I've seen plenty of westerners including Americans complain about visa fees and what not when traveling to places where they have to pay a fee to enter. Traveling doesn't necessarily have to mean one has to be forced to blow up a chunk of their savings on unnecessary government paperwork. The kind that US asks for is absurd in itself. However, it's not just the fees, it's the unnecessary amount of paperwork, the travel to the consulate, the ridiculous rules at the consulate and a whole lot of other bullshit that follows a US visa itself works out to be very expensive. EU for example is a lot simpler and hence in the past I have spent more time in countries including EU region over US. Why should anyone unnecessarily subject to mental harassment in the form of visa formalities eh? As far as affording a trip to US, that was never a problem atleast for me. I choose not to travel there more often was because of the way they treat you at different stages of visa formalities. The country has a great potential for travel and the people there are great and I have quite a few close American friends I will spend time with when I go back. But I can't be bothered going through this shit over and over again just because the US government is shit scared about letting people into their country while they are busy blowing up others.