The whole "Americans don't have passports" thing always cracks me up.
We're the fourth largest country on the planet by area, with the first two being Russia and Canada. Russia and Canada are both largely unpopulated, or very sparsely populated, with the vast majority of people living in around 20%-30% of that area. Sure, US also has plenty of low population areas, but it's not nearly as much as the others. Even China, the third largest, has more areas that aren't really inhabited, from what I can tell. Furthermore, the US has much more people than Russia or Canada, meaning you're going to have more populated places.
So America may very well be the largest country geographically when you take populated areas into account, depending on how all that is broken down and measured. At least second. We also have a bunch of geographical diversity, as well as diversity of states.
Point is, we're not Europe, a collection of often tiny countries. Americans could (and I'm not saying they do) travel more without a passport than Europeans generally do with a passport. Also, we can go to Hawaii, Alaska, and outlying territorial islands without need of a passport as well.
Americans simply don't need passports in the same way Europeans often do.
EDIT: For those curious, it's a bit hard to measure, but I believe USA is third in amount of populated area, after India and China. India isn't as big as the US, but is packing such a massive amount of people in there they populate a lot of the area. Similar with China; already larger in area, and with a lot more people to fit. USA is almost as big as all of Europe. Bigger, if you exclude Russia.
I was talking to someone from Europe before that had never been to the U.S. and had no concept of just how big it is. They couldn’t believe it when I said you could start at the bottom of California drive 18 hrs and still be in California.
These idiots live like the French aristocracy and just can’t comprehend why us unwashed masses would load up our families in the minivan and drive to something reachable in a day as opposed to just going to Monaco for a week.
I just watched a Ken Burns documentary about Lewis and Clark, the first American citizens to reach the west coast. It took them 2.5 years and ~8000 miles (13000 km) in total. That's quite mind-boggling for a European, maybe Russians can comprehend it.
I had a friend who wanted to fly from the UK to NYC, spend a day or two touring around and then casually drive down to Florida to go to DisneyWorld. He was shocked when I showed him on the map it would take ~ 18 hours of non-stop driving to make it.
I had a similar discussion once regarding the whole planes vs. trains thing and in the process blew their minds, by showing a Google Maps screenshot of driving distance Seattle - Dallas (31h) and how that would look in Europe: Lisbon (Portugal) - Warsaw (Poland) - crossing 6 countries in total.
Put another way; I can spend several thousand dollars on exorbitant flight fees to someplace that I've never been to, filled with people that likely hate me, and more than likely don't speak my own language.
Orrrrrrrr...
I can spend around a thousand dollars or so and spend a week or two gallivanting across a continent with more environments that Europeans can ever dream of, of various cultures, of some really good food, head home whenever I like, and actually talk and interact with other fucking Americans, for good or for ill?
There are more unique biomes, climates and cultures in America than most entire continents.
No country in the world has as much travel value as just going across the US. The only thing it lacks is "long history" which is increasingly getting destroyed or twisted everywhere else.
People in Florida just go to other parts of Florida for vacation.
The Northwest has so many different climates it was compared to Zelda Breath of the Wild by MatPat. I could drive an hour and be in a totally different looking area.
A friend was visiting from Japan, and he kept taking pictures at the rest stops. I finally asked why he was doing that since there was nothing there.
"Exactly", he said back. I forgot how populated as samey Japan could be.
Americans simply don't need passports in the same way Europeans often do.
Not even, most of europe is in the EU and you don't need a passport to go to other EU countries, just an ID card(Hell some non-EU countires do accept EU ID cards in lieu of a passport if you're just visiting).
The whole "Americans don't have passports" thing always cracks me up.
We're the fourth largest country on the planet by area, with the first two being Russia and Canada. Russia and Canada are both largely unpopulated, or very sparsely populated, with the vast majority of people living in around 20%-30% of that area. Sure, US also has plenty of low population areas, but it's not nearly as much as the others. Even China, the third largest, has more areas that aren't really inhabited, from what I can tell. Furthermore, the US has much more people than Russia or Canada, meaning you're going to have more populated places.
