Have you ever visited a foreign country?

I know that Puerto Rico is included as a territory of the USA, but when I visited, it definitely felt like foreign country to me.
 

USA. (Michigan; Ohio; Illinois; Wisconsin; Florida)
Peru.
Ireland.
France.
Belgium.
Luxemburg
Germany.
Switzerland.
Turkmenistan.
India.
Japan.
 
According to the US State Department in 2022 about 42 percent of Americans hold a valid passport. According to Statistics Canada about 76 percent of Canadians hold a valid passport in 2022. I wonder why the difference ?
 
Magna-Carta said:
The Tourist visa was easy enough to get. I presume you mean a business visa was nightmarish?
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Yes, I was working out there. Never have I experienced anything like it. The feeling that you were somewhere where the local experience of life was soooo different from my own. It was tough to get a feeling of what it was like for native people. I don't think I ever did get it. Fascinating place though. I was in Mumbai.
 
VaughanJB said:
Yes, I was working out there. Never have I experienced anything like it. The feeling that you were somewhere where the local experience of life was soooo different from my own. It was tough to get a feeling of what it was like for native people. I don't think I ever did get it. Fascinating place though. I was in Mumbai.
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I hitchhiked across India twice, once in 1964 on my way from Europe to Australia by way of Southeast Asia and again on my way back to Europe in early 1966. I must say I will never forget the hospitality of the people in India and my experiences there. I remember once hitchhiking on a dark, lonely road at night on my way to Calcutta. Within half an hour, I was reading a bedtime story to the four-year-old daughter of a wealthy Indian family who had given me a lift and were preparing dinner for me. Another time, a Sikh family gave me a lift, and I ended up staying with them for three days. They even gave me a shotgun and had one of their workers act as a guide for me. I shot two ducks and gave one to their worker.
 
I was stationed in Germany for 18 months back in the 80s. Unfortunately, being 19, I spent most of my free time drunk and didn't see much, other than biergartens and brothels. I'd love to go back now as a civilian and see all the things I should have seen the first time.

I've also been to Italy twice for work back in the early 2000s. I haven't had good Italian food since.
 
I spent nearly 4 years in Germany, back in the 1960's. During that time, I visited several European nations, multiple times. Rather than just sitting in the barracks, drinking beer, I became a frequent weekend "tourist". I never made it to Portugal, Greece, or Norway/Sweden, or Ireland, but I went to the others as often as I could. Then, in my final year of 7 years in the USAF, I spent 1967 in Thailand. I really enjoyed experiencing different societies and interacting with the "locals".
 
Living in Turkey for 2 1/2 years was wonderful. At that time (late '60s-early 70s), the Turks loved Americans.

We were treated as honored guests everywhere we went. When we entered a mosque (very respectfully, of course), we were always greeted by the Imam and given a tour. Tea was offered. If he spoke English, we were always invited to sit down for a talk. The Imams were interested in explaining Islam and discussing what Islam and Christianity had in common.

Language was seldom a problem. If the person who wanted to talk didn't speak English (we spoke a little Turkish, but not enough for a deep discussion), a 10-year-old boy or girl from a nearby school could always be fetched to translate (English was taught in a lot of elementary schools then).

The interesting thing was that in many shops, a photo of John F. Kennedy hung beside the obligatory large portrait of Ataturk. That was always pointed out proudly and disappointment was expressed that we had, sadly, never met him in person (followed closely by "John Wayne....have you met HIM?)

I basked in that friendliness from everyone. Then we returned to the U.S. where we don't even like each other, neverless foreigners.

To an extent, I found that friendliness in India, too.
 
oslooskar said:
I hitchhiked across India twice, once in 1964 on my way from Europe to Australia by way of Southeast Asia and again on my way back to Europe in early 1966. I must say I will never forget the hospitality of the people in India and my experiences there. I remember once hitchhiking on a dark, lonely road at night on my way to Calcutta. Within half an hour, I was reading a bedtime story to the four-year-old daughter of a wealthy Indian family who had given me a lift and were preparing dinner for me. Another time, a Sikh family gave me a lift, and I ended up staying with them for three days. They even gave me a shotgun and had one of their workers act as a guide for me. I shot two ducks and gave one to their worker.
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You'd of seen/experienced a lot more than I did. I agree though, the people were amazing. It's a strange society by the standards I'm used to, and there are things that bothered me, but overall my impression was they were good people.
 
