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A comment on Phone searches at the US border hit a record high. Parent comment

Re:Phone searches at the US border hit a record high by rconti on Wednesday August 20, 2025 @01:19PM (#44963891)
| only about <30% of Americans have travelled internationally in the past year

30% sounds insanely high. I suspect at least half of Americans haven't even taken a _vacation_ in the past year, let alone _travelled internationally_.

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Re:Phone searches at the US border hit a record high by splap on Wednesday August 20, 2025 @02:00PM (#44964412)
only 3% of us citizens had a passport back in 1989!

passport to resident ratio usa, 1989-2023:

https://claude.ai/public/artifacts/44102530-5b24-467a-8510-c...

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Re:Phone searches at the US border hit a record high by FireBeyond on Wednesday August 20, 2025 @01:29PM (#44963994)
Yeah, the number is closer to 10%:

> Approximately 40 million Americans travel abroad each year. This figure represents about 12% of the U.S. population. Travel data reveals that Americans commonly visit destinations in Europe, Canada, Mexico, and the Caribbean.

Source: https://travelpander.com/how-many-americans-travel-abroad/

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Re:Phone searches at the US border hit a record high by rconti on Wednesday August 20, 2025 @01:37PM (#44964101)
Higher than I would have thought! I was just thinking about this again and my SWAG was 5%. I asked ChatGPT which repeated the shockingly high 28% number, but it elides the fact that this was in a (small) survey of 2000 "travelers" (whatever that means-- but i suspect it means 2000 people who travelled in the past year):

> In the past year, the poll of 2,000 U.S. travelers, conducted by Talker Research, found 94% have traveled domestically, and 28% have traveled internationally.

source: https://www.myjournalcourier.com/features/article/unpacking-...

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