To travel or not to travel

I found this blog post from Roger Ebert this morning. Apparently he ran across a statistic that only 10% of Americans had ever traveled to a different country. He says:

This is the richest and least-traveled of "developed" nations, and I have a feeling many Americans thank heaven every day that they have never had occasion to leave it. But this will not be a column boasting about my travels to every continent except Australia and Antarctica, and how as a wee lad I saved up my 75-cent an hour salary and boarded a DC-6 that took me to London by way of Gander, Reykjavík and Aberdeen. No, not even though I just googled Antarctica and this is all I found on the page: "stu is a legend and the good guy has cheap sales." That piece of internet vandalism, no doubt created by a friend of Stu's, was authored (I somehow know) by an American [1] who has never walked three steps outside his own state--of mind. I am enlisting a cyber-posse to track him down and airlift him to the South Pole with a hooded sweatshirt bearing the legend "I'm With Stupid" and an arrow pointing to a penguin. We will leave him with two cans of Ensure and a match.

Dig that condescending tone? Look I'm a traveler too. If I had money and time (and less family obligation), I'd be out there seeing different parts of the world. Every time I've had the chance to do so, I've grabbed it.
But I know people that don't care to travel. It has nothing to do with their American state of mind. It's more because they like more control over their situation than travel, especially extensive travel, provides. Or it has to do with them being very happy with their hobbies here in the states. Or some other reason that doesn't have to do with mixing with foreigners.
Ebert continues by talking to a friend of his who is very well traveled and wealthy enough to live in Oahu and 'summer' in Cape Cod. It should be an obvious point that travel is easier for those with money. It's easier to fund your trips, easier to find time to go and (maybe most importantly) easier to get out of any real jams. Ebert doesn't seem to notice any of this.
Another obvious point is that travel to other countries is much easier for other parts of the world. If you're in Europe then you only need a short car, train or plane ride to get somewhere else. Now that the EU has easy travel between member nations, you don't even have to worry about passports for large areas. The US is obviously different.
Another point is that you can find just about any kind of trip within the US's borders. You want natural beauty? Try this list of Natural Parks in the US. There are some specific things that we can't match (the Great Barrier Reef springs to mind) but we can compete pretty well.
Culture? Our cities are bursting with museums, symphonies and storied buildings. Again, there are culturally unique things that you can't see here but that is more a matter of taste than anything else.
Different cultures? Try New Orleans. Or Honolulu. Or Manhattan. Or Savannah. Or the Native Americans of the southwest. Or Chinatown in San Fran. Or literally hundreds of other spots. Every area of the world has pockets of culture here in the US. A short drive from my house would put me in authentic restaurants of a dozen different ethnicities.
I agree that travel can be a good thing. I love to see historic places and beautiful spots. I bet that Ebert and I would love going to many of the same places and seeing the same things. The difference is that I don't look down on people that feel differently.
Roger Ebert, you're a jerk.