Americans should travel more

Americans have often been accused of being insular and
narrow-minded. It doesn’t help that with 8.8 million
passports issued in 2004, at most only 30 percent of Americans have
one. In other words, 70 percent of Americans don’t feel a
need to leave the confines of their home country.

This is compared to the fact that in 2003, according to the
United Kingdom Parliament, anywhere from 69 percent to 79 percent
of the British population owned a passport.

This seems a little ridiculous when the United States is one of
the richest countries in the world and, according to the CIA World
Factbook, has a much higher per-capita GDP than the United
Kingdom.

It just seems that Americans, while having the money,
don’t feel the need to leave their own country. Maybe, for
the average American, going to Disney World constitutes enough of a
culture shock.

Or maybe Americans simply don’t get enough paid vacation
to recover from the jet lag that is a necessary consequence of
going abroad. While most European and Asian workers enjoy more than
35 days off every year, the average American gets a meager 22.

Or perhaps Americans are so sure their home country is
unsurpassed in greatness that they see no need to leave its
borders. Or maybe they’re afraid that this assurance will be
disproved.

Whatever the reason, it’s the sad truth that most
Americans don’t wander beyond our borders. Most Americans
haven’t experienced other cultures, except in their
Americanized forms. It’s even possible that most Americans
think Panda Express is genuine Chinese food.

Experiencing other cultures firsthand is a form of education
that can’t be achieved through books and studying. While
seeing the ocean gives one a sense of infinity, experiencing other
cultures opens one’s mind and heart.

People seem to forget that tolerance is a learned attribute
achieved by challenging oneself to tolerate.

By not traveling, Americans are sending a message to the rest of
the world that other cultures aren’t worth our time or
effort.

While we try to soften our image by providing aid to various
countries and tsunami disaster victims, nothing can compare to
personal contact. Perhaps so many people have such a lowly opinion
of Americans because they’ve met so few of us.

America has an image. That image is in desperate need of repair.
One way of ameliorating this image is to make our presence known
abroad.

We need to show people that their culture and country is worth
our visit and we are interested in expanding our horizons. If we
don’t extend this courtesy to others, we cannot expect the
same in return.

America has often been called a melting pot of cultures. All
Americans have their own story of where they came from, how long
their family has lived in the United States and to what culture
they belong.

It’s surprising that so few Americans don’t want to
rediscover their heritage by traveling to wherever their ancestors
came from. While we are all American, we are also so much more. By
traveling, each of us can rediscover our personal histories, open
our eyes to different cultures, open our minds to different people
and enlighten other people to the truth about Americans.

Bon voyage.

Loewenstein is a second-year applied mathematics
student.