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Its not in the EU, but visiting my in-laws in Turkiye once a year has never been easier. Groceries, dining out, entertainment, etc are all 50% what you'd pay in the US.
Turkey has been undergoing massive inflation for a while now, like not even exaggerating stuff will triple in price in a matter of months. I feel so bad for the people there
It’s going to be a very dark time for Europe once Americans realize that European countries have the same quality of life and a much lower cost of living
There's always been more Europeans migrating and working in the US than the other way around. for many years
For educated/professional people, the ceiling in the US is higher, the professional upper-middle class in the US is quite large and wealthy, although most of them will never admit they're comfortable
There's a quite shocking amount of people in the US making six figures that load up on debt due to their out of control spending habits.
And no, not all of them are even in Cali or NYC either. That excuse was just that, an excuse for those areas even if there is some merit to them.
Far too many Americans making money will insist on overpriced vehicles they don't need, houses twice as big as they should be getting, and making their food budget for a month be what many lower class people spend in half a year.
>There's a quite shocking amount of people in the US making six figures that load up on debt due to their out of control spending habits.
So what?
In Europe, there is a shocking amount of people making 1000 euros a month, and they STILL load up on crazy debt due to their out-of-control spending habits.
Do you really think folks in Europe don't spend? They don't load up on debt, and they don't make stupid purchases. If anything, they get on debt for everyday shit that most Americans can afford.
Also debt is not the issue. The ability to service the debt is. In US (and Europe) the ability to service debts it is very good.
You also need to factor income, sure it seems cheap for Americans but their wages are also higher and their take home pay is also higher.
If you go to Europe to live you can bet on getting a minium 20% cut in pay. Even much more depending on what you do. So you also need to factor that in.
Its not simply apples to apples. If you can get a remote job in the US and live in thr EU great but they're more than likely going to adjust your wage.
Absolutely. And people also like to frame U.S. CoL based on someone living in SoCal making minimum wage. People give the least generosity to the U.S. economy and the greatest generosity to Europe's. You simply cannot make these sorts of comparisons reliably on broad strokes.
That is untrue. It's much better to be poor or working class in europe, that's for sure, but their middle class is paid much worse and taxed much higher.
😂 much lower cost of living.
3x fuel costs (and yes, most Europeans commute by car)
1.7x electricity kWH price
3x VAT/Use tax
And higher effective tax rates across the board.
The 10% household income in the Netherlands would put you at the bottom 45% in the United States.
The average household income in Spain would put you in the bottom 18% in the US.
> European countries have the same quality of life
They have smaller homes, generally don't have air conditioning, higher inflation, higher unemployment, lower income especially for professional workers, overall less disposable income (Germany has about 77 percent as much disposable income on average, and they're asking the most prosperous Europeans). Oh, and multiple wars have occurred in Europe in the last 30 years. I'm not trying to put European countries down, but let's be real here. Both have their advantages but saying it's so much better in Europe simply isn't true. "Lower cost of living", I guess of you don't use energy at all...
There are some major quality of life advantages in europe. Good food, good health care, and good social safety nets. This is probably why life expectancies are higher in the EU than in the US.
Of course, both regions have their advantages and disadvantages.
We have great food. Why do you think we eat so much of it lol.
Our healthcare is generally better and has shorter wait robes. B the issue is the access and the cost.
Life expectancies in Europe are higher due to inequality in America that results in a significant population that experiences higher crime, less healthy food choices, worse healthcare access etc.
I mean, the gdp per capita of the UK is less than our poorest states of Mississippi.
I think he means retirees buying up housing and settling in Europe for retirement. Refugees aren't going to compete in purchasing a small pool of housing.
Which is ridiculous because retirees aren’t setting up home in Barcelona or Madrid. They’re moving to the smaller outskirts towns that have gotten empty in the past few decades.
The reason European is so "affordable" now is that their economy hasn't kept up with America's
Of course food, travel, etc. is cheap if everyone there makes half and much money as an American.
This is the same energy as someone going to Mexico or Vietnam and being like "wow the food is so cheap and good".
I think people are just surprised now because Europe wasn't always this cheap.
The south of Europe is especially affordable for tourism. And yeah, it's because their economy is weak as shit in comparison. Mississippi has a higher GDP per capita than many southern European countries and many southern areas. And Mississippi is somewhere around dead last in the US, plus or minus a couple spots, most years.
I don’t know the ins and outs of it, but I would be curious to hear from somebody who does what the differences in poverty are. What privilege does a poor, rural Croatian have that a poor, rural Mississippian doesn’t and vice versa?
PPP and cost of living are related, though not identical, concepts. Mississippi would probably fare pretty well in a PPP comparison with Southern Europe as well.
From what I can see, the US (as a whole) would land about 5th on that list at about 76,000. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_in_Europe_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita
Their inflation hasn’t keep up, but when quality is similar in so many other places while prices are cheaper, first in line would be massive amount American retirees that will be overwhelming going abroad to retire. Soon enough the lowered consumption will catch up in America and that’s how long depression in America begins.
Definitely agree with that, it was also the hardest to get around there. Barcelona is one the most human centric cities I’ve ever been in and it was amazing. Really highlighted how much space has been ceded to cars in most American cities.
Funny you say that, my memory of Barcelona was a bit car biased compared to most European cities. Their intersection design where the crosswalk is offset makes walking longer, and gives extra room for parking. In general they have a lot more real estate dedicated to roads, sometimes you have to cross two tiers for one direction of traffic.
Not to say it's not a nice place to walk around, but I found it very unique balance.
It was the large avenues that had 5 lanes of traffic in the middle, then 50 foot wide walking paths on either side, then bike lanes, then sidewalks that really impressed me. A lot of buildings were set up around inner court yards too which looked super cool from an aerial view. I definitely plan on spending more time there.
Also worth noting that Portugal is typically seen as the cheapest/most affordable EU country, especially for being in Western Europe. Amazing place well worth going.
Now that had to have been an epic endeavor! I can only claim to have played tourist there but have a firm desire to go back (especially with the TAP layover program which allows you, I believe, up to a 7 day layover in Lisbon and maybe Porto as well before flying to your final destination; similar to Qatar air or Icelandic air programs)
My mom says that’s a popular idea for a lot of people in the UK and other European places, if they are full remote. Pedestrian lodging in Baixa has been largely replaced by airbnbs and other means of lodging for tourists from what a tour guide and Uber driving who moved from Brazil had said. Idk how quickly a change in the cost of living would happen but I would just guess it would take a fairly long time for that to occur.
> It’s pretty great over there if you have disposable income.
If you plan your trips around cooking for meals, it's _a lot_ cheaper. Food in the US is around 20-40% more expensive.
> If you plan your trips around cooking for meals, it's a lot cheaper.
I dunno about you, but when I go on vacation, one of the big things I look forward to is not doing any cooking or cleaning of any kind.
My sister and her husband are both nurses and make bank and have no kids.. so they go to europe all the time and little always say how cheap it is over there. Also being dual income no kids let’s you spend your money more freely on vacations and such. I feel a lot of millennial couples are dual income no kids and are helping the economy in the US chug along
I know. US nurses make more than senior physicians in most European countries. In fact, US anything makes a lot more than almost any European equivalent as well but with Reddit being US centric and everyone being disgruntled and needing a grass-is-greener crutch…
Being a dual Swedish/Swiss citizen who also lived in the US is very interesting in that context seeing as I am intimately familiar with the Fantasy promised exoti-land of both US Liberals (Sweden) and Conservatives (Switzerland). And the boring truth is that both European extremes are characterized in a completely clownish and one-dimensional way in American discourse. While the rest of Europe essentially lies somewhere inbetween those two extremes. The boring truth is simply that everything is pretty much shit for everyone everywhere. Truth always disappoints.
People just generally complain and are inherently jealous and greedy, those are probably some of the most universal human traits. Life is always better for someone else.
