Job Discussion Forums

[MO39]

My first trip abroad was a summer spent studying in Mexico between my junior and senior years of college. It was also my first trip in an airplane and the first time I'd been more than a few hours from home by car, so it was a real turning point in my life! I returned to Mexico five years later and spent a few months teaching English in the D.F. and Cuernavaca. Since then, I've lived and worked in England, Spain and, of course, Mexico.

[cspitzig]

Traveling abroad for an American isn't very well comparable to traveling abroad for most other people. It costs a lot more just to GO to another country for an American. Related to that, look at the distance necessary to travel to another country, compared to most other countries. I'd guess you don't see as much surprise about a first trip abroad from someone in Beijing as from someone in Prague. Or, ask the guy in Prague how many times he'd been out of Europe.

Also, Americans have more variety inside the country than many other countries, so desires for new experiences are better satisfied than in a lot of other countries. I'm thinking of New Orleans, San Francisco, and New York. Pretty different cultures between those cities. Or, for nature, you have deserts, ocean beaches, mountain ranges, and redwood forests. You probably don't get as much variety as between England and France, but I bet its more variety than within England.

[dixie]

Same thing can be said for Canadians. In fact, it is cheaper for me to fly from Canada to Mexico, then from Ontario (where I live) out west to B.C! Hence, I have seen more of the USofA and Mexico then my own country!

[fancynan]

I started traveling when I was 1 year old and left England for the US. As a child living in New England, often visited Quebec province. Finally, in my 20's, began to travel in Europe - England, France, Italy, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Netherlands, Austria, Czech Republic, Greece - which I continue to do. Recently, I've started visiting Mexico about once a year. (Vacationed on a cruise once so saw a few islands in the Carribbean, but that barely counts.) I'm looking forward to visiting Eastern European countries and to living in France. U.S. will always be �home� though, because this is where my family is.

[jillford64]

Nope. I had traveled alone in Europe and Latin America several times before heading to Mexico to teach. The longest I'd been away from home was 5 weeks though (once to Europe and once to Ecuador).

[hollysuel]

[Jetgirly]

[Glenski]

Landing a TEFL job in Japan was not my first experience abroad. Aside from the many jaunts to Canada and one to Mexico (2 weeks for school trip), I'd been to Belgium once and the UK twice, plus I'd lived and worked in Japan (non-teaching work) and traveled as a tourist in Japan.

I think getting to other countries for extended periods really opens one's eyes.

[GambateBingBangBOOM]

[cspitzig]

[denise]

With Americans, I kind of get the impression (and I confess that I have ZERO evidence to back this up!) that it's just a matter of priorities. Rather than traveling, they seem to buy bigger cars, bigger TVs, etc. But I do agree that it can be more difficult for us in terms of time and money to get out of the country than it can be for Europeans, who have just a short flight, ferry, drive, etc., and discount airlines on which you can fly from London to Rome cheaper than I could fly from northern California to southern California! I remember I really bristled when a British colleague mocked me for only having been out of the US twice (not counting day trips over the border into Tijuana--maybe I should have included those??) before my first teaching job.

And if my memory serves me correctly, Central America is part of North America too. Clear down to Panama.

d

[yaramaz]

Also, we must remember that Americans (and Canadians, to a lesser degree) generally have almost no legally required vacation time--I read somewhere that the *maybe* two weeks granted per year was the lowest in the developed world. It's not that easy to take a long, leisurely, off-the-beaten-path sojourn on another continent when you have to be back at work in ten days. I've done most of my traveling when based outside of NA, living in Europe and the Gulf and Turkey.

In Canada, during my brief stints home in my 20s, I often had to quit my jobs in order to find time to travel for longer than a Cancun package tour length of time. As a kid, travels were mostly limited to within North America- Hawaii, Mexico, California, Quebec (family), camping around BC (where I'm from). Geographically, this is a HUGE area, but still within the space of only three countries and one continent. Not very impressive to a European. Driving to my uncle's house in Northern BC from my parents' place on Vancouver Island took about the same amount of time as driving from London to Northern Sweden.

Maybe instead of counting countries to judge how much a person has traveled, how about mileage

[Jetgirly]

I was thinking of cop-out more in the OED sense of the word. Where did you get your definition, dictionary.com?

[cspitzig]

[denise]

What's wrong with dictionary.com? Maybe it's not as "elite" as the OED, but it's a helluva lot more convenient when I am sitting at my computer.

D