Adela Hogarth:

Originally Answered: Why are Australians more likely to visit faraway continents than Americans?

Because the average Australian isn’t told to work 16 hours a day to afford rent and replacement apparel.

Let’s be realistic, here.

Travel is a luxury of both money and time. If you can afford it, you do it. If you can’t, then you don’t.

As someone who grew up working class in rural NSW, my idea of ‘travel’ was saving up a third of the money I was earning through after school and weekend work from the age of eleven to afford a good motorcycle by the time I was 16.

I had travelled to places like the Philippines and the UK prior then only because one half of my family lived there (mum’s in the Philippines, dad’s in England and Wales) and thus I didn’t have to spend money on things like accommodation.

It was certainly a different experience for the wealthier schoolmates who routinely flitted about East and Southeast Asia, or Europe, or North America.

Travel is a luxury, and depending on specific societies, the reality of it as a lived experience is variable.

Andrew Francis:

Originally Answered: Why are Australians more likely to visit faraway continents than Americans?

I think there’s a couple of reasons — We’re keenly aware of our geographic isolation in the world. Stuck away down the bottom of maps. Many Australians want to see what else there is to the world. The other reason is that we don’t have the hubris (many) Americans seem to have. We don’t imagine for a minute that everything worth seeing is in Australia, so we travel to experience what the rest of the world has to offer.

Lynne Clarke:

It’s kind of an unwritten tradition that many end of schoolers, if they can, want to do a gap year before heading to university or college.

Murali Tumahai:

Originally Answered: Why are Australians more likely to visit faraway continents than Americans?

It’s a combination of less variety in Australia compared to the variety found domestically for us Americans, along with dipping into our very nearby neighbors (I’m American, and have lived in Australia for over a decade - I have a fair grasp of what can be found in each location), and island fever.

Admittedly, it’s a very, very large island, but island fever nonetheless. I live on an island chain (Hawaii), and while we are literally in Paradise, that sense of being trapped is pretty real. You just start thinking and thinking of ANYWHERE to go to get off of the island.

As for variety - yes, Australia has Alice Springs, and the Whitsundays, down through Sydney, into the interior Outback, and on through Melbourne - but you have nothing like going from Alaska, through Kansas, and Portland, swinging by French New Orleans, dropping by Cuban Florida, New York, Sante Fe, LA, and ending up in Hawaii. We don’t even have the same local languages in some of these places. Australia has variety, but nothing like the US.

So when we are looking at our limited time schedules, and looking at ticket prices; and then trying to get the most bang out of it, we very frequently just do a road trip, or a 3 hour $150 ticket, to a closer location - and in the US, that still means domestic, usually.

CjW:

Strange comparison and a poor assumption. Seriously? America has a population of more than 300 million people and a large GDP! About 30 million of those people are quite wealthy.

Americans are the second most traveled people in the world after the Finns.

The third most traveled nationality in the world are Swiss followed by (4) Danes (5) Nords (6) Chinese (7) New Zealanders (8) Canadians (9) Australians.

Like Olympic success, it's a combination of wealth (distribution of wealth) and size.

25 Most Well-Travelled Peoples In The World

From Brazilians to Canadians these are the 25 Most Well-Travelled Peoples In The World

https://list25.com/25-most-well-travelled-peoples-in-the-world/

Niels Henriksen:

Because they are generally wise, cultured and well educated people with an attention span longer than 10 seconds - and they are always warmly welcome everywhere they go here in Europe ( within reason 😉) for instance, because they are great and down to earth mates, who are genuinely interested in us and don't feel the urge to constantly brag about how much freeer and better they are at everything than everybody else in the World 😉

Chris Gallagher:

I don't know but would think Aussies travel a lot. My daughter and her girlfriends spent six months travelling around Europe last year and added a month in Bali on the way home. This is not unusual for a lot of Australians. I am sixty eight and have lived and worked in various Asian countries.