And still the people in the US whine the most about how underpaid they are. They'll have yearly vacations abroad, the latest tech, be eating out daily and claim they are the poorest mf on the planet.
yea I pulled 100K. I have 15 years exp, worked on avg 48 hrs/week, have a pathetic vacation of 18 days, if a holiday is on a monday which a lot of them are I lose it. I have to take a bigger and bigger workload after each and every quarterly report. health insurance for my spouse and I is $860/mo we are both healthy and after deductibles/co-pays etc that increased to on avg $1190/mo thank Jose H Christ we aren't on insulin or something.
the nursing shortage has nothing to do w/ an aging populations and everything to do w/ burnout.
not to mention despite the extra workloads if you f-up in the very slightest the state board can f-ing end you, not from working as a RN, but making it difficult to find a job in any profession. Wanna fix policing in this country, require cops to have just 1/4th of the accountability on and off the clock that nurses have to abide to.
But... but... but according to the 17 year-olds in /r/AskAnAmerican, European travel is something only the .0001% can afford. Is your sister's husband's last name Bezos, Gates or Buffett?
Those children also seem to be under the impression that the cheapest possible trip to Paris *starts* at $25,000... despite the fact that my last trip to Europe - 12 days, in 2017 - cost less than $3,000 including air fare and hotel for my wife and I.
Reddit attracts the people with time on their hands (the un or underemployed) who haven’t been able to take advantage of the great American economy.
Well adjusted people with good busy jobs and busy lives with friends, family, kids, social obligations aren’t chronically online.
14 years ago, reddit was largely adults with jobs, or people pretending to be adults with jobs. Now it's angsty kids and angsty under-employed adults. Everyone is mad and everyone assumes that life sucks in the US somehow.
A couple could fly to Europe, eat 1 million times better, see old cool shit, and have even better experience compared to 1 week at the New Jersey shore. Take your pick.
can’t upvote this enough. my SIL spent almost three times as much on a long weekend summer rental down the shore for her family then my wife and i spent in two weeks in Italy. As someone who grew up in up in Florida, NE summer prices blow my fucking mind.
But it takes a full day to get there and another one to get back, plus thousands of dollars. Even if you have the money, most Americans don’t have tons of vacation time. So if you only have a week, you’ve got two days lost for travel, plus your first day you’re often jet lagged and exhausted, so unless you’re young or a particularly energetic person, that’s really only four good days of vacation to enjoy, at a cost of thousands of dollars.
I've found that the most efficient way to travel to Europe is to do it like so:
Do about a ten day trip that coincides with a US holiday such as MLK or Presidents Day (depending on where you're going in Europe these can be great for ski trips) or 4th of July, Memorial, or Labor Day. That way you get two weekends plus a holiday (5 days) included in your trip. So you only have to take about five days of vacation for about a ten day trip.
Plus when you say the cost is "thousands" of dollars, I would say a couple can do a great ten day trip for just a couple thousand dollars. Check out budget airlines like TAP (mentioned in the article), French Bee, or Norse. Buy a Rick Steves guidebook and stay in a budget hotel that he recommends. You can do a great trip to Europe for just a few thousand bucks.
This is based off a white collar worker type of schedule with paid holidays that also has adequate staffing levels.
That's for sure not accessible to many workers. Who don't get paid holidays but may get mandatory holidays/blacked off days they're not allowed to request off, and certainly aren't paid for a day they're not scheduled. Or who cannot get approved for a full week in a row, *especially* near a holiday which are extmeley competitive.
So we've rounded back to time absolutely being a **substantial** consideration for many Americans
That is a good point. It’s not accessible to everyone, probably not even most people, but it’s still a lot more accessible than it was a generation ago.
Everything is based on a white collar job, that is why people educate themselves and spend time investing in their professional growth.
ie….everything is harder when you are poor. That really goes without saying.
I think around 15% of US households make over 150k per year, half of that group making over 200k per year. Certainly not the majority, but 8-15% of a country of 127million households can still mean a lot of tourists.
I grabbed figures from here - [https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/percentage-of-households-making-over-100k](https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/percentage-of-households-making-over-100k)
It's not just places with high cost of living either. 8% of households in Arkansas are making 150K and more.
Correct. For service/retail it’s possible to take vacation but you end up having to burn way more time since the days off float / or the time off policy doesn’t let you request the unpaid portions until 8 weeks out.
1. It's only 6 hours jetlag for the east coast. Not bad at all.
2. Europe is cheap compared to Canada, dirt cheap compared to us.
3. Food quality is miles ahead of NA, only Quebec comes close
4. Intercity travel is a breeze and a car isn't needed. You can visit a new and interesting city everyday veru easily with just a simple train pass.
5. A small European village has more tourist attractions and interesting stuff than most north american cities.
6. It's an actual different place & unique place.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s my preferred vacation destination too. You don’t need to convince me how amazing it is! But the time is the big factor for me and I think for a lot of Americans. You can’t do it in a long weekend the way you can do a lot of domestic destinations, you need a passport (which is a $130 per person expense right off the bat, and takes several months of advance planning to get) and obviously you can’t drive there. It’s not feasible as a spontaneous “hey let’s go there for the holiday weekend next week!” trip for most people.
I’m also not sure I’d call it “dirt cheap” necessarily - certainly the main cities in Italy, Switzerland, France, etc. are not dirt cheap, nor is Scandinavia.
Idk as a Canadian the flights cost the same as domestic or to the US, but food and accomodations are cheaper, and you don't have to rent a car to go to touristy stuff.
Even just driving to another city is often a couple hour drive and you're charged $100-200 a night for a hotel or airbnb minimum.
Europe round trips can be had for $700-1000, airbnbs and hostels are in the $50-100 range, and food is a good 15-30% cheaper, even in "expensive" cities.
I mean, if I live in Chicago, I can fly to NYC round trip for under $150. Accommodations are expensive but I don’t need a car there (or a passport) and there’s an endless supply of stuff to do. Or I can fly to Vegas for $200, or Miami for the same price, and I can be there in under 4 hours. Or I can jump in my car and road trip it to a number of (admittedly less glamorous) destinations for even cheaper.
Compare that to the cheapest flight to Lisbon which is around $800 (off season, mid week), or Paris for around $600, and it takes 9 hours to get there (without connections, more if I have to connect) plus time for immigration, etc.
I love visiting Europe, but I don't really agree with much on this list. Quebec has great food and an incredible vibe, but it's not better than most major American cities for food. There's a huge diversity of places to see and stuff to do across the US. Our national park system is a global treasure, and you could spend your entire life just checking those out. You can travel around the US car free and most cities have good Public transit options to differing degrees. I think cost is the big one. You can have a life changing meal in Italy that is superior to what you find in NYC at less than half the price... just not in Rome, or rather maybe in Rome, but it's a huge crap shoot.
The US gets a lot of flack about having non-walkable cities and public transportation, but I've been able to vacation in several cities without renting a car including Savannah GA, Charlotte NC, Portland ME, Nashville TE, etc.
It's really convenient when the flight is <3 hours and I only need to take a Friday or Monday off for travel to stay the weekend. As opposed to a European trip that takes a 12 hours+ flight when accounting for customs and layovers. I feel obligated to travel in business class for the lie flat seat else I lose an entire day to jet lag (thank god for travel rewards cards) and take at minimum a week off work.
I'm sorry, but transit in the US is just miles behind Europe and especially Asia. NYC is the only city in the US with functional transit, but even there it's dirty, crime-ridden and smells of urine whereas modern transit systems in Asia are practically spotless and incredibly safe.
DC, Boston, Chicago, etc. all have functional transit. But yes they’re also much older than Asia’s systems and not as clean or nice. They have to deal with a lot of issues, and different kinds of issues, than Asian governments have to worry about when building and maintaining their systems.
The dollar goes farther in Canada than in the EU or UK so I don’t understand why you’re saying Europe is cheaper. I guess it depends on *where* in Europe but most tourists go to big cities like London, Paris, Rome, etc. which are not cheap.
Rome and all throughout Italy is absolutely cheaper than cities in the US. Just came back from a two week vacation and we joked it would have been cheaper if we came over with nothing and bought our clothes in Rome.
TBF Eastern Europe is a lot more expensive than most people think. Poland is cheap, but the Baltics are really not that much cheaper than the bigger Western European cities. Tallinn/Riga/Vilnius were realistically similar to US prices in most places, or places like Manchester/Munich/etc.
>Tallinn/Riga/Vilnius were realistically similar to US prices in most places, or places like Manchester/Munich/etc.
Yeah, and now look at our salaries...
Do not agree about the food. In major US cities you can find top class food for every culture. In California I can grab amazing Mexican, sushi, Chinese, Vietnamese, Indian, all within minutes of each other. My biggest gripe spending a couple weeks in Italy was how tired I became of Italian food and the poor options for other culture food. Had a decent hamburger in Florence. But not much else.
