The Great American Road Trip

A lot of Europeans, snigger at the small number of Americans that have a passport. In 1990, only four percent of Americans had one. Today, 42 percent of Americans hold a passport. Compare that to Britain where 76 percent of people hold passports. Europeans find it strange that relatively few Americans venture abroad, but then many of their countries are very close together. It’s quite easy to have breakfast in Monaco, lunch in France and dinner in Italy. Or Breakfast Zurich, lunch in Innsbruck and dinner in Munich, while still having time for a snack in Lichtenstein along the way. Hitting four countries easily in a single day. England, France, Belgium, and Holland is another doddle of at day since they built the channel tunnel.

Each of these countries is unique in many ways, but geographically everything they have in Europe we have in the US. Southern California, for example, is very similar geographically and climate-wise to southern Spain. Ok, we don’t have bullfights, much culture, any history, or 50 ways to serve ham but to look at they are very similar places.

Europe has the Alps, Dolomites, and Pyrenees. The US has the Rockies, Poconos, Cascades, Blue Ridge, The Great Smokies, Appalachian’s…