can confirm. traveled a little in the UK and 90% of other Americans I met were wealthy psychos. which, makes sense because working class people in the states don't really make enough anymore to travel overseas. I went with retired family who covered hotels and helped with other costs. I've traveled in a lot of US national parks and would always meet people from the UK, IE, western Europe and they would have normal ass jobs like "teacher" and they took international trips each year. I found it instructive about the material distinction between our similar systems, because the chances of finding a teacher who can afford a trip across the Atlantic instead of of having to find a second job for the summer to make rent is low.

one couple I met in a ferry ride up around Orkney seemed ok. we were all shit-tier low level university employees going through rounds of austerity cuts, so we complained about the neoliberalization of higher education without using the theory words. they had saved up for a long time for the trip and had wanted to go for years.

but one guy was the most burger brained asshole. retirement aged, white, bourgeoisie, from Nebraska--a hinterland managed entirely for mechanized agricultural extraction and concentrated animal feeding operations--and he had the loudest nuclear takes. in one breath he would say the monarchy and its demand for new yachts is great because it creates jobs. in the next he would say the NHS is slavery. I remember the tour bus driver having the most powerfully blank look on his face about it.

I wanted to choke him out and dump him in the north sea, but I don't know if that would be ecologically OK.