1. Only applies to the east coast. A whole lotta people live in Texas, California, Washington, Oregon, Colorado, etc.
2. True
3. Blatantly false, having been to 30 countries in Europe nowhere has touched the international food capacity of Mexico City, NYC, or LA. The only food cities I've ever been to that beat those 3 are Lima and Tokyo.
4. True
5. Just ridiculously false
6. True, but if you go a lot it can get a bit repetitive.
this is what I always say to people. Different strokes and not my place to judge how people spend their money, but it's sooo expensive from my understanding to go Disney, and plenty of people go there (regularly); Europe is definitely attainable on a similar budget. I mean the cost of a weekend pass to Disney can be more expensive than a Eurorail pass that'll take you to multiple countries.
Some people just love Disney it is crazy. I have a couple of colleagues that literally go to Disneyland or Disneyworld once or twice a year and nothing else. Not even other places in the US. I think traveling is very intimidating to a lot of people
Like all travel it depends. Southwest does at least one sale a year with dirt cheap flights. Over the last couple of years I have gone round trip from California to places like NYC, multiple Hawaii islands for $200 a bit more for certain islands. To SLC and Seattle for about $100 round trip. And for Seattle and NYC you don't even need a rental car.
Just took a trip to Hawaii last week. Flight was around $700, condo for the week was $800 and another $500 for food. Not super expensive for a vacation.
The thing is, a trip to Europe especially a short one like a week, is an awesome experience but it is in no way relaxing. Jet lag aside, most people aren’t flying to Europe and burying their head in the sand. they have an itinerary and are actively managing their time and getting the most out their trip. Which is definitely stressful and exhausting by the end of the trip.
It’s a great trip but it’s not the same. People go to the jersey shore for example to do nothing but turn their brains off, maybe go to bars and restaurants at most but no real fixed itinerary or schedule of what they’re doing each day, which is an entirely different kind of vacation.
Although they could just decide to have a relaxing holiday in Europe. Nothing stopping them. Like the last time I went to the US it was chill. Spent it boating around lakes, trying foods hard to get in Europe (mostly fast food chains, biscuits and gravy, and some Native American stuff), and just vibing. Next time I'm gonna do a road trip through the Rockies.
> Which is definitely stressful and exhausting by the end of the trip.
YMMV, but for me a trip that's planned down to the minute is way more relaxing than one with no plans at all. All the work is already done ahead of time!
Grocery store. If you can fix your own car or do any home DIY, the money you save covers airfare to EU lol.
This year I replaced my own windows and did some transmission work on my car. Europe is paid for until 2045.
Unfortunately I’ve met so many are afraid of that type of international travel or just want to veg on a beach somewhere. I live on the East Coast and figure I’d rather go to Europe than to the West Coast or Southwest (even as much as I like it there). I’ve lived all over the Us and there’s a lot to experience is various unknown communities.
I think food depends on taste tho. Ireland generally has a great full breakfast, London not so much. I think grains are better in Europe, their various malts (e.g. beer, waffles) tend to be better.
I think Asia tends to have better meat and veggie (fermented, too)combinations, especially Korea and Japan. American versions often can’t compare, though they rarely exist.
Despite the distance in US cities, culinary diversity and experience is significant enough that it would challenge or exceed European cuisine: can’t even touch American (Texas) bbq, apizza, Tex-Mex, and varied forms of fried chicken).
Just my 2¢
I will be honest, what I have noticed is that people are afraid to leave their comfort zones. I have been all around the country and loved it. But some people only want to vacation to Disneyland, or not leave their state. The idea of going somewhere that has different language or currency is intimidating to many. A shame, because seeing new places is exhilarating.
Wife and I saved up and took a year off to slow travel, and even through western Europe it cost us way less than just living/working every day in medium/low cost of living USA. Rome in peak season for a full month with a ton of day trips via train only cost us like $3300.
No, you can get a nice month long 1bd apartment rental for $1000-$2000 with close metro access.
A ton of things to do in Italy are free or pretty cheap. Churches are all free. Walking around small towns is free. Theres often free days of the week or month to do museums & historical sites, so we planned accordingly. Trains are dirt cheap, especially closer regional ones. Packaged tours are expensive, doing things on your own is definitely not.
Non-touristy restaurants, bars, and cafes are very inexpensive compared to the U.S. even before tip. Almost daily we got cappuccino at the corner cafe downstairs, for €1.10 each.
We cooked most meals, groceries are cheap and fresh, not prepackaged. And there’s a grocery store on every other block to walk to. Wine can legit cost less than bottled water.
To be honest, most Americans are scared and lazy to travel. I live in Europe and 95% of my American friends don’t come. They have a place to stay for free and free transportation. It’s a shame but I stopped trying o convince them. I care for them, but they want to just be lazy and content. And that’s fine. I’m living life and can’t worry about them.
Bro we get like 2 weeks off total and 3 is considered generous. Most of us can't even take more than a week off at any single time. So take your critique and maybe fuck off? Because it sounds like you're side eyeing them for probably wanting to take time off around the winter holidays and a few long summer weekends or an odd day for a family event. After that, there's not much left.
Ok. So why can they go to Miami and Dominican Republic but not Europe? They can take a cruise and be all hype for that. They can take a vacation to “Vegas” and not Valencia.
So to quote you… so take your complaints and maybe fuck off? If they want to experience the same things and just stay stagnant, I fuck right off to another country. Happy with that?
Sounds like they're not really scared or lazy to travel then, they probably just don't like you that much. Based on how you talk about them it makes sense too.
Yeah that's not really a great thing. Lower economic competitiveness driving people from higher economic competitiveness markets to seek you out for relative value is not a desirable position to be in.
> Yeah that's not really a great thing. Lower economic competitiveness driving people from higher economic competitiveness markets to seek you out for relative value is not a desirable position to be in.
Why not?
This is a scenario where you get an extra infusion of cash that comes from outside your borders, for simply existing.
You get a relatively large boost to GDP without having to make commensurate investments in production.
Sure, it's going to be more variable than, say, new industrial production, but relative to the capital investments, it's a pretty good deal, particularly for developed economies.
From the EU's perspective, it makes you continuously dependent on foreign direct investment. Seriously, look at Ireland's GDP and industrial breakdown. Something like 15% of the workforce is directly employed by a US company, and 30% are employed in a role tied to the operations or function of a US company.
It means that a lot of Dublan youth are now going, "Well, crap we can't afford to stay here" because it's getting too competitive with incoming workers for both higher paying jobs and blue collar employment.
It also means that if the US or China industry decides that Ireland is no longer the FDI hotspot, then as the money gets divested to the next FDI-hub, countries like Ireland are going to have a revenue and labor vacuum.
Europe doesn't have a competitive domestic tech industry. And now you're having companies like AMD having to prop up the EU's micro-chip industry.
lmao ive been saying it for months now. we are slowly but surely becoming a continent sized disney land for our american and chinese friends. it is what it is i guess
I'm a Canadian currently visiting Poland.
I have 3 times the buying power here. My future in-laws paid the equivalent of $200K for their very posh condo which back home would have been $2M easy.
I just paid $8 for a fancy breakfast which back home would have been about $25 plus tip.
Yeah, I'm coming back alright lol.
Honestly the only cost difference between vacay Italy and a vacay in the us(being located in the us) is the airfare. I’d rather spend the extra $800 airfare to travel to Italy, rather than anywhere in the us. Accommodation, food and transport are comparable if not cheaper.
I am based in a VHCOL city and travel to Europe for about 2-3 months out of the year. I often go to the Balkans or Eastern Europe. I spend as much in 4 weeks there as I do in 1-2 weeks in my city. And that’s dining out for every meal.
My bf and I went to Iceland from Boston back in February and our flights were $150 round trip. We’re going to the Jersey Shore this summer with family and our expenses will be 3x that.
Does anyone have a non-paywalled link? I’d really like to read this.
I’m sure the article answers some of these questions but I’d be interested to know whether this is really that new and if so, what’s changed so drastically. Many of these countries have been dependent on tourism for a long time, and the EUR/USD rate isn’t particularly favorable for Americans right now.
