> which is just such a transparent lie
Let's give it a generous read, though. Your life will be more interesting, in all likelihood, if you travel a lot (I can see a few narrow exceptions, but not the point). However.
If you don't leave the US, you are limited to one absolutely huge country that has pretty much every kind of subtropical to alpine climate, landscape, etc., that you can imagine. You don't need a passport to pick up and go whenever you like, and - and this really mattered in the immediate post-COVID world - they can't keep you from coming back home. I took my first ever trip to Hawaii right after they opened back up. It wasn't my first choice of destination - it's a long way from me, it's very expensive once you're there, even compared to the Caribbean - but since it's part of the US, I couldn't get stuck there the way I could in Mexico or the Caribbean. A lot of those resorts, especially in purpose-built tourist areas like Cancun or Cabo, were offering free accomodation if you failed your COVID test and had to wait out a quarantine. I'm sure it wasn't going to be the same room you had booked for your stay, but they were desperate to get the money flowing back in.
Going to Europe or Asia is a whole other thing. Not only is the culture different, but a lot of little details that might not be apparent at first glance. For someone who's used to being self-sufficient and just figuring it out, not so scary - but if you really don't know any of the local language, it's not trivial. I'd love to go to Japan, for example, but it's a long damned way, you can't even read a lot of the signs, and Japanese addresses are... uniquely formed. I'd feel like I had wasted a lot of money if I just went there and winged it, whereas in Europe I'm comfortable with (written) Spanish, Portuguese, and French, at least at the level you need to figure things out roughly. So now I need to find a guide or guides that I can hire for a week or two, pay for all their expenses as well as their salary, and at least occasionally navigate a sensible but immense transit system with all sorts of unusual quirks.
I could probably figure something out using Google Translate and have a good time - on my own. With my wife in tow, that's just not going to happen. She has a terrible sense of direction and has needed me to walk her three or four blocks pointing out landmarks along the way just to make sure she could get to the nearest pharmacy. There's no way she would have done the kind of trips I did when young, where I landed with no cell phone, no hotel reservations, and no particular plan, all alone.