Do you have a passport?
 

Some of us here travel abroad while others haven't left their country ever.

Do I have a passport? At the moment, no. I have one from when I was younger but it's expired and I need to get a new one, which I plan on doing this year. What did I use my passport for before? I used it to travel to the UK, Ireland and Tunisia when I was younger. And also Switzerland. When I went there as a little kid, they had not joined the Schengen agreement yet. They only joined it in 2008 or so iirc. Speaking of which...

Living in Europe, in a European Union and Schengen agreement member in particular, I don't need a passport to travel to 28 different European countries, as of today. Here's a visual explaining it:


The last two countries I've been to were Czechia and Poland. All I needed was my Citizen Card/national ID to get on my flight in Lisbon and to check-in at the hotels in Prague and Krakow, and also to enter Auschwitz-Birkenau in Oswiecim, since that place has airport level security.

...but I plan on going to Japan and South Korea someday. Not to mention I could also use the advantage of being able to have layover/connection flights in the UK, which is a country that has always required passports for foreign visitors even back when they were members of the EU. Sometimes you just can't get a good one in Paris, Amsterdam or Frankfurt, and London will be the better option in terms of schedule and price!

What about you?

I don‘t travel a lot (anymore) but I visit the UK about once a year so I have a passport.

Has it become more of a hassle to go there since Brexit? Or is it still the same experience at their airports? They've never been part of the Schengen agreement, even when they were EU members, after all...

In America you get a passport even if you don't travel, simply to have another form of ID and so ICE agents don't deport you back to Mexico. I am white so I have nothing to fear, but anyone with slightly olive skin or dark tones not having more than one ID is going to be sent to Alcatraz.

Coola, I'm praying for you, buddy.

Had one since 16, been a lot of places.

Yes I have one and like my driver’s license, I refuse to let it expire. I do need to update it though. Since marrying last July, I legally changed my name in August. Wish I could travel more. While in Japan, I planned to travel outside of it since it would’ve been easier, but had a few set backs. I didn’t even get to visit my childhood friend who was stationed in South Korea at the time. Back in 2014, my friend and I had planned on going to Spain or around the UK, but due to my work contract renewal being halved, my vacation time was as well. Instead, we traveled around Japan: Sendai > Hiroshima > Himeji > Nara > Kyoto > Osaka > Tokyo > Back home to Yamagata. After that is when I got sick and hospitalized and lived on this board for my sanity. :lol: He has his passport. It had expired but we went to the place to get him an updated one last year. I’m sure he’s grateful for your concern. :P

According to a quick Google search, only 51% of Americans have a passport. So what you're saying isn't exactly accurate. You made it sound like everyone gets one even if they don't travel.

No, and I know I prob won't be going anywhere outside of this country, so haven't bothered.

I couldn‘t tell you about airports because I always go by bus but overall it has definitely become more difficult. You didn‘t need a passport until 2020 and since last year you are also required to get an ETA (Electronic Travel Authorisation) for 16 pounds.

Hum now that you mention it, in my passport that was valid from 2001 to 2006 I only have stamps from Tunisia. None from the UK even though I went to London in 2004. Ditto for Ireland in 2005... so I guess I forgot that you didn't need a passport. Nonetheless, I remember UK security being a bit tighter at airports than other places in Europe.

Bus? You mean through the English Channel? You take a bus from Germany to France and to the UK? Isn't that rather unpractical? Wouldn't it just be cheaper to book a flight on a low cost airline like Ryanair or Easyjet instead?

Ah I think you need an ETA for South Korea. Not sure about Japan.

Btw, here's a global passport power rank: https://www.passportindex.org/byRank.php

European passports are very powerful, in general. Most are more powerful than the US passport.

Did anyone here ever travel to a country that required a visa? I've never needed a visa in my life. I've only left Europe once, to visit Tunisia as a kid with my family. We did not need visas.

Also, it looks like Portuguese citizens don't need a visa to visit China if we're staying for up to 15 days only as tourists. That would be an interesting country to visit...

Ah, shame. I think you'd be a respectful tourist abroad. You live in one of those more inland states, don't you? Americans who live far from the coast have more trouble leaving the country due to distance and more expensive flights, so I can't blame you for never leaving the US. You're kinda "trapped" there.

I guess the Americans who usually do intercontinental travels live on or near coastal areas..

America is isolated from the rest of the world across the Atlantic ocean. Unless you love traveling or have family in Europe/Asia, you're less likely to travel. You don't seem to get, if I wanted to travel to England from New York for example, a plane flight would be about 6 hours. Same for if I wanted to travel to Japan or Australia. The flights are long.

Yes, I have a passport as I need to travel semi-regularly to meet family.

The longest flight which I've been on is New Zealand to Dubai, which is 17 Hours.

Sure, but a lot of Europeans go to Thailand and/or Indonesia(Bali, in particular). Those are very long flights, also. And even if you take a connection flight, that can either mean two equally long flights or one shorter flight and one very long flight.

It would actually be interesting to know if it's more common for Europeans to travel to Thailand and Indonesia or Americans to travel to Europe.

My longest flight was from Portugal (Lisbon) to Poland (Krakow). About 4 hours long. Or perhaps Portugal to Tunisia... that's also 4+ hours long...

17 hours? That's wild. I'd rather just take a connection flight. It would be two flights but it would be cheaper and I'd not be stuck in a place for 17 hours. Plus, I assume you flew economic class. Business class is VERY expensive. Most people cannot afford it. Certainly not on a 17 hour flight.

Good thing nowadays you can use electronic devices on planes. Not like when I was a kid where I couldn't even play my Game Boy on an airplane.

My usual trip to England is work-related i.e. I accompany a large group of students for a couple of days. In that context, going by bus (and by ferry, we never take the Channel Tunnel) is very practical because it takes us to all our day trips.

Ah how cool that kids in your school get to travel abroad through school. The only chance I had to do that was a trip to Lloret del Mar in Spain after graduating HS. Which is a tradition here in Portugal for HS graduates to go there and get wasted and commit property damage in the hotels they stay at, basically.... I always thought that was stupid, so I did not go.

I know my brother and his class took a trip to Paris for a few days as celebration of their HS graduation in his school. That one seemed nice.

Holy Moses! I did Baltimore to Anchorage, AK and that was tough. About 10 hours, I think. But you went beast mode.

The flight is actually not too bad. Emirates have decent service, even in Economy class, and 17 Hours goes by decently quickly if you reisgn yourself to watching their movie library which is admittedly really vast.

That was when I was on my own though. When I went on the same flight with my 8 month old, that was true beast mode brutality.

You had to change the diaper mid-flight? That must not have been easy.

Multiple times and she wasn't feeling the best.

Nah, east coast. But the cost of travel isn't really anything I can justify these days. And the time to get to an airport in another state, since we don't have a regular one here, is a hassle.

Wouldn't have minded getting to Scotland once, but unlikely to ever happen.