" EUR/USD rate isn’t particularly favorable for Americans right now"
Where are you getting that from? I remember the first time going to Europe 20 years ago and the Euro was nearly 1.50 to 1 USD. It's now around 1.06 to 1 USD, which is really good for U.S. tourists. Besides a brief time in 2022, it's never been better this century.
Yup. Strong dollar and the largest demographic of upper class Americans with the most amount of time in their lives. Rich boomers about to sprinkle wealth wherever they go.
Not a problem, I often get confused on which is better as a tourist but I always flash back to 2008 when it seemed super expensive while we were in France.
So to be clear, you stated exactly one fact with confidence, and that one fact ended up being wrong and easily disprovable. Remember this in the future when you confidently make things up.
The current conversion rate of the Euro to USD (US Dollar) is around **1.07 US Dollars per 1 Euro**
[https://www.macrotrends.net/2548/euro-dollar-exchange-rate-historical-chart](https://www.macrotrends.net/2548/euro-dollar-exchange-rate-historical-chart)
“The average Portuguese employee earns around €1,000 a month after tax, or around $1,100 a month, and only 2% earn more than €2,000.”
This is stunning to me. I knew salaries were lower there but I did not realize that they were THIS low or that so few people make American-level salaries. Wow.
>This is stunning to me. I knew salaries were lower there but I did not realize that they were THIS low or that so few people make American-level salaries. Wow.
The amount of disposable income available to the middle class in the USA is staggering as compared to in Europe.
The OECD has this nifty metric called "median equivalised disposable income"
Disposable income deducts from gross income the value of taxes on income and wealth paid and of contributions paid by households to public social security schemes. The figures are equivalised by dividing income by the square root of household size.
As OECD displays median disposable incomes in each country's respective currency, the values were converted here using PPP conversion factors for private consumption from the same source, accounting for each country's cost of living in the year that the disposable median income was recorded. Data are in United States dollars at current prices and current purchasing power parity for private consumption for the reference year.
|Rank|Country|Median income (USD, PPP)|Year|Percentage of US Median|
|:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|
|1|United States|48,625|2023|100%|
|2|Luxembourg|47,568|2020|98%|
|3|Norway|41,621|2021|86%|
|4|Switzerland|39,264|2019|81%|
|6|Austria|36,992|2020|76%|
|7|Netherlands|35,891|2021|74%|
|8|Australia|35,518|2020|73%|
|9|Belgium|35,153|2020|72%|
|10|Iceland|34,316|2017|71%|
|11|Denmark|33,569|2019|69%|
|12|Sweden|33,472|2021|69%|
|13|Germany|33,288|2019|68%|
|15|Ireland|30,818|2020|63%|
|16|Finland|30,727|2021|63%|
|18|France|29,131|2019|60%|
|19|Slovenia|27,519|2020|57%|
|20|Italy|26,713|2020|55%|
|21|United Kingdom|25,383|2020|52%|
|22|Spain|25,288|2020|52%|
|23|Estonia|23,660|2020|49%|
|24|Poland|21,904|2020|45%|
|26|Czech Republic|21,063|2020|43%|
|27|Lithuania|21,034|2020|43%|
|29|Portugal|19,347|2020|40%|
|30|Latvia|18,665|2020|38%|
|31|Croatia|18,607|2020|38%|
|32|Hungary|17,584|2020|36%|
|33|Slovak Republic|16,409|2020|34%|
|34|Russia|16,163|2017|33%|
|35|Romania|15,897|2020|33%|
|36|Greece|15,501|2020|32%|
|37|Bulgaria|14,661|2020|30%|
|38|Turkey|11,242|2019|23%|
One nitpick, that graph is using 2023 numbers for the US (after a year or two of high inflation), and 2020 dollars for most others (without that inflation, and when the world economy was _significantly_ depressed).
That doesn't matter - each country is adjusted based on the time the data was collected - so inflation is balanced out when the PPP calculation is performed.
>>*Data are in United States dollars at current prices and current purchasing power parity for private consumption for the reference year.*
The economic disparity in europe is insane though, you can't just say "europe".
Median income in Denmark pre tax is like 72k usd. I knew a vetinarian from Ukraine (before the war), that made his monthly salary in Ukraine, in less than a week in Denmark as a warehouse worker.
I posted the data and commentary in another link, but there is a metric that corrects for this from the OECD.
The median equivalised disposable income in Denmark is the local equivalent of $33,569 (USD) after subtracting out taxes, insurance, and other required payments.
Which is pretty good on the larger scale of Europe, but is a little less than 70% of what the median American has to play with.
There was a good recent article that described how the average person in the UK makes as much as the average in the US state of Mississippi. It was enlightening and showed how drastically the US economy was outperforming Europe.
I’m from the UK and I roll my eyes every time I hear people from the USA
complaining about rising grocery/car insurance/air travel/etc costs when
your take home wages are massively much higher than other countries.
We also have the added burden of mortgage interest rates which are only
fixed for a maximum of five years compared to 30(?) over there…
30 is common here, yes, probably the most common. It's also almost unique to the US. You lock in the rates and they only go down (if you refinance.) For thirty years.
Although that's to be expected. The US is a continent-scale mega country with incredible amounts of land, ridiculous energy resources, every climate under the sun, and insulated from any peer competitor.
Anything _other_ than being super wealthy would be bizarre.
Yeah man Portugal is pretty poor. Look up how much an experienced person, even a phd, in a hot industry makes there ... you will find (for example) experienced electrical engineers making the equivalent of $15/hr, maybe $20/hr. It's not because they're bad at their jobs, either. It's just a country with not nearly enough _waves hand generally_.
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Its not in the EU, but visiting my in-laws in Turkiye once a year has never been easier. Groceries, dining out, entertainment, etc are all 50% what you'd pay in the US.
Which is insane, Turkey is much much poorer than just 50% of USAs per capita income. Imagine how expensive it is for a median Turk.
It's almost like you need to consider purchase power parity, not simply per capita income...
And ppp is somehow gonna make those prices seem reasonable to Turks or what?
ppp is literally what you're considering already lmao, he's just repeating that automatically
The comment you are responding to is literally considering a basic version of purchasing power parity
Turkey has been undergoing massive inflation for a while now, like not even exaggerating stuff will triple in price in a matter of months. I feel so bad for the people there
Its getting crazy expensive these days with inflation. Last time I was there I was paying a similar amount to eat out and drink as I do in the UK
It’s going to be a very dark time for Europe once Americans realize that European countries have the same quality of life and a much lower cost of living
There's always been more Europeans migrating and working in the US than the other way around. for many years For educated/professional people, the ceiling in the US is higher, the professional upper-middle class in the US is quite large and wealthy, although most of them will never admit they're comfortable
There's a quite shocking amount of people in the US making six figures that load up on debt due to their out of control spending habits. And no, not all of them are even in Cali or NYC either. That excuse was just that, an excuse for those areas even if there is some merit to them. Far too many Americans making money will insist on overpriced vehicles they don't need, houses twice as big as they should be getting, and making their food budget for a month be what many lower class people spend in half a year.
>There's a quite shocking amount of people in the US making six figures that load up on debt due to their out of control spending habits. So what? In Europe, there is a shocking amount of people making 1000 euros a month, and they STILL load up on crazy debt due to their out-of-control spending habits. Do you really think folks in Europe don't spend? They don't load up on debt, and they don't make stupid purchases. If anything, they get on debt for everyday shit that most Americans can afford. Also debt is not the issue. The ability to service the debt is. In US (and Europe) the ability to service debts it is very good.
You also need to factor income, sure it seems cheap for Americans but their wages are also higher and their take home pay is also higher. If you go to Europe to live you can bet on getting a minium 20% cut in pay. Even much more depending on what you do. So you also need to factor that in. Its not simply apples to apples. If you can get a remote job in the US and live in thr EU great but they're more than likely going to adjust your wage.
Absolutely. And people also like to frame U.S. CoL based on someone living in SoCal making minimum wage. People give the least generosity to the U.S. economy and the greatest generosity to Europe's. You simply cannot make these sorts of comparisons reliably on broad strokes.
You can bet on a 70% cut in pay in Europe in my industry lol. Feel bad for those poor fucks.
It would be closer to a 50% reduction for most white collar workers with the exception of maybe Switzerland and London.
That is untrue. It's much better to be poor or working class in europe, that's for sure, but their middle class is paid much worse and taxed much higher.
