Do you know anybody who has never left their home state?

[kphoger]

From Forbes Magazine, back in 2019...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/lealane/2019/05/02/percentage-of-americans-who-never-traveled-beyond-the-state-where-they-were-born-a-surprise/

I surprised by how close together these two stats are:

-- Eleven percent of survey respondents have never traveled outside of the state where they were born.

-- As many as 13 percent say they have never flown in an airplane.

It seems like the numbers should be further apart than that, doesn't it?

[DandyDan]

When I first moved here to Mason City, I knew a guy who worked at the Casey's I regularly visit who had never left Iowa. Considering Minnesota is only 25 miles away as the crow flies, I found that hard to believe, but he had zero desire to travel and all his family is either here in town or to the south. He said he once went to the state fair in Des Moines and he had no desire to go back.

[achilles765]

I know of a few people here in Texas who haven't. Mostly because they have never had any need to or haven't been able to take a trip. To be fair though, this is a huge state and there's plenty to see and do here. Hell I've only left the state once in the last 6 years.
I think here in Texas there are white a few people who have been to Mexico but never to another state.

[bing101]

The short answer for me is No, although I did have some peers in high school that had never been on a plane which I found bizarre.


For NYC, my estimate would be as follows:

25% have never left the city
25% have been to Jersey, Connecticut, or both, but never been north of the 42nd parallel
25% go upstate every summer to the Catskills or Adirondacks
25% have lived and/or traveled outside the Northeast

I think the first 25% is a little too big

Depends on sampling and district? But I agree the real numbers have to be something else if I were to get an unbiased survey on this thread.

[hotdogPi]

After HI, AK, FL, CA, and TX, what state do you think has the 6th largest percentage? Utah, maybe?

[dkblake]

After HI, AK, FL, CA, and TX, what state do you think has the 6th largest percentage? Utah, maybe?

My initial thoughts would be a large state with a fairly large segment of people unable to travel much (a.k.a. poverty). So my immediate guesses would be Mississippi, Arkansas, Idaho, or Alabama. SD and NM might also be surprisingly high due to the size of the state and relatively large population of American Indians far away from the state borders. I actually think these states would be higher than FL and CA, which are bigger but wealthier (I would guess HI, AK, and TX would be top three). 

[Bruce]

The short answer for me is No, although I did have some peers in high school that had never been on a plane which I found bizarre.


For NYC, my estimate would be as follows:

25% have never left the city
25% have been to Jersey, Connecticut, or both, but never been north of the 42nd parallel
25% go upstate every summer to the Catskills or Adirondacks
25% have lived and/or traveled outside the Northeast

40% of NYC residents are foreign-born, so this has to be way off.

[Rothman]

After HI, AK, FL, CA, and TX, what state do you think has the 6th largest percentage? Utah, maybe?

Mormons go on missions...so, probably not.

[US 89]

After HI, AK, FL, CA, and TX, what state do you think has the 6th largest percentage? Utah, maybe?

Mormons go on missions...so, probably not.

Even outside of missions, you'll be hard-pressed to find someone who hasn't been to at least one of Nevada, Idaho, or Colorado.

[DandyDan]

After HI, AK, FL, CA, and TX, what state do you think has the 6th largest percentage? Utah, maybe?

My initial thoughts would be a large state with a fairly large segment of people unable to travel much (a.k.a. poverty). So my immediate guesses would be Mississippi, Arkansas, Idaho, or Alabama. SD and NM might also be surprisingly high due to the size of the state and relatively large population of American Indians far away from the state borders. I actually think these states would be higher than FL and CA, which are bigger but wealthier (I would guess HI, AK, and TX would be top three).

Along the same lines as SD and NM, I would have to think North Dakota, Montana and Wyoming would be up there because all three have Indian reservations far from the border and all 3 are low population states as well, as is South Dakota.

[webny99]

For NYC, my estimate would be as follows:

25% have never left the city
25% have been to Jersey, Connecticut, or both, but never been north of the 42nd parallel
25% go upstate every summer to the Catskills or Adirondacks
25% have lived and/or traveled outside the Northeast

40% of NYC residents are foreign-born, so this has to be way off.

40%? That also seems high. But I was not being entirely serious with my numbers. Obviously, they're not all exactly 25%.

[webny99]

Along the same lines as SD and NM, I would have to think North Dakota, Montana and Wyoming would be up there because all three have Indian reservations far from the border and all 3 are low population states as well, as is South Dakota.

Maybe Montana because it's so big, but probably not the other two. 2 of North Dakota's 3 largest cities are right on the Minnesota line, so it's a pretty easy guarantee that at least half of the population has been to Minnesota, and that's without even considering those who have been to Montana, South Dakota, and other states.

Similar situation in Wyoming with Cheyenne and Laramie being very near the Colorado border. You have to imagine most, if not all, people from those areas have been to Denver.