VaughanJB said:
Yes, I was working out there. Never have I experienced anything like it. The feeling that you were somewhere where the local experience of life was soooo different from my own. It was tough to get a feeling of what it was like for native people. I don't think I ever did get it. Fascinating place though. I was in Mumbai.
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I was with a friend in a village in Punjab. He has two homes there, and I stayed in one of them. There was no air conditioning except in one of the bedrooms. The rest of the home had marble floors and walls, which seemed to keep everything reasonably cool. It even had a marble staircase.

One evening, we walked to a restaurant about 200 yards outside the village. On the way, we passed a road junction that was just outside the perimeter of the village. Across the road was a dirt area where a small family lived. They were living under a tarpaulin stretched over three makeshift corrugated walls. The fourth side of the dwelling was open to the elements. A clothesline stretched out between two trees, and a young naked child was being bathed in a large plastic bowl resting on the dirt.

When in Agra, after driving away from the Fort in a taxi, we drove over the river, and on the left was a narrow shantytown that stretched along the riverbank. Half of the dwellings seemed to have large white satellite dishes. I wondered to myself, are they watching European football or international cricket?

Anyway, back to the village. I was walking through it with my friend and some of his relatives when a middle-aged man spotted me from what seemed to be some kind of small rundown industrial building. He looked at me with affection, or so it seemed. He invited us into the building. I wasn't sure what he was smoking, but he seemed completely out of it. He spoke to us in English, and continued to look at me with affection. I felt like some long-lost friend of his or something, returned from halfway around the world after decades of been away. There were no windows in this industrial building, but it became apparent to me that he and his son lived there.
 
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jujube said:
a photo of John F. Kennedy hung beside the obligatory large portrait of Ataturk.
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Unfortunately, few people outside Turkey know much about Kemal Atatürk and the progressive policies he implemented to transform Turkey into a modern, secular, and democratic country. He was truly a progressive leader with a genuine concern for the well-being and advancement of his people, so I would proudly hang a portrait of him on my living room wall any day if I had one.
 
Guadeloupe (overseas region of France) when I went with Club Med when I was young and single. Also took a singles Carnaval cruise around the same time and visited ports of call - Puerto Rico, St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands and the Dominican Republic.
 
I'm a natural home body who would never have left the 'Shire' were it not for being a navy brat and then hooking up with my globe hopping wife. When I taught I stayed home many times rather than accompany her places. As a kid we crossed the US at least three times, twice when I was old enough to appreciate it. We were stationed in Hawaii and Guam at one time, not that I remember any of that.

One trip I instigated was our 17 day trip to England in 2008 to see gardens, online friends and Lia's colleagues. Besides that we've visited France, Italy, Mexico and Japan. Fun enough but I always miss my dogs and garden when I'm away. I know Lia's been practically everywhere. I'll try to get her to post where she has been but I can't guarantee anything?

Edited to add : of course we’ve been to Canada, but only the Western provinces in my case. It isn’t that I think of Canada as more of the USA but that I think of it as too much of a larger ‘us’ to count as foreign.
 
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MarkD said:
I'm a natural home body who would never have left the 'Shire' were it not for being a navy brat and then hooking up with my globe hopping wife. When I taught I stayed home many times rather than accompany her places. As a kid we crossed the US at least three times, twice when I was old enough to appreciate it. We were stationed in Hawaii and Guam at one time, not that I remember any of that.

One trip I instigated was our 17 day trip to England in 2008 to see gardens, online friends and Lia's colleagues. Besides that we've visited France, Italy, Mexico and Japan. Fun enough but I always miss my dogs and garden when I'm away. I know Lia's been practically everywhere. I'll try to get her to post where she has been but I can't guarantee anything?

Edited to add : of course we’ve been to Canada, but only the Western provinces in my case. It isn’t that I think of Canada as more of the USA but that I think of it as too much of a larger ‘us’ to count as foreign.
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True! As an American, it might be hard for some to view Canada as a foreign country.
 
In 1986 I won a trip to Jamaica through my work. It was a great trip for my second wife and I.
In 2012 my third wife and I went to B.C. to see her two sons and some sight seeing. On the way home we came through the U.S. until we got to Sault Ste. Marie where we crossed back to Canada. Another great trip.
That's the extent of my international journeys. I don't get out much.
 
USA-New York, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, California, Hawaii, Washington St, Oregon.
Can-Quebec to BC.
Mexico
Asia-Thailand, Singapore, China, Malaysia
Europe-England, France, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Czech Rep, Slovakia, Slovenia, Poland, Hungary, Croatia, Romania, Turkey.
Middle East-UAE, Iraq, Kuwait, Afghanistan.
 

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