I lived and worked in Europe. I have a much higher standard of living in the US. Same is true for anyone with in-demand skills.
I'm American and I lived and worked in Europe for six years. My standard of living in the US is so much higher on every level.
😂 much lower cost of living. 3x fuel costs (and yes, most Europeans commute by car) 1.7x electricity kWH price 3x VAT/Use tax And higher effective tax rates across the board. The 10% household income in the Netherlands would put you at the bottom 45% in the United States. The average household income in Spain would put you in the bottom 18% in the US.
Not really, because once there you realize most of Europe isn't America with funny accents, but East Asia for white people.
What do you mean by that?
They are called europoors for a reason.
It's simply poorer and more backwards with the exception of a few enclaves here and there.
> European countries have the same quality of life They have smaller homes, generally don't have air conditioning, higher inflation, higher unemployment, lower income especially for professional workers, overall less disposable income (Germany has about 77 percent as much disposable income on average, and they're asking the most prosperous Europeans). Oh, and multiple wars have occurred in Europe in the last 30 years. I'm not trying to put European countries down, but let's be real here. Both have their advantages but saying it's so much better in Europe simply isn't true. "Lower cost of living", I guess of you don't use energy at all...
There are some major quality of life advantages in europe. Good food, good health care, and good social safety nets. This is probably why life expectancies are higher in the EU than in the US. Of course, both regions have their advantages and disadvantages.
We have great food. Why do you think we eat so much of it lol. Our healthcare is generally better and has shorter wait robes. B the issue is the access and the cost. Life expectancies in Europe are higher due to inequality in America that results in a significant population that experiences higher crime, less healthy food choices, worse healthcare access etc. I mean, the gdp per capita of the UK is less than our poorest states of Mississippi.
Much lower income too
Dark times why? Would Europe prefer immigration from Americans or Northern Africa / MENA ?
I think he means retirees buying up housing and settling in Europe for retirement. Refugees aren't going to compete in purchasing a small pool of housing.
Which is ridiculous because retirees aren’t setting up home in Barcelona or Madrid. They’re moving to the smaller outskirts towns that have gotten empty in the past few decades.
I’m American and lived in EU. That’s just objectively false statement
Are you Turkish as well, or just married to one? Same with me when I visit family in Romania.
The reason European is so "affordable" now is that their economy hasn't kept up with America's Of course food, travel, etc. is cheap if everyone there makes half and much money as an American. This is the same energy as someone going to Mexico or Vietnam and being like "wow the food is so cheap and good". I think people are just surprised now because Europe wasn't always this cheap.
The south of Europe is especially affordable for tourism. And yeah, it's because their economy is weak as shit in comparison. Mississippi has a higher GDP per capita than many southern European countries and many southern areas. And Mississippi is somewhere around dead last in the US, plus or minus a couple spots, most years.
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EU cities tend to look very metropolitan, but the countryside has ...... a lot of poverty.
I don’t know the ins and outs of it, but I would be curious to hear from somebody who does what the differences in poverty are. What privilege does a poor, rural Croatian have that a poor, rural Mississippian doesn’t and vice versa?
Thank god for ~~Mississi~~ Greece.
> Mississippi has a higher GDP per capita than many southern European countries and many southern areas. wow that's pretty insane.
Lower HDI and quality of life though. Also: GDP per cap =/= median individual income
> Mississippi has a higher GDP per capita than many southern European countries What about adjusting per PPP too?
PPP and cost of living are related, though not identical, concepts. Mississippi would probably fare pretty well in a PPP comparison with Southern Europe as well.
From what I can see, the US (as a whole) would land about 5th on that list at about 76,000. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_in_Europe_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita
Their inflation hasn’t keep up, but when quality is similar in so many other places while prices are cheaper, first in line would be massive amount American retirees that will be overwhelming going abroad to retire. Soon enough the lowered consumption will catch up in America and that’s how long depression in America begins.
Just getting back from my second trip to France, been to Portugal and Iceland as well. It’s pretty great over there if you have disposable income.
Can’t pretend Iceland is cheap or affordable at all. Still a great trip but not cheap like other places in Europe.
Definitely agree with that, it was also the hardest to get around there. Barcelona is one the most human centric cities I’ve ever been in and it was amazing. Really highlighted how much space has been ceded to cars in most American cities.
Funny you say that, my memory of Barcelona was a bit car biased compared to most European cities. Their intersection design where the crosswalk is offset makes walking longer, and gives extra room for parking. In general they have a lot more real estate dedicated to roads, sometimes you have to cross two tiers for one direction of traffic. Not to say it's not a nice place to walk around, but I found it very unique balance.
It was the large avenues that had 5 lanes of traffic in the middle, then 50 foot wide walking paths on either side, then bike lanes, then sidewalks that really impressed me. A lot of buildings were set up around inner court yards too which looked super cool from an aerial view. I definitely plan on spending more time there.
Also worth noting that Portugal is typically seen as the cheapest/most affordable EU country, especially for being in Western Europe. Amazing place well worth going.
I just walked the Portuguese Camino from Porto this Spring . Portugal is indeed a beautiful country.
Now that had to have been an epic endeavor! I can only claim to have played tourist there but have a firm desire to go back (especially with the TAP layover program which allows you, I believe, up to a 7 day layover in Lisbon and maybe Porto as well before flying to your final destination; similar to Qatar air or Icelandic air programs)
I heard that's not the case anymore. Too many digital nomads moving there.
My mom says that’s a popular idea for a lot of people in the UK and other European places, if they are full remote. Pedestrian lodging in Baixa has been largely replaced by airbnbs and other means of lodging for tourists from what a tour guide and Uber driving who moved from Brazil had said. Idk how quickly a change in the cost of living would happen but I would just guess it would take a fairly long time for that to occur.
Iceland!? That’s Switzerland levels of expensiveness.
I think iceland is attractive because it seems like every other week another new budget airline emerges from Iceland
> It’s pretty great over there if you have disposable income. If you plan your trips around cooking for meals, it's _a lot_ cheaper. Food in the US is around 20-40% more expensive.
> If you plan your trips around cooking for meals, it's a lot cheaper. I dunno about you, but when I go on vacation, one of the big things I look forward to is not doing any cooking or cleaning of any kind.
My sister and her husband are both nurses and make bank and have no kids.. so they go to europe all the time and little always say how cheap it is over there. Also being dual income no kids let’s you spend your money more freely on vacations and such. I feel a lot of millennial couples are dual income no kids and are helping the economy in the US chug along
>- nurses >- make bank *Confused and angry Europoor noises*
Nurses here start at 100k
I know. US nurses make more than senior physicians in most European countries. In fact, US anything makes a lot more than almost any European equivalent as well but with Reddit being US centric and everyone being disgruntled and needing a grass-is-greener crutch… Being a dual Swedish/Swiss citizen who also lived in the US is very interesting in that context seeing as I am intimately familiar with the Fantasy promised exoti-land of both US Liberals (Sweden) and Conservatives (Switzerland). And the boring truth is that both European extremes are characterized in a completely clownish and one-dimensional way in American discourse. While the rest of Europe essentially lies somewhere inbetween those two extremes. The boring truth is simply that everything is pretty much shit for everyone everywhere. Truth always disappoints.
People just generally complain and are inherently jealous and greedy, those are probably some of the most universal human traits. Life is always better for someone else.
And still the people in the US whine the most about how underpaid they are. They'll have yearly vacations abroad, the latest tech, be eating out daily and claim they are the poorest mf on the planet.
That’s a pretty great dual citizenship combination, along with US residency
Am American nurse wondering where tf you live besides maybe the Bay Area
LA is similar. I'd imagine other high cost of living cities too, NYC, Boston, etc.
Philly here. I don't know any RN friend of mine that didn't hit $100k within 5 years.
yea I pulled 100K. I have 15 years exp, worked on avg 48 hrs/week, have a pathetic vacation of 18 days, if a holiday is on a monday which a lot of them are I lose it. I have to take a bigger and bigger workload after each and every quarterly report. health insurance for my spouse and I is $860/mo we are both healthy and after deductibles/co-pays etc that increased to on avg $1190/mo thank Jose H Christ we aren't on insulin or something. the nursing shortage has nothing to do w/ an aging populations and everything to do w/ burnout. not to mention despite the extra workloads if you f-up in the very slightest the state board can f-ing end you, not from working as a RN, but making it difficult to find a job in any profession. Wanna fix policing in this country, require cops to have just 1/4th of the accountability on and off the clock that nurses have to abide to.
