We do need one, but Americans, as well as many other friendly countries, have what is called “Visa on Arrival” which means that you are automatically afforded a Tourist visa just for the asking and you can get it when you arrive at the country. It’s easy for Americans, who hold one of the strongest passports in the world, to forget that that visa process for many people can be a long and expensive one, even for something as seemingly mundane as tourism.
This basically adds a “pre-authorization” step once every 3 years to make sure you’re not an axe murderer or fall into any other ne’er-do-well category so they don’t have to watch you pitch a fit at immigration when you get denied entry.
Edit: I’ll add that I pay $100 every five years (Global Entry) so that I can get back into the US on my return flight with as little friction as possible.
I never had an issue getting back into the US. I remember on my first trip I was waiting at customs and the guy was grilling the lady in front of me for a while. When I walked up he just glanced at my passport, said “welcome home,” and I was good to go. Is that not typical?
Global entry means not waiting in that line at all. It’s fucking magical. I’ll definitely renew mine. Basically you just breeze through all this shit like it’s the 90s again.
Is that only for entry back into the US or also entry into destinations?
The only really bad experience I had was in Sweden. That was goat rodeo. Some British dude almost threw down over a guy trying to skip the line.
For the 1-2 times a year I may fly internationally, a 20 minute wait isn’t a huge deal. Of course I’m one of those psychos that’s shows up 3-4 hours early for a domestic flight.
We ended up having to cancel a Christmas trip to Portugal because apparently it takes more than 3.5m to get a Schengen visa with a Chinese passport that time of year. Not even with the $500 VFS Global line jumping fee.
We do need one, but Americans, as well as many other friendly countries, have what is called “Visa on Arrival” which means that you are automatically afforded a Tourist visa just for the asking and you can get it when you arrive at the country. It’s easy for Americans, who hold one of the strongest passports in the world, to forget that that visa process for many people can be a long and expensive one, even for something as seemingly mundane as tourism.
This basically adds a “pre-authorization” step once every 3 years to make sure you’re not an axe murderer or fall into any other ne’er-do-well category so they don’t have to watch you pitch a fit at immigration when you get denied entry.
Edit: I’ll add that I pay $100 every five years (Global Entry) so that I can get back into the US on my return flight with as little friction as possible.
I never had an issue getting back into the US. I remember on my first trip I was waiting at customs and the guy was grilling the lady in front of me for a while. When I walked up he just glanced at my passport, said “welcome home,” and I was good to go. Is that not typical?
Global entry means not waiting in that line at all. It’s fucking magical. I’ll definitely renew mine. Basically you just breeze through all this shit like it’s the 90s again.
Is that only for entry back into the US or also entry into destinations?
The only really bad experience I had was in Sweden. That was goat rodeo. Some British dude almost threw down over a guy trying to skip the line.
For the 1-2 times a year I may fly internationally, a 20 minute wait isn’t a huge deal. Of course I’m one of those psychos that’s shows up 3-4 hours early for a domestic flight.
US only
We ended up having to cancel a Christmas trip to Portugal because apparently it takes more than 3.5m to get a Schengen visa with a Chinese passport that time of year. Not even with the $500 VFS Global line jumping fee.