[vdeane]

For NYC, my estimate would be as follows:

25% have never left the city
25% have been to Jersey, Connecticut, or both, but never been north of the 42nd parallel
25% go upstate every summer to the Catskills or Adirondacks
25% have lived and/or traveled outside the Northeast

40% of NYC residents are foreign-born, so this has to be way off.

40%? That also seems high. But I was not being entirely serious with my numbers. Obviously, they're not all exactly 25%.

Keep in mind that the only reason NYC was growing for a while was because immigration was higher than domestic outmigration.  Once immigration started to slow over the past few years, NYC started to shrink.

[kphoger]

For NYC, my estimate would be as follows:

25% have never left the city
25% have been to Jersey, Connecticut, or both, but never been north of the 42nd parallel
25% go upstate every summer to the Catskills or Adirondacks
25% have lived and/or traveled outside the Northeast

40% of NYC residents are foreign-born, so this has to be way off.

40%? That also seems high. But I was not being entirely serious with my numbers. Obviously, they're not all exactly 25%.

Not too far off, actually.

Here are the numbers according to city-data.com for both the city and the state:



Note that about 2 in 9 NYS residents are foreign-born.

[Hot Rod Hootenanny]

After HI, AK, FL, CA, and TX, what state do you think has the 6th largest percentage? Utah, maybe?

When I started at Louisiana St. one of the geography professors there stated that Louisiana had the highest population that never left their state. But that was before Katrina (and hurricane evacuation plans)

[formulanone]

After HI, AK, FL, CA, and TX, what state do you think has the 6th largest percentage? Utah, maybe?

Tough to say with Florida; there's a lot of people who have roots elsewhere, so you'd have to go rural agricultural areas or very poor areas to find those who'd never left the state.

[Rothman]

After HI, AK, FL, CA, and TX, what state do you think has the 6th largest percentage? Utah, maybe?

Mormons go on missions...so, probably not.

Even outside of missions, you'll be hard-pressed to find someone who hasn't been to at least one of Nevada, Idaho, or Colorado.

Just thought of this:  Have a friend that went to Utah State.  I forget which class it was, but a professor asked how many kids had been out of the region -- a lot of kids raised their hands.  He then asked those who had only been outside of it due to Mormon missions to drop their hands and only a few hands were left up.  Granted, this was in the late 1990s or early 2000s.  Just an interesting dynamic out there.

And, for a few decades, Mormons have more strongly contended with the problem of not really leaving the "Mormon Bubble" (especially Utah County...) and really experiencing the country and other cultures, let alone the world.  Lack of travel can lead to embarrassing ignorance...

[TheGrassGuy]

After COVID we're probably going to have a lot of these types of people...

[webny99]

After COVID we're probably going to have a lot of these types of people...

If COVID lasted for many years, maybe. But if anything people will be even more anxious to travel after it's over... at least I will be.

[bing101]

After COVID we're probably going to have a lot of these types of people...

If COVID lasted for many years, maybe. But if anything people will be even more anxious to travel after it's over... at least I will be.

Same here

[kphoger]

After COVID we're probably going to have a lot of these types of people...

If COVID lasted for many years, maybe. But if anything people will be even more anxious to travel after it's over... at least I will be.

And it's that anxiety that might lead people to avoid traveling.  Or, wait, did you mean 'eager'?   

[webny99]

... But if anything people will be even more anxious to travel after it's over... at least I will be.

And it's that anxiety that might lead people to avoid traveling.  Or, wait, did you mean 'eager'?   

I suppose, yes.
Fortunately, though, "whether you choose to retain the distinction between anxious and eager is entirely up to you".

[kphoger]

Literally.

[keithvh]

After HI, AK, FL, CA, and TX, what state do you think has the 6th largest percentage? Utah, maybe?

When I started at Louisiana St. one of the geography professors there stated that Louisiana had the highest population that never left their state. But that was before Katrina (and hurricane evacuation plans)

The LSU professor may have been chatting about a "related but different" stat --- Louisiana is number one in the nation in terms of percentage of current residents who were also born in the state.

The states that come next in that metric are Michigan, Ohio, PA, Mississippi, Wisconsin, Iowa, Alabama, Kentucky and West Virginia.  Those states clump around 2 regions.

https://www.ncdemography.org/2020/01/24/how-many-people-were-born-in-the-state-they-currently-live-in/

[frankenroad]

The states that come next in that metric are Michigan, Ohio, PA, Mississippi, Wisconsin, Iowa, Alabama, Kentucky and West Virginia.  Those states clump around 2 regions.

https://www.ncdemography.org/2020/01/24/how-many-people-were-born-in-the-state-they-currently-live-in/

I was surprised DC did not show up as among the 10 with the most transplants, so I did a quick Google search.  In 2012, the DC population that was born outside of DC was 63%, putting it third after Nevada and Florida.   I guess the study did not include DC since it's not technically a state.