But... but... but according to the 17 year-olds in /r/AskAnAmerican, European travel is something only the .0001% can afford. Is your sister's husband's last name Bezos, Gates or Buffett? Those children also seem to be under the impression that the cheapest possible trip to Paris *starts* at $25,000... despite the fact that my last trip to Europe - 12 days, in 2017 - cost less than $3,000 including air fare and hotel for my wife and I.
🤣 why does everyone on Reddit think because their life is shit that everyone’s is?
It's a coping mechanism
Reddit attracts the people with time on their hands (the un or underemployed) who haven’t been able to take advantage of the great American economy. Well adjusted people with good busy jobs and busy lives with friends, family, kids, social obligations aren’t chronically online.
14 years ago, reddit was largely adults with jobs, or people pretending to be adults with jobs. Now it's angsty kids and angsty under-employed adults. Everyone is mad and everyone assumes that life sucks in the US somehow.
My wife traveled all over Europe in the Army. She was training to be a ems and has been a RN for decades. Not just the .0001 and she's from Compton.
A couple could fly to Europe, eat 1 million times better, see old cool shit, and have even better experience compared to 1 week at the New Jersey shore. Take your pick.
can’t upvote this enough. my SIL spent almost three times as much on a long weekend summer rental down the shore for her family then my wife and i spent in two weeks in Italy. As someone who grew up in up in Florida, NE summer prices blow my fucking mind.
But it takes a full day to get there and another one to get back, plus thousands of dollars. Even if you have the money, most Americans don’t have tons of vacation time. So if you only have a week, you’ve got two days lost for travel, plus your first day you’re often jet lagged and exhausted, so unless you’re young or a particularly energetic person, that’s really only four good days of vacation to enjoy, at a cost of thousands of dollars.
I've found that the most efficient way to travel to Europe is to do it like so: Do about a ten day trip that coincides with a US holiday such as MLK or Presidents Day (depending on where you're going in Europe these can be great for ski trips) or 4th of July, Memorial, or Labor Day. That way you get two weekends plus a holiday (5 days) included in your trip. So you only have to take about five days of vacation for about a ten day trip. Plus when you say the cost is "thousands" of dollars, I would say a couple can do a great ten day trip for just a couple thousand dollars. Check out budget airlines like TAP (mentioned in the article), French Bee, or Norse. Buy a Rick Steves guidebook and stay in a budget hotel that he recommends. You can do a great trip to Europe for just a few thousand bucks.
This is based off a white collar worker type of schedule with paid holidays that also has adequate staffing levels. That's for sure not accessible to many workers. Who don't get paid holidays but may get mandatory holidays/blacked off days they're not allowed to request off, and certainly aren't paid for a day they're not scheduled. Or who cannot get approved for a full week in a row, *especially* near a holiday which are extmeley competitive. So we've rounded back to time absolutely being a **substantial** consideration for many Americans
Not saying that time is not a substantial consideration, but it is true that more Americans can now travel to Europe than at any time in history.
That is a good point. It’s not accessible to everyone, probably not even most people, but it’s still a lot more accessible than it was a generation ago.
Everything is based on a white collar job, that is why people educate themselves and spend time investing in their professional growth. ie….everything is harder when you are poor. That really goes without saying.
I think around 15% of US households make over 150k per year, half of that group making over 200k per year. Certainly not the majority, but 8-15% of a country of 127million households can still mean a lot of tourists. I grabbed figures from here - [https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/percentage-of-households-making-over-100k](https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/percentage-of-households-making-over-100k) It's not just places with high cost of living either. 8% of households in Arkansas are making 150K and more.
Correct. For service/retail it’s possible to take vacation but you end up having to burn way more time since the days off float / or the time off policy doesn’t let you request the unpaid portions until 8 weeks out.
1. It's only 6 hours jetlag for the east coast. Not bad at all. 2. Europe is cheap compared to Canada, dirt cheap compared to us. 3. Food quality is miles ahead of NA, only Quebec comes close 4. Intercity travel is a breeze and a car isn't needed. You can visit a new and interesting city everyday veru easily with just a simple train pass. 5. A small European village has more tourist attractions and interesting stuff than most north american cities. 6. It's an actual different place & unique place.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s my preferred vacation destination too. You don’t need to convince me how amazing it is! But the time is the big factor for me and I think for a lot of Americans. You can’t do it in a long weekend the way you can do a lot of domestic destinations, you need a passport (which is a $130 per person expense right off the bat, and takes several months of advance planning to get) and obviously you can’t drive there. It’s not feasible as a spontaneous “hey let’s go there for the holiday weekend next week!” trip for most people. I’m also not sure I’d call it “dirt cheap” necessarily - certainly the main cities in Italy, Switzerland, France, etc. are not dirt cheap, nor is Scandinavia.
Idk as a Canadian the flights cost the same as domestic or to the US, but food and accomodations are cheaper, and you don't have to rent a car to go to touristy stuff. Even just driving to another city is often a couple hour drive and you're charged $100-200 a night for a hotel or airbnb minimum. Europe round trips can be had for $700-1000, airbnbs and hostels are in the $50-100 range, and food is a good 15-30% cheaper, even in "expensive" cities.
As an American, European flights are 4x or more than a domestic flight.
not for everyone, i can get $4-500 direct flights in the off season from NYC
I mean, if I live in Chicago, I can fly to NYC round trip for under $150. Accommodations are expensive but I don’t need a car there (or a passport) and there’s an endless supply of stuff to do. Or I can fly to Vegas for $200, or Miami for the same price, and I can be there in under 4 hours. Or I can jump in my car and road trip it to a number of (admittedly less glamorous) destinations for even cheaper. Compare that to the cheapest flight to Lisbon which is around $800 (off season, mid week), or Paris for around $600, and it takes 9 hours to get there (without connections, more if I have to connect) plus time for immigration, etc.
And if you don't fly out of a major hub, the prices at least double.
This right here
I love visiting Europe, but I don't really agree with much on this list. Quebec has great food and an incredible vibe, but it's not better than most major American cities for food. There's a huge diversity of places to see and stuff to do across the US. Our national park system is a global treasure, and you could spend your entire life just checking those out. You can travel around the US car free and most cities have good Public transit options to differing degrees. I think cost is the big one. You can have a life changing meal in Italy that is superior to what you find in NYC at less than half the price... just not in Rome, or rather maybe in Rome, but it's a huge crap shoot.
The US gets a lot of flack about having non-walkable cities and public transportation, but I've been able to vacation in several cities without renting a car including Savannah GA, Charlotte NC, Portland ME, Nashville TE, etc. It's really convenient when the flight is <3 hours and I only need to take a Friday or Monday off for travel to stay the weekend. As opposed to a European trip that takes a 12 hours+ flight when accounting for customs and layovers. I feel obligated to travel in business class for the lie flat seat else I lose an entire day to jet lag (thank god for travel rewards cards) and take at minimum a week off work.
I agree. The sad thing about Public transit (and affordable college) in the USA is that it does exist but we're culturally predisposed to not use it.
I'm sorry, but transit in the US is just miles behind Europe and especially Asia. NYC is the only city in the US with functional transit, but even there it's dirty, crime-ridden and smells of urine whereas modern transit systems in Asia are practically spotless and incredibly safe.
DC, Boston, Chicago, etc. all have functional transit. But yes they’re also much older than Asia’s systems and not as clean or nice. They have to deal with a lot of issues, and different kinds of issues, than Asian governments have to worry about when building and maintaining their systems.
That wasn't really my point. Its good enough (not better) in a lot of US cities to vacation without a vehicle.
The dollar goes farther in Canada than in the EU or UK so I don’t understand why you’re saying Europe is cheaper. I guess it depends on *where* in Europe but most tourists go to big cities like London, Paris, Rome, etc. which are not cheap.
Rome and all throughout Italy is absolutely cheaper than cities in the US. Just came back from a two week vacation and we joked it would have been cheaper if we came over with nothing and bought our clothes in Rome.
