It was said to me that more people in the USA owned a copy of the Titanic DVD than a passport ... so seeing lots of "how many places have you visited" trawls on my social media feed with very small numbers suggested for the typical American does not surprise me.

Here in Europe (need to define "in", mind!) we have a lot of countries within a short distance and I speculate that most members here are more travelled (country wide) than yer typical Yank.  The list on the graphic, with 42 countries, is just a fraction; there are 193 members of the UN, plus a couple of others such as The Vatican,  which are countries in common understanding but not UN members.

P.S. - I count 21 I have visited (if counting living in the UK as visiting) plus places like Slovenia and Slovakia, Lithuania and Latvia, Norway and the USA, which are not seen as significant enough to have made this list

 
16 - plus a few more which are not listed such as the USA, Indonesia & Brunei.

 
Yes. Surprised also that the Philippines are not there - and South America and the Pacific are poorly represented in the list

 
The whole thing about Americans not having a passport is a bit misleading, given that they still have the whole of the USA at their disposal, an area not dissimilar in size to Europe with a wide variety of geographic features, weather conditions and other features albeit perhaps not quite so varied in culture.  Personally I mostly stick to the UK anyway as there's so much I haven't yet seen or want to experience again.

 
Mainly Europe for me with one visit to the Grenadines and Barbados ( briefly) in the Caribbean.  Also, I guess the Canaries, although Spanish politically, are geographically on an African techtonic plate?

 

Seconded.

 
25 on that list, including the UK as per Graham's method, plus about 16 others not mentioned.

And if I never go back to Equatorial Guinea, it will be too soon!

 
7 for me, from that particular, rather selective, list of countries.

Do Jersey and Gibraltar count as countries?

 
I make it 22 off that list (not inc UK), plus quite a few not on that list. USA, Norway, Lithuania, Russia, El Salvador, Puerto Rico, Guadaloupe, Malaysia, Pakistan, Senegal ...plus quite a number of UK "protectorates" - or whatever they are called nowadays.


Another large factor in stopping many US citizens travelling abroad is the paucity of paid holiday in most American workplaces coupled with the American work ethic.
In UK/Europe it is easy to take (say) 3 weeks (paid !) holiday in one go - in most American jobs you would probably have to take unpaid leave to do this. This has two effects: 1. Loss of money. 2. Gives the impression (rightly or wrongly) that you don't care about your employer and the wonderful job that he has kindly given you !

 
10 plus some not listed.

2 or 3 new countries by Christmas
Definitly Tunisia and Denmark. I will find it difficult to resist a train journey over The Øresund Bridge whilst in Copenhagen adding Sweden to my list.

 

Indeed - it was very interesting when Lisa and I were courting, with her job in Naples (Florida).  That's where we both learned to work remotely even in the early days of the Internet.

 
12

 

Back in April 2003 (I think) I took a pre-arranged three week paid holiday (out of my contractual five weeks entitlement) from my employer at that time.

Some time later, when looking at spreadsheets showing my generally excellent number of phone calls taken on my team's UK helpline, a manager asked ' what happened for the dip in that April?'

I simply said, 'I was out in South Africa for three weeks'.  He rather ruefully acknowledged that was a reasonable explanation.

CfN. 

 

As a former UK employer, we simply had a team that was large enough to cope with holiday leave absences (and medical and occasional compassionate ones too) ut that did increase the cost of employment.  But then in the UK, even in our hospitality business where the USA standard is based on significant tipping, we looked to pay a decent base wage and the (very occasional) tips that came in were pooled for a shared Christmas box, shared out based on the number of hours each of the team members (not the directors) had worked in the year.   Different culture, and what - to me - feels far more equitable, social, caring; perhaps I am going to much to the left in my political thinking here, but I would find it hard to vote to the right as my parents did in a national or regional election. 

In Chris's case, as one of a team where others pick up while someone's on leave it works well and the measured stats of individual team members when on vacation provide a useful and comforting "control" that emphasises their worth at other times.   Where a role is unique to one person (dangerous) either the job stops while they're away - and for the training courses I gave that was reasonable, with no need for anything in the calendar those weeks, as training was scheduled a year ahead (public courses) and typically 8 to 12 weeks for private ones.   Neither Lisa not I really take vacations where we switch off; whilst not physically around in the UK, we have done some memorable work (including volunteers) from all sorts of places and do to this day.

 

Going further off topic, is a large number of calls to a helpline a measure of success or a sign there is a problem with the product?   I am involved with one and managers get very exercised when the number of calls or emails rises (as they tend to seasonally).

 

In my case, it was a measure of success.  My team at that time was 'Marketing Technical Services': we answered queries about changes in legislation and taxation, particularly around the end of the tax year (5 April). The more calls we took, the better it worked in terms of our helping the sales team to promote the use of our particular financial services company.

CfN.

 

Ooops - missed that one !

 
Many countries!
Fortunate to have done a short spell in the Merchant Navy (didn't want to, but that's another story).
4 different ships, mostly eastern part of the world (from the UK point of view), and never went Stateside.

Stateside was a family holiday just before Covid.

My health unfortunately is limiting my mobility somewhat, so perhaps cruises for a while.

 
I voted 35+ in the poll. I counted 24 from the list and I recalled a further 32 in addition.

This is the first time I have tried to compile such a list and it is quite remarkable since only a selection of those link to my professional career. The list is about to be extended over Christmas with a further 4 to be added on a cruise around South America.

Wherever the list came from, the compiler had his MAGA blinkers on.   

 

Wider, I suggest. General visits by "Americans" - https://www.statista.com/chart/18742/most-popular-destinations-with-us-travelers/

 
I tried to find stats for travellers from the UK rather than USA - and I found holiday vacation countries only.  Other data offered from behind a firewall but way out of budget.  Whilst the majority of journeys are for vacation,  https://www.finder.com/uk/credit-cards/outbound-tourism-statistics

 
Posting this here somewhat lightheartedly:

Of those 3.9 million US residents who visited the UK, I reckon about 3 million of them have Bath as their destination.  Some of them are a pain in the proverbial, milling about in huge groups and generally getting in the way.

However, I did have a great chat with two older American men in a traditional pub in Bath, many years ago.  They had ventured out from their hotel to sample an old English pub.  We fell into conversation about licensing laws, as they were initially puzzled by the particular wording of the UK signs on the bar, asking for ID.

CfN. 

 

Google headline AI summary tells me