
Clarissa Tan
Clarissa is a solo traveler who has been to 47 countries on the backpacker’s budget, or $30/day. She loves collecting passport stamps and hates the new e-gates 🙂
Let’s play a game.
How many countries are in the world? Quick! Cover the answer below and take a guess.
The answer is… complicated. And controversial.
It depends who you ask.
The UN recognizes 193 countries. If you include the non-member observer states of Palestine and the Vatican City, then there are 195. The FIFA football list has 211 members. If we add disputed territories like Taiwan, Hong Kong, Puerto Rico and Guadeloupe, then the answer gets to somewhere around 216.
Next, how many countries has the average person visited?
Again, it depends where you’re from.
Over half of Swedish, Dutch and British people have visited 10+ countries, the majority of Americans have been to four and most Indians have never left India. The global average is one, due to large countries like China and remote islands like Tuvalu where people don’t leave. But generally, among the globetrotter community, people have traveled to an average of 18 countries.
(Now might be a fun time to count! How many countries have you been to?)
To most people, the answer to these questions is largely unimportant beyond a fun fact for trivia night. But in the backpacking world — where many of us (myself included) have the lofty goal of “visiting every country” — such highly-contested numbers are always on our minds.
Every year, Henley & Partners releases the Global Passport Ranking. Even though it’s rather difficult to change my nationality, I still look forward to it out of sheer curiosity. The five most powerful passports in the world are Singapore, France, Germany, Italy and Japan. The U.S. passport ranks eighth, with 186 visa-free destinations. Afghanistan ranks last, with only 26 visa-free countries.
Having a “powerful passport” means that you can visit more countries in the world without needing a visa or that you qualify for a visa-on-arrival. When I meet other backpackers in hostels, it’s fun to compare and see where our countries land on the list. As an American, it’s easy to default to jokes about my country’s politics, but I’m often reminded to seriously appreciate my citizenship when it comes to considering travel locations.
The most commonly-cited barrier to travel is wealth. While the two are intrinsically linked, given all the budget options nowadays, passport privilege is a hidden layer that we as travelers tend to overlook. The average person does not choose their country of citizenship; it’s something assigned at birth based on the piece of land our parents had us on.
Fundamentally, the Global Passport Ranking is a reflection of international soft power and political dynamics. It’s no surprise that the top ranking countries are all highly-industrialized members of the Global North.
If you think about it, it’s blatantly discriminative that an American gets to walk through the automated gates in France, whereas someone from a low-ranking country has to mail an expensive visa application months in advance, acquire special permission and prove they’re not “suspicious” just to take the same vacation. Likewise, why is a Singaporean allowed to visit Saudi Arabia, but Italians are not?
Every country determines their visa policies differently. The U.S. Congress accounts for factors like diplomatic relations, any histories of illegal immigration, ability for financial self-sustenance and national security. Essentially, if two countries share a positive relationship, then their citizens will enjoy visa-free travel.
Despite these justifications, the visa-granting process is never just about border control. Visa-free travel can serve as a powerful bargaining chip in international negotiations, whereas tighter visa restrictions can be used to exert political or economic pressure. For example, during the Cold War, the US imposed travel restrictions on Soviet citizens. Similarly, during the Balkans conflict in the 1990s, many Schengen countries heightened restrictions on refugees from Yugoslavia.
If it were up to me, I’d be a U.S.-China dual citizen. I speak both languages, I’ve gone to school in both, I have family in both, and I consider myself Chinese-American with equal weights on either side of the dash. But as geopolitics play out, I’m required to apply for a two-year visa everytime I want to visit China, whereas the standard American tourist visa lasts for 10 years. In order to become officially Chinese, I’d have to renounce my American passport. And why would I do that when the U.S. ranks eighth and China ranks 60th? Is American citizenship inherently more valuable than Chinese citizenship?
These are questions I consider often. My international friends always jokingly propose to me, because our marriage would give them access to the powerful US passport. And it’s true that my journey to 193 (or 195, or 216) will be much easier than for many other travelers.
Still, I don’t think we should abolish visas entirely. Think of a country like a house: you can easily invite your friends and neighbors, but you need to vet the strangers before deciding whether or not to let them in. Given that we live in a world with borders, it’s necessary to some extent to have a process monitoring the flow of visitors.
And yet, how do you expect strangers to become friends if I can’t even get my foot in the door? That’s why diplomacy exists — to foster good relationships that protect your citizens even when they’re abroad.
All this goes to say, check your visa requirements before you book a flight, and