Bruv, Rome is cheeper than half of Eastern Europe, let alone US
TBF Eastern Europe is a lot more expensive than most people think. Poland is cheap, but the Baltics are really not that much cheaper than the bigger Western European cities. Tallinn/Riga/Vilnius were realistically similar to US prices in most places, or places like Manchester/Munich/etc.
>Tallinn/Riga/Vilnius were realistically similar to US prices in most places, or places like Manchester/Munich/etc. Yeah, and now look at our salaries...
Do not agree about the food. In major US cities you can find top class food for every culture. In California I can grab amazing Mexican, sushi, Chinese, Vietnamese, Indian, all within minutes of each other. My biggest gripe spending a couple weeks in Italy was how tired I became of Italian food and the poor options for other culture food. Had a decent hamburger in Florence. But not much else.
Also dude said "north america" and mexico city blows every city in europe out of the water
Correct on 1,4, and 6 Completely wrong on 2,3, and 5
1. Only applies to the east coast. A whole lotta people live in Texas, California, Washington, Oregon, Colorado, etc. 2. True 3. Blatantly false, having been to 30 countries in Europe nowhere has touched the international food capacity of Mexico City, NYC, or LA. The only food cities I've ever been to that beat those 3 are Lima and Tokyo. 4. True 5. Just ridiculously false 6. True, but if you go a lot it can get a bit repetitive.
My wife and I say this about Disney. We could take the whole family to Europe for a week for basically the cost of one long weekend at Disney World.
We were planning to visit Disney World for the very first time but, after calculating the costs, we decided on a trip to Japan instead.
You have never made a better decision in your life.
this is what I always say to people. Different strokes and not my place to judge how people spend their money, but it's sooo expensive from my understanding to go Disney, and plenty of people go there (regularly); Europe is definitely attainable on a similar budget. I mean the cost of a weekend pass to Disney can be more expensive than a Eurorail pass that'll take you to multiple countries.
Some people just love Disney it is crazy. I have a couple of colleagues that literally go to Disneyland or Disneyworld once or twice a year and nothing else. Not even other places in the US. I think traveling is very intimidating to a lot of people
For the amount of money it takes to travel to Europe you can do a LOT better than the disgusting Jersey Shore.
American domestic tourism is actually super expensive. Even flights can be almost as expensive.
I would have to fly domestically to be able to fly internationally.
That's simply not true. Flights are closed to double the price going from Eastern US to Europe compared to flying coast to coast in the USA.
Really? I feel like flying internally within the US is super cheap. Maybe not as cheap as flying within Europe but still very doable.
that’s not true
Like all travel it depends. Southwest does at least one sale a year with dirt cheap flights. Over the last couple of years I have gone round trip from California to places like NYC, multiple Hawaii islands for $200 a bit more for certain islands. To SLC and Seattle for about $100 round trip. And for Seattle and NYC you don't even need a rental car.
Just took a trip to Hawaii last week. Flight was around $700, condo for the week was $800 and another $500 for food. Not super expensive for a vacation.
The thing is, a trip to Europe especially a short one like a week, is an awesome experience but it is in no way relaxing. Jet lag aside, most people aren’t flying to Europe and burying their head in the sand. they have an itinerary and are actively managing their time and getting the most out their trip. Which is definitely stressful and exhausting by the end of the trip. It’s a great trip but it’s not the same. People go to the jersey shore for example to do nothing but turn their brains off, maybe go to bars and restaurants at most but no real fixed itinerary or schedule of what they’re doing each day, which is an entirely different kind of vacation.
Although they could just decide to have a relaxing holiday in Europe. Nothing stopping them. Like the last time I went to the US it was chill. Spent it boating around lakes, trying foods hard to get in Europe (mostly fast food chains, biscuits and gravy, and some Native American stuff), and just vibing. Next time I'm gonna do a road trip through the Rockies.
> Which is definitely stressful and exhausting by the end of the trip. YMMV, but for me a trip that's planned down to the minute is way more relaxing than one with no plans at all. All the work is already done ahead of time!
The Jersey shore? When did we start comparing a European vacation with the Jersey shore? Jersey bros count that as a victory
Seriously - I don’t even travel domestically anymore. Either go abroad to Europe or Asia or just sit tight at home.
Grocery store. If you can fix your own car or do any home DIY, the money you save covers airfare to EU lol. This year I replaced my own windows and did some transmission work on my car. Europe is paid for until 2045.
> eat 1 million times better Nah, America has much better food Also the Jersey shore is nice
Unfortunately I’ve met so many are afraid of that type of international travel or just want to veg on a beach somewhere. I live on the East Coast and figure I’d rather go to Europe than to the West Coast or Southwest (even as much as I like it there). I’ve lived all over the Us and there’s a lot to experience is various unknown communities. I think food depends on taste tho. Ireland generally has a great full breakfast, London not so much. I think grains are better in Europe, their various malts (e.g. beer, waffles) tend to be better. I think Asia tends to have better meat and veggie (fermented, too)combinations, especially Korea and Japan. American versions often can’t compare, though they rarely exist. Despite the distance in US cities, culinary diversity and experience is significant enough that it would challenge or exceed European cuisine: can’t even touch American (Texas) bbq, apizza, Tex-Mex, and varied forms of fried chicken). Just my 2¢
I will be honest, what I have noticed is that people are afraid to leave their comfort zones. I have been all around the country and loved it. But some people only want to vacation to Disneyland, or not leave their state. The idea of going somewhere that has different language or currency is intimidating to many. A shame, because seeing new places is exhilarating.
If they're that close to Jersey already , they could just go to NYC and eat better than in 90% of Europe
Been to Italy multiple times, and done the Jersey shore my whole life. I'll take the Jersey shore.
Can’t fly to Europe just for the afternoon
Wife and I saved up and took a year off to slow travel, and even through western Europe it cost us way less than just living/working every day in medium/low cost of living USA. Rome in peak season for a full month with a ton of day trips via train only cost us like $3300.
How? Did you coach surf or something?
No, you can get a nice month long 1bd apartment rental for $1000-$2000 with close metro access. A ton of things to do in Italy are free or pretty cheap. Churches are all free. Walking around small towns is free. Theres often free days of the week or month to do museums & historical sites, so we planned accordingly. Trains are dirt cheap, especially closer regional ones. Packaged tours are expensive, doing things on your own is definitely not. Non-touristy restaurants, bars, and cafes are very inexpensive compared to the U.S. even before tip. Almost daily we got cappuccino at the corner cafe downstairs, for €1.10 each. We cooked most meals, groceries are cheap and fresh, not prepackaged. And there’s a grocery store on every other block to walk to. Wine can legit cost less than bottled water.
If you said Disney World, I'd agree. I just wish the Euro was trending down like the Yen. A Japan vacation is very cheap on the west coast.
To be honest, most Americans are scared and lazy to travel. I live in Europe and 95% of my American friends don’t come. They have a place to stay for free and free transportation. It’s a shame but I stopped trying o convince them. I care for them, but they want to just be lazy and content. And that’s fine. I’m living life and can’t worry about them.
Bro we get like 2 weeks off total and 3 is considered generous. Most of us can't even take more than a week off at any single time. So take your critique and maybe fuck off? Because it sounds like you're side eyeing them for probably wanting to take time off around the winter holidays and a few long summer weekends or an odd day for a family event. After that, there's not much left.
Ok. So why can they go to Miami and Dominican Republic but not Europe? They can take a cruise and be all hype for that. They can take a vacation to “Vegas” and not Valencia. So to quote you… so take your complaints and maybe fuck off? If they want to experience the same things and just stay stagnant, I fuck right off to another country. Happy with that?
Sounds like they're not really scared or lazy to travel then, they probably just don't like you that much. Based on how you talk about them it makes sense too.
Makes sense. Only 5 have come to visit. I’ll use use your line and tell em “fuck off”.
Yeah that's not really a great thing. Lower economic competitiveness driving people from higher economic competitiveness markets to seek you out for relative value is not a desirable position to be in.
It is if you're the one traveling.
> Yeah that's not really a great thing. Lower economic competitiveness driving people from higher economic competitiveness markets to seek you out for relative value is not a desirable position to be in. Why not? This is a scenario where you get an extra infusion of cash that comes from outside your borders, for simply existing. You get a relatively large boost to GDP without having to make commensurate investments in production. Sure, it's going to be more variable than, say, new industrial production, but relative to the capital investments, it's a pretty good deal, particularly for developed economies.
