I think a lot of it is a generational thing. Younger people today are part of the Internet generation; they have friends online all over the world, went to college with more than a handful of foreign students, probably have been to Europe or the Far East at least once, or know people who have, and aspire to travel.
Older folks, for the most part, were raised in an era, pre-Iron Curtain disintegration, where the USA was regarded as hands-down the "best," most civilized, cleanest, most "free" country in the world -after all, millions of immigrants came here to form a new life, so why go back to the Old World for sightseeing, when the New is so 'clearly' superior? Consequently, foreign travel, especially to Eastern Europe, former Soviet Union/Warsaw Pact countries, has a stigma attached to it. At best, it's seen among these types as stupid ("why would you want to visit a formerly-Communist shithole?") and at worst, sort of viscerally unpatriotic, like you're colluding with the enemy or somesuch. Basically, some people's worldview is out-of-touch with reality from anywhere between 20 and 150 years. International travel didn't become affordable, let alone anything close to mainstream, until rather recently.
Older folks, for the most part, were raised in an era, pre-Iron Curtain disintegration, where the USA was regarded as hands-down the "best," most civilized, cleanest, most "free" country in the world -after all, millions of immigrants came here to form a new life, so why go back to the Old World for sightseeing, when the New is so 'clearly' superior? Consequently, foreign travel, especially to Eastern Europe, former Soviet Union/Warsaw Pact countries, has a stigma attached to it. At best, it's seen among these types as stupid ("why would you want to visit a formerly-Communist shithole?") and at worst, sort of viscerally unpatriotic, like you're colluding with the enemy or somesuch. Basically, some people's worldview is out-of-touch with reality from anywhere between 20 and 150 years. International travel didn't become affordable, let alone anything close to mainstream, until rather recently.