US citizens can afford a vacation in Europe but Europeans can't afford US

In the US, health care, child care, and college education have a greater out-of-pocket component than in Europe. In California the average for childcare is $23,863/year, for example, according to https://www.self.inc/info/childcare-costs-by-state/ , while in at least some European countries it's highly subsidized by the state through taxes.

The anecdata comes from friends of the tweet author in the US and Europe, but we don't know where those friends are from. Is it comparing the Bay Area, CA to Lisbon? Kalamazoo, MI to London? Massachusetts to Estonia?

Could it be the friends in Europe don't talk about their personal life in a work context, so the author doesn't know what they do on holiday?

Even if we accept everything on face value, the tradition in the US is two weeks of vacation and in Europe it's a month of vacation. If the European can only visit the US once every two years, that's still a longer time in the US since there's two fewer days of intercontinental travel. The trip would be less expensive as the two extra days of lodging in the US is less expensive than the extra round-trip cost.

In any case, given the number of Europeans I've seen in the US, including on vacation at a national park, the anecdote sounds suspect.