In past years, stereotypes have pervaded that Americans are not predisposed to travel and rarely engage in the outside world. Statistics from the Office of Travel and Tourism Industries seem to back up the assertion.

There are over 300 million people in the US – painting a picture of an insular country, only 30% of these citizens own a passport (compared with around 60-70% passport ownership in Australia and 75% in the UK).

However, it is worth noting that this number is better than it was a scant few years ago (which saw the figure hover not much over 10%). A new travel initiative in the US was adopted in 2004 as part of an anti-terrorism measure which requires passports for everyone hopping the Canadian/American border, but this also explains why roughly half of the 61.5 million trips made in 2009 which required passports only went as far as Mexico or Canada.

However Gary Ardnt, the writer behind everything-everywhere.com claims that the figures don’t depict anything fundamentally wrong with the state of the country’s mentality towards travel. “In the United States, we have an enormous amount of places we can travel… basically, it’s an entire continent.” Ardnt adds, “You can do all kinds of things without needing a passport”.

It has been suggested that the cost of traveling abroad is the main deterrent for many. 10% of all Americans (about 30 million) travelled abroad in 2009 and each spent approximately $2708 on average, according to figures again from the Office of Travel and Tourism Industries. A large portion of this – just over $1,177 – came from the cost of flights.

Reported by Mike Jordison.

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