It's true, pilots don't travel as much as one might think they do, especially given the fact that we get to fly for free.

But it just isn't what it used to be. We can still score the jumpseat (CASS be praised), but even code shares won't let us sit up front on international routes. Pass travel remains a bargain, of course, but these days flights seemed filled to capacity, with no extra seats to be found.

I know, I know, I sound like one of those guys shaking his cane at the kids on the lawn, but really--the days of spontaneously running down to the airport to have dinner in London with a return flight the next day are behind us for the most part.

Don't even get me started on the pleasures of security and the Euro/dollar exchange rate.

That said, I've traveled far more in my airlines days than I ever did in my Navy days (which I had joined to supposedly "see the World", which seemed to mostly consist of the inside of a big boat). And I still do travel, I just have to allocate enough vacation days to do it. I've loved all my time in foreign countries, from Taipei to Paris. The one thing I remember about all of them was how friendly everyone was to a bedraggled looking foreigner, and how interested they were in what my home country was like. Americans could stand to absorb some of that courtesy and curiosity.

I have lived and travelled in the US, but have resided mainly in Canada and Britain. Watching the election, it troubles me how many voters believe that making the tax system a little fairer is akin to communism. I think if more Americans traveled, especially to places like Canada and western Europe, they'd see that a fairer distribution of wealth is not the end of the world. Far from it! It is what has helped build, among other things, universal healthcare coverage.

Although I can understand politicians have to keep repeating "America is the greatest country on earth," it would be nice if the jingoism could fade just a little. America is undoubtedly far bigger and more powerful than most other countries, but "greatest" -- that's subjective, no? I think it would be helpful if more Americans appreciated that residents of other countries love their homelands too, and have very good reasons for doing so. Here where I live, Montreal Canada, I can't think for a second why I'd choose to move south of the border. Here there is less crime, less poverty, and more attempts to provide help to those less fortunate.

I think America could even learn lots from other countries! We've sure learned a lot from yours over the years -- both good and bad.

Lots of Americans don't travel overseas, true, but then people from other nations don't either, or if they do mostly it is just organized vacation tourism, which is not really Paul Theroux style traveling. Taking a cruise from Florida to Cancun, or flying to the Bahamas and staying in a Holiday Inn or similar US chain hotel can hardly be called traveling.

The best kind of travel is going overseas to study or learn a language, to stay with friends, for a job, for voluntary service, or to find something to write about and so on, and I suspect that Americans do all of these things as much as people from other nations.

Patrick, thanks so much for writing this. It is, as you say, dangerously irresponsible for the people of the most powerful nation on earth to be so willfully ignorant about the rest of the world. The consequences of this, especially over the past few years, are clear and dismaying. I like your idea of mandatory travel for students.

Patrick for letting us live vicariously with your travels. Every time you tell us a tale of flight and faraway places, I am there. Almost, I can smell the scents, taste the foods, bounce alnong in the taxi, hold the hedgehog. How insular Americans have become and we are the lesserbeings because of it.

There are plenty of people who travel and get nothing out of it beyond a list of complaints about foreigners. A trip to the local library can be instructive if you've a mind to learn - and it doesn't cost an arm and a leg in plane tickets.

There's nothing inherently wrong with not going overseas except to the extent that it bespeaks narrow-mindedness, which is not the exclusive preserve of the rich, or the poor, or the middle-class.

I wouldn't argue that you likely would get more out actually living overseas than leafing through back copies of National Geographic, but the form of exploring is less critical than the willingess to look at the world through a different lens.

Amerigo writes: "Lots of Americans don't travel overseas, true, but then people from other nations don't either, or if they do mostly it is just organized vacation tourism..."

I could not disagree more. If I'm struck by one thing when traveling in other countries, it is the lack of American tourists as compared to those from other nations. Brits, Dutch, Australians, Germans, Israelis, Japanese.... Several times I have been on group adventure tours where, out of ten or fifteen people, I was the only American. Nations like Australia and Holland have relatively tiny populations, yet per-capita they travel far more widely than we do.

Yes, I know that most foreigners receive far greater vacation time than we Americans, and that our geography (large oceans on both sides) makes long-distance travel both more expensive and more difficult, but I believe that is only a small part of it.

PS: It wasn't included in the column, but here's a link to some my travel photos:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/globetrodden/sets/

- Patrick Smith

that in the airline industry "travel is what we do". Actually, transporting passengers is what you do, along with serving half cans of soda and handing out pillows and blankets. None of that has much to do with what you're describing as "travel". It is a shame that people miss the opportunity that coming along for the ride gives them, but I wouldn't assume that because someone's job takes them to other places incidentally that they are the necessarily the type that wants to experience those places.