, a sense of marginalisation and remoteness.

American tourists have a reputation for assuming that everyone accepts greenbacks. It's a profound experience to realise that the money in your wallet is absolutely worthless to the people around you, that the pieces of paper you sweated to earn might as well be monopoly money to anyone outside of a Bureau de Change. The simple experience of having a pocketful of unfamiliar coins has a lasting effect on your understanding of the nature of money.

> True but America is a wide enough place that you can have most of that without leaving the continental USA.

Except that most don't make those trips around their own country.

> Being surrounded by people who speak a different language, use a different currency and have a different culture provides a very valuable life experience.

Other than the currency part, we've got that in the US...

It's really not the same thing. America always feels like America. Travelling in the US is no substitute to travelling abroad.

Believe me, there are plenty of places in the US you could go where you'll say "holy shit, this is AMERICA???"

It's still not the same thing as going to another country where everything is different, the shows on TV, the language, the politics, the food. You will find variety within the bounds of any nation on earth, but it's not as great as the variety between nations.

That may be true, but is still not a substitute. Travelling abroad has the added benefit of one saying "holy shit, this is just like AMERICA!!!" in the least expected of places.

"It's really not the same thing. America always feels like America. Travelling in the US is no substitute to travelling abroad."

Except for New Orleans.

Don't be so high minded. I know PLENTY of Dutch, Germans and French people who have never left their country.

Many, many Americans travel extensively or are children of immigrant parents who travel to their home country often.

It's a lot of land, but the culture is basically homogeneous so every where you go is very similar aside from the geographical differences and a few accents.

You don't actually need a passport to travel within the EU. Just a European id card. Still, most people I know do have passports, but that might tell you more about my particular bubble than anything else.

No point in an ID card when a passport is only slightly dearer, but more useful.

The form factor. My national ID is the size of a credit card, so I always keep it in my wallet. For something that lets me visit a good thirty countries, that's good enough value for me.

Most Americans don't even travel far within their own country. The vast majority have never seen New York or San Francisco, for example. Or the Rockies, even.

That's interesting, you've repeated this in a few comments. I am not american, but living in the US, and it's always been my observation that while true, americans seldom travel outside their own country, they do travel, a lot, within their own continent-sized nation. In fact, almost everyone I know here is quite frequently taking little trips, both business and pleasure, be it to see relatives (families are very dispersed) or friends, or just sight seeing. In my experience just about everyone has been to New York or San Francisco, or the Bahamas, Hawaii, not to mention LA, FL, the Grand Canyon, Yosemite, Chicago, New Orleans, etc. At one point or another, just about everyone takes the proverbial road trip across most of the US. And I'm pretty sure that any one point in time, there are more airplanes, packed, flying over the US than on any other part of the world, probably combined. Of course, it may be my own distorted vision of reality.

I am going to guess that you live in a large city on one of the coasts... is this correct? Because if so, you are right.

If you live in the MidWest where most Americans live, then your report would really surprise me.

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