U.S. citizens travel habits.

[Vimto]

1. What percentage of Americans hold a current passport?
2. What percentage of Americans have ever held a passport?
3. What percentage of Americans have actually travelled abroad, i.e. visited countries outside of the 50 U.S. states?
4. How does the answer to question 3 compare to other countries citizens?

[Whickerman]

Can't answer all of these, but depending on your source it's somewhere between 23% (Lonely Planet) and 27% (US State Dept) of Americans that hold passports.

As for travelling, I have no idea, but i do know that the low percentage is sometimes used as an example to show that Americans aren't well travelled. However, as you point out, there are 50 US states and you do not need a passport to travel between them, nor to Canada. So imagine that the EU was in a similar state and passports weren't required, and you could travel into, say, Russia without passports. How many EU citizens would hold passports? I'd say something similar.

[Vimto]

Thank you whickerman, that helps a lot. I agree with you about the EU. Brits for example mainly travel to other parts of Europe. I myself have travelled widely and I know that wherever in the world you go, you inevitively meet a Scotsman, an Australian and an American. you never meet a solitary Japanese only a group of them and you never ever meet a Belgian!