When can you claim to have visited a country?

[Walter]

Why do some folks consider having your passport stamped a requirement?

Back before its fall, I visited the Soviet Union. I was there two weeks on a dive trip, got to know its people, eat the food, etc. I don't know why they never stamped my passport.

 

[battles2a5]

Ya, you can't count a passport stamp. You can move freely between countries in the EU without stamping. I'm not sure why you weren't stamped in the Soviet Union, but that must have been an awesome trip. There are a lot of soviet bloc countries on my list.

 

[Tomeck]

Yeah, that would be the easy answer but if you're taking the train from Zurich to Amsterdam and you have to connect at Frankfurt, does your stepping from the train in Frankfurt and walking to another platform where you get onto the train to Amsterdam constitute a "visit" to Germany?

Yes, I count this country, I can say that I have been in this country.

In March 2008, I was in the National Park of Tierra del Fuego close to Ushuaia and I crossed the border from Argentina to Chile without immigration control, because I was in the forest without road. I don't have a Chilean stamp, but I walked really in the Chilean territory and I count.

I don't know that I count Hong Kong as China or a "country", because there are immigration controls and I have to have a Chinese visa to enter to mainland China from Hong Kong.

 

[cave_diver]

I’m not sure about the legal definition, but when I cross a border using whatever travel means I have visited that country. The exception would be if I have to pass immigration. So even if I gross a border but I’m refused entry by immigration I would say I have not visited that country.

Since Switzerland is not part of the EU, deefstes would have to use its ID or passport to cross into the EU (if somebody cares to check ID’s on the European side). So driving from Zurich or Basel to Amsterdam, you would visit at least Germany or France in the process.

 

[Tomeck]

I’m not sure about the legal definition, but when I cross a border using whatever travel means I have visited that country. The exception would be if I have to pass immigration. So even if I gross a border but I’m refused entry by immigration I would say I have not visited that country.

Since Switzerland is not part of the EU, deefstes would have to use its ID or passport to cross into the EU (if somebody cares to check ID’s on the European side). So driving from Zurich or Basel to Amsterdam, you would visit at least Germany or France in the process.

Soon, Switzerland will be a member of Schengen Agreement and immigration control between Switzerland and UE will be disappeared as Norway and Iceland. For American citizens, UE don't accept an ID, they have to have a passport.

If I am refused entry by immigration control, I can say that I have been in this country, but I am refused. Until now, I never was refused.

 

[Hoomi]

I hold the criteria of, if I had some time to do something besides sit around an airport and wait for a connecting flight, I've visited. I use that criteria for other states within the U.S. and for other countries. I've had stops and layovers in a lot of states and countries that I don't claim as having visited.

If people want to add extra criteria to establish a true "visit", that's their business and their criteria.

 

[Hank49]

Why do some folks consider having your passport stamped a requirement?

Back before its fall, I visited the Soviet Union. I was there two weeks on a dive trip, got to know its people, eat the food, etc. I don't know why they never stamped my passport.

Given that Americans officially aren't supposed to go to Cuba, I would have thought that going to the USSR back during the cold war would have also been prohibited? The mysterious Walter...no wonder all the women are after you.
I've been told Americans can get into Cuba from Belize and they just stamp a temporary piece of paper in your passport so there'll be no evidence of your visit when you get back to the US. They want the tourism.
But, I don't count it as a visit unless I at least leave the airport. I've been in Japanese, Korean, Pakistan,... airports numerous times but I've never been for a visit to any of them.

 

[Walter]

Given that Americans officially aren't supposed to go to Cuba, I would have thought that going to the USSR back during the cold war would have also been prohibited?

The prohibition of visiting Cuba has nothing to do with the Cold War, it's because of the political clout of the Cuban population in SE Florida. The US never prohibited us from visiting the USSR. I visited Soviet Russia openly and had a wonderful time. We even were able to get special permission that allowed us to travel through Vladivostok, a city that was closed to non-Soviet citizens at the time.

The mysterious Walter...no wonder all the women are after you.

They are? Why didn't you tell me this before I met the woman of my dreams?

 

[Clammy]

Wait wait.. if you have sex with a local but they are actually visiting your country at the time... can you say you visited their country? ha ha ha ha

 

[Hoomi]

Yeah, the Cuba restrictions are part of the long-running Embargo that was supposed to help unseat Fidel Castro after his communist regime deposed Batiste close to fifty years ago.

It's taken almost five decades, but by golly, it's finally working! It looks like Fidel Castro will no longer be in charge of the government of Cuba!

When you think about it, it's really an odd political stand when you consider we've pretty much normalized relations with Viet Nam, despite the brutal conflict we were engaged in with them for over ten years. We've not been engaged in a shooting war with Cuba since the Spanish American War in the 1800s, and Castro's government is by no means more vicious than many of the regimes we do have diplomatic arrangements and regular trade/tourism with.

Some expected Cuba to crumble when the Soviet Union collapsed, since part of what bolstered Cuba in defiance of the U.S. Embargo was Soviet support. It's been some 20 years since the USSR disbanded, and Cuba still hasn't crumbled.

Whether the Castro regime needs to go away or not, it should be pretty clear at this point that the U.S. Embargo isn't going to make it happen. IMNSHO, it's about time we rethink the strategy, and consider we might have a more positive effect on freedom and human rights in Cuba by opening up to them, rather than snubbing them.

BTW, this isn't a partisan political rant. Every President since JFK, both Democrat and Republican, has continued to maintain the embargo. I don't think any major candidate wants to alienate the U.S. Cuban population by seeming to be soft on the Castro government.