Remembering how rare, and how emblematic of family wealth, foreign travel was when I was growing up, I'm amazed these days at how many Americans I know who have been to both Asia and Europe. The people I know would claim to be only "middle class," not at all rich, but they are well traveled.

The United States has been issuing passports by the millions for quite some time.

http://travel.state.gov/passport/services/stats/stats_890.ht...

Note that unlike some other countries, there is essentially no domestic use for a United States passport. United States citizens get passports if they are traveling overseas, and until recently travel to Canada and Mexico without passports was quite routine. So there are evidently plenty of Americans who have had a chance to go look around and learn from other countries. I would be quite happy to hear of more: in many respects, I think four years spent doing almost ANYTHING overseas and living in the local economy of a country with another language is more educational than four years spent pursuing a college degree, but meanwhile plenty of Americans, for business or for pleasure, do plenty of foreign travel.

Most Europeans have never set foot in a modern American or Asian city. Most Asians have never set foot in a modern American or European city.

Your point still holds, but too many people use that factoid as some sort of slight against Americans when it's really not.