Dave Witcher

[Pottapaug1938]

The distribution of countries is interesting. Who's going to Afghanistan on a phony passport? Or Chad? Equatorial Guinea? Nicaragua? Laos? South Sudan? Togo? Yet there's more instances of those countries than ones people actually want to visit. Never mind that such countries have little or no border control anyway. Or that you can buy a legit passport for $100. Who's the target market for these things? The cost-conscious sovcit world traveler?

I wonder if the refusal has something to do with a refusal to enter into a contract with the United States Corporation, by means of applying for and accvepting a United States passport.

[notorial dissent]

I don't have a problem believing that there are people dumb enough to shell out $100 for one of those things I but I do have a problem believing most of them could afford to travel to most of those places, let alone why they would want to go to.

[TheNewSaint]

I wonder if the refusal has something to do with a refusal to enter into a contract with the United States Corporation, by means of applying for and accvepting a United States passport.

Good point. You never know what might create joinder in these people's sick minds. Still, as ND notes, such people would seem to have little need or ability to travel to such farflung places.

I'm guessing there's a market for these things outside the US or UK. I wonder if West Africans are buying them, given the skewed number of West African countries in the table.

[longdog]

If being admitted to a country by a half-asleep border guard is proof of validity then I can claim with the same validity that no passport is needed to enter the UK. Although I've had a passport since god was a lad I've never had to show it to re-enter the UK and only once been required to show it by those swarthy foreign types... And that was to board a flight out of the Netherlands not enter it.

[Burnaby49]

Last summer I walked across the border from Spain into Gibralter and back. Neither side had the slightest interest in documentation or identification. There's no record of my having left Spain or returned or having been to Gibralter.

[Siegfried Shrink]

It may be your habit of travelling in your House of Lords robes that has rendered your travel informal. It may also be that you accomplished most of it in the 19th C. that accounts for it.

[Siegfried Shrink]

You must have hit Gibralter at a calm period. Every now and then the Spanish get stroppy and inspect everyone, just to be awkward....since there is usually a lot of daily traffic it causes massive tailbacks.

I have entered and left Canada and Mexico without a passport, not a problem for my companions as they were US citizens, trickier for me as I am British. It was a long time ago.

[Burnaby49]

I was expecting some Spanish harassment but absolutely nothing. Only one guard in customs when we left Spain and he ignored us all. He was reading a paper. The Gibralter guy at least asked where we were from and said "welcome to Gibralter". Coming back the three guys at the Spanish border station were having coffee and just waved everybody through.

[grixit]

So how are the pubs in Gibralter?

[Burnaby49]

Not much. There may be good locals outside the tourist core of Gibralter but we didn't have the time to search them out and we were still driving anyhow. So we went to the Gibralter Arms for a pint because of the name. Just a tourist spot.

We (my long-time boozing friend and I, some of you British Quatloosians have met him) were on a month-long driving trip through Spain and Portugal. We did the entire perimeter. We hold the position that a place doesn't count as being visited unless we've had a beer in it. Which is why we once had a beer in Andorra. We went into Gibralter because it is a goal of mine to have a beer in as many different British pubs as possible and a beer in Gib counted. We're at 1,391 pubs if you count Ireland. If not then 1,318, or 1,317 if you exclude the Gibralter Arms.

[grixit]

Did you ever make it to Llivia?

[Burnaby49]

No, we were in Spain and didn't go into France. But we were close. Drove within a few kilometers of it on the horrible, horrible N-260 which goes along the Pyrenees. We'd planned to spend a night in Andorra but, when there, realized it was nothing more than a huge upper-end shopping mall. No customs issues at all going into Andorra, sailed right in without stopping. However, coming back, it was Spanish troops with machine guns checking car trunks and glove compartments.

[grixit]

Well then your tour of Spain is incomplete.

[Burnaby49]

Well then your tour of Spain is incomplete.

Using that logic visiting Llivia would mean my trip to Spain was still incomplete because I'd also have to have beers in Ceuta and Melilla.

[grixit]

Hey, that's 3 more beers!

[letissier14]

Still talking nonsense