[evgen]

Another alternative hypothesis for you to consider: there is already so much beauty, novelty, and interesting diversity in the US that it takes a slightly bigger push to get past this local maxima. No offense, but if you chopped out and stitched together all of the interesting bits of Canada you would have a land mass that was about the size of California and with a similar population; in the US we have 49 other states to tool around in as well that present a much greater diversity in terms of environment and inhabitants. We get all that without needing to use a passport, exchange currency, or try to learn to speak like a tourist in another language. It is not the same thing as real international travel, but it is a close-enough approximation for some people that it serves as a reasonable substitute.

[run4yourlives]

there is already so much beauty, novelty, and interesting diversity in the US that it takes a slightly bigger push to get past this local maxima

That statement though is illustrative of my point, though. Canadians and/or Australians will either view their country as boring or too large, and so they head overseas. Americans don't.

I don't think this speaks so much to the actual fact than it does to the way one looks at the situation.

[jerf]

Another aspect is that I don't have to travel to the other side of the world to learn about other cultures, necessarily; I just start talking to my neighbors or coworkers. Is it the same? No, but it's not worthless and you can get up close and fairly personal. I won't learn enough to blend in with that culture by any means but that takes months anyhow.