[samfoo]

Central (in particular) and South America (to a lesser extent) have way more American travelers than anywhere except Europe (at least this has been my anecdotal experience with nearly a year in Mexico/Central America). Costa Rica is practically the 51st state and south Nicaragua is well known for it's cheap land and American surfer ex-pats. Of course, flights to CA are super cheap from the US and this probably explains it.

The other thing that I've noticed is that Americans from the West Coast are much more likely to travel (of course, I'm from the west coast so this might be some confirmation bias).

(opinions based on a little more than two years or so of ongoing travel and probably something like 30 countries)

[krschultz]

It might be that west coast goes to south/central America more often and ease coast goes to Europe, becuase I know a lot of people who have gone to Europe from here but few that have gone south. It makes sense, if I have a week off getting to Europe is only 5 or 6 hours each way, which is roughly the same as california. Flight time is not the big time suck though, it is waiting in airports for connections. A direct flight to central Europe is a lot shorter than a hop from NYC to LA or TX and then a connection to a flight going to south America.