So America may very well be the largest country geographically when you take populated areas into account, depending on how all that is broken down and measured. At least second. We also have a bunch of geographical diversity, as well as diversity of states.
Point is, we're not Europe, a collection of often tiny countries. Americans could (and I'm not saying they do) travel more without a passport than Europeans generally do with a passport. Also, we can go to Hawaii, Alaska, and outlying territorial islands without need of a passport as well.
Americans simply don't need passports in the same way Europeans often do.
EDIT: For those curious, it's a bit hard to measure, but I believe USA is third in amount of populated area, after India and China. India isn't as big as the US, but is packing such a massive amount of people in there they populate a lot of the area. Similar with China; already larger in area, and with a lot more people to fit. USA is almost as big as all of Europe. Bigger, if you exclude Russia.
I was talking to someone from Europe before that had never been to the U.S. and had no concept of just how big it is. They couldn’t believe it when I said you could start at the bottom of California drive 18 hrs and still be in California.
These idiots live like the French aristocracy and just can’t comprehend why us unwashed masses would load up our families in the minivan and drive to something reachable in a day as opposed to just going to Monaco for a week.
And, heck, you can drive 48 hours - two days - nonstop, from the Oregon coast to Massachusetts coast, all on the same highway.
That's nothing. You can drive for 6 hours on any highway 10 miles out from San Fran, and still not make it into San Francisco.
Traffic is a real problem in California.
You could drive 6 hours in Los Angeles and still not make it out with all the traffic.
I just watched a Ken Burns documentary about Lewis and Clark, the first American citizens to reach the west coast. It took them 2.5 years and ~8000 miles (13000 km) in total. That's quite mind-boggling for a European, maybe Russians can comprehend it.
I had a friend who wanted to fly from the UK to NYC, spend a day or two touring around and then casually drive down to Florida to go to DisneyWorld. He was shocked when I showed him on the map it would take ~ 18 hours of non-stop driving to make it.
Truly the european mind cannot even comprehend.
I was unironically asked if I went to the Vancouver Olympics games by a French friend.
I'm from Quebec. So I asked him if he went to the Sochi Olympics games in Russia, or was that too far.
''No that's way too far''
Well that's the same distance.
Oh how time flies. Now the answer would be about the Russian invasion.
I had a similar discussion once regarding the whole planes vs. trains thing and in the process blew their minds, by showing a Google Maps screenshot of driving distance Seattle - Dallas (31h) and how that would look in Europe: Lisbon (Portugal) - Warsaw (Poland) - crossing 6 countries in total.
Yup.
Put another way; I can spend several thousand dollars on exorbitant flight fees to someplace that I've never been to, filled with people that likely hate me, and more than likely don't speak my own language.
Orrrrrrrr...
I can spend around a thousand dollars or so and spend a week or two gallivanting across a continent with more environments that Europeans can ever dream of, of various cultures, of some really good food, head home whenever I like, and actually talk and interact with other fucking Americans, for good or for ill?
Gee, there's a tough fucking decision.
There are more unique biomes, climates and cultures in America than most entire continents.
No country in the world has as much travel value as just going across the US. The only thing it lacks is "long history" which is increasingly getting destroyed or twisted everywhere else.
I saw a funny comment (Reddit, actually), when I was looking into size comparisons:
Americans think 100 years is old. Europeans think 100 kilometers is far.
People in Florida just go to other parts of Florida for vacation.
The Northwest has so many different climates it was compared to Zelda Breath of the Wild by MatPat. I could drive an hour and be in a totally different looking area.
A friend was visiting from Japan, and he kept taking pictures at the rest stops. I finally asked why he was doing that since there was nothing there.
"Exactly", he said back. I forgot how populated as samey Japan could be.
Not even, most of europe is in the EU and you don't need a passport to go to other EU countries, just an ID card(Hell some non-EU countires do accept EU ID cards in lieu of a passport if you're just visiting).