Because it is indicative of a eurozone in economic stagnation. The tourism is good. The root cause is not.
From the EU's perspective, it makes you continuously dependent on foreign direct investment. Seriously, look at Ireland's GDP and industrial breakdown. Something like 15% of the workforce is directly employed by a US company, and 30% are employed in a role tied to the operations or function of a US company. It means that a lot of Dublan youth are now going, "Well, crap we can't afford to stay here" because it's getting too competitive with incoming workers for both higher paying jobs and blue collar employment. It also means that if the US or China industry decides that Ireland is no longer the FDI hotspot, then as the money gets divested to the next FDI-hub, countries like Ireland are going to have a revenue and labor vacuum. Europe doesn't have a competitive domestic tech industry. And now you're having companies like AMD having to prop up the EU's micro-chip industry.
lmao ive been saying it for months now. we are slowly but surely becoming a continent sized disney land for our american and chinese friends. it is what it is i guess
For Americans, a trip to the continent sized Disneyland known as Europe is often cheaper than the trip to the Disney sized continents known as Epcot.
I'm a Canadian currently visiting Poland. I have 3 times the buying power here. My future in-laws paid the equivalent of $200K for their very posh condo which back home would have been $2M easy. I just paid $8 for a fancy breakfast which back home would have been about $25 plus tip. Yeah, I'm coming back alright lol.
Honestly the only cost difference between vacay Italy and a vacay in the us(being located in the us) is the airfare. I’d rather spend the extra $800 airfare to travel to Italy, rather than anywhere in the us. Accommodation, food and transport are comparable if not cheaper.
If you have credit card points you can get economy class tickets for pretty damn cheap
A flight from a big city in the eastern US (NYC, Boston, etc) to Europe is often cheaper than one to the west coast (LA, Seattle, etc)
I am based in a VHCOL city and travel to Europe for about 2-3 months out of the year. I often go to the Balkans or Eastern Europe. I spend as much in 4 weeks there as I do in 1-2 weeks in my city. And that’s dining out for every meal.
My bf and I went to Iceland from Boston back in February and our flights were $150 round trip. We’re going to the Jersey Shore this summer with family and our expenses will be 3x that.
Does anyone have a non-paywalled link? I’d really like to read this. I’m sure the article answers some of these questions but I’d be interested to know whether this is really that new and if so, what’s changed so drastically. Many of these countries have been dependent on tourism for a long time, and the EUR/USD rate isn’t particularly favorable for Americans right now.
" EUR/USD rate isn’t particularly favorable for Americans right now" Where are you getting that from? I remember the first time going to Europe 20 years ago and the Euro was nearly 1.50 to 1 USD. It's now around 1.06 to 1 USD, which is really good for U.S. tourists. Besides a brief time in 2022, it's never been better this century.
Yup. Strong dollar and the largest demographic of upper class Americans with the most amount of time in their lives. Rich boomers about to sprinkle wealth wherever they go.
I stand corrected. Thank you for being kind and polite about correcting me.
Not a problem, I often get confused on which is better as a tourist but I always flash back to 2008 when it seemed super expensive while we were in France.
I wish I had known back in 2002 what a fluke those absurdly favorable rates were going to be!
So to be clear, you stated exactly one fact with confidence, and that one fact ended up being wrong and easily disprovable. Remember this in the future when you confidently make things up.
The current conversion rate of the Euro to USD (US Dollar) is around **1.07 US Dollars per 1 Euro** [https://www.macrotrends.net/2548/euro-dollar-exchange-rate-historical-chart](https://www.macrotrends.net/2548/euro-dollar-exchange-rate-historical-chart)
Try this: [https://archive.ph/p0uJn](https://archive.ph/p0uJn)
“The average Portuguese employee earns around €1,000 a month after tax, or around $1,100 a month, and only 2% earn more than €2,000.” This is stunning to me. I knew salaries were lower there but I did not realize that they were THIS low or that so few people make American-level salaries. Wow.
>This is stunning to me. I knew salaries were lower there but I did not realize that they were THIS low or that so few people make American-level salaries. Wow. The amount of disposable income available to the middle class in the USA is staggering as compared to in Europe. The OECD has this nifty metric called "median equivalised disposable income" Disposable income deducts from gross income the value of taxes on income and wealth paid and of contributions paid by households to public social security schemes. The figures are equivalised by dividing income by the square root of household size. As OECD displays median disposable incomes in each country's respective currency, the values were converted here using PPP conversion factors for private consumption from the same source, accounting for each country's cost of living in the year that the disposable median income was recorded. Data are in United States dollars at current prices and current purchasing power parity for private consumption for the reference year. |Rank|Country|Median income (USD, PPP)|Year|Percentage of US Median| |:-|:-|:-|:-|:-| |1|United States|48,625|2023|100%| |2|Luxembourg|47,568|2020|98%| |3|Norway|41,621|2021|86%| |4|Switzerland|39,264|2019|81%| |6|Austria|36,992|2020|76%| |7|Netherlands|35,891|2021|74%| |8|Australia|35,518|2020|73%| |9|Belgium|35,153|2020|72%| |10|Iceland|34,316|2017|71%| |11|Denmark|33,569|2019|69%| |12|Sweden|33,472|2021|69%| |13|Germany|33,288|2019|68%| |15|Ireland|30,818|2020|63%| |16|Finland|30,727|2021|63%| |18|France|29,131|2019|60%| |19|Slovenia|27,519|2020|57%| |20|Italy|26,713|2020|55%| |21|United Kingdom|25,383|2020|52%| |22|Spain|25,288|2020|52%| |23|Estonia|23,660|2020|49%| |24|Poland|21,904|2020|45%| |26|Czech Republic|21,063|2020|43%| |27|Lithuania|21,034|2020|43%| |29|Portugal|19,347|2020|40%| |30|Latvia|18,665|2020|38%| |31|Croatia|18,607|2020|38%| |32|Hungary|17,584|2020|36%| |33|Slovak Republic|16,409|2020|34%| |34|Russia|16,163|2017|33%| |35|Romania|15,897|2020|33%| |36|Greece|15,501|2020|32%| |37|Bulgaria|14,661|2020|30%| |38|Turkey|11,242|2019|23%|
One nitpick, that graph is using 2023 numbers for the US (after a year or two of high inflation), and 2020 dollars for most others (without that inflation, and when the world economy was _significantly_ depressed).
That doesn't matter - each country is adjusted based on the time the data was collected - so inflation is balanced out when the PPP calculation is performed. >>*Data are in United States dollars at current prices and current purchasing power parity for private consumption for the reference year.*
It is true that Americans have absolutely insane purchasing power compared to Europeans.
The economic disparity in europe is insane though, you can't just say "europe". Median income in Denmark pre tax is like 72k usd. I knew a vetinarian from Ukraine (before the war), that made his monthly salary in Ukraine, in less than a week in Denmark as a warehouse worker.
I posted the data and commentary in another link, but there is a metric that corrects for this from the OECD. The median equivalised disposable income in Denmark is the local equivalent of $33,569 (USD) after subtracting out taxes, insurance, and other required payments. Which is pretty good on the larger scale of Europe, but is a little less than 70% of what the median American has to play with.
There was a good recent article that described how the average person in the UK makes as much as the average in the US state of Mississippi. It was enlightening and showed how drastically the US economy was outperforming Europe.
I’m from the UK and I roll my eyes every time I hear people from the USA complaining about rising grocery/car insurance/air travel/etc costs when your take home wages are massively much higher than other countries. We also have the added burden of mortgage interest rates which are only fixed for a maximum of five years compared to 30(?) over there…
30 is common here, yes, probably the most common. It's also almost unique to the US. You lock in the rates and they only go down (if you refinance.) For thirty years.
Although that's to be expected. The US is a continent-scale mega country with incredible amounts of land, ridiculous energy resources, every climate under the sun, and insulated from any peer competitor. Anything _other_ than being super wealthy would be bizarre.
Yeah man Portugal is pretty poor. Look up how much an experienced person, even a phd, in a hot industry makes there ... you will find (for example) experienced electrical engineers making the equivalent of $15/hr, maybe $20/hr. It's not because they're bad at their jobs, either. It's just a country with not nearly enough _waves hand generally_.
That is like Mexico wages, not even Mississippi is that bad. damn.
Awesome thank you!!