Thread: Do you own a passport?

Originally Posted by EMF

I think this discussion among Americans is interesting as to how some of them do or don't have passports:

How many Americans own passports? (Phil Gyford’s website)

Do you as Brits own passports? Me as a Finn don't need one in order to visit the countries I'm interested in.

However, if you ask me, which no-one ever does, in my opinion showing a piece of plastic at the border for two seconds can't be that bad a thing. I can't understand why the underlying notion about the news is that control-free travel is a good thing.

I couldn't understand not owning a passport. As a child, I travelled extensively and had lived (lived, not holiday) in Wales, England, Scotland, Ireland and New Zealand by the time I was 7.

As an adult, I've also travelled the world extensively. I've been to America about 6 times (plus East and West Canada). I love America and Americans. Americans have a sort of innocence that we've lost in Britain.

However, their lack of willing to travel or understand what goes on outside their world does bug me.

I remember having a conversation with a woman once. They (it was in a bar, me & the missus plus her husband) told me that they'd been to see their daughter (newly retired couple, ex-copper, late 50s) in a place called Sault Ste. Marie, which was about 50 miles away and her husband had had his yearly medical check up. I mention this only so that you know that this was a place that they had to visit regularly.

Now, this place Sault Ste. Marie, is smack back on the border of America/Canada, in fact it is so in the middle, that there is two towns, both by the same name, on each side of the border. So, the woman starts the conversation about why were we in America (holiday, touring). So I, in return ask her has she ever been abroad. I get a kind of not committal answer, so I say, surely you've been to Canada, it's a 30 second drive from where your daughter is? Nope, is the answer. So, I ask, have you never been abroad in your whole life? Oh yes, comes the answer, I've been to Las Vegas.

No, I didn't correct her, I just mentally shook my head.

Originally Posted by lankou

It takes freetime and money to travel. Other than that, I would not go to America, even if someone paid for me to have an all expenses paid holiday.

On what basis?
Have you ever been there?
It's a big country.

I've been a fair few times and to different locations.
From my experiences, the attitudes differ from place to place.
But I think that's the case for many countries.

I've had the opportunity, and sometimes the obligation, to travel to distant parts.
A few places stick in my mind because they were breathtakingly spectacular. The Great Karoo, Taroko Gorge, the Sahara desert, Elijay in the north Georgia Mountains....
But these are places rather than countries.
Given the opportunity, and I might well get it, I'd go back to them all.
And there are places that I've been that been that I'd avoid if I could.
London, Liverpool, New York, Kayseri, Taipei, Denkil in up the jungle Malaysia..........

My point is that, in dismissing an entire country out of hand, you blind yourself to much of what it has to offer.

Originally Posted by lankou

How long have you got? 1/2 the population are creationists in a country that has atomic weapons, 1/2 the population are officially poor, and any country that can fool people into buying overpriced heaps of scrap like Harley Davidsons I wish to avoid. (Buy the Dream. Ride the Nightmare.)

Ever read anything by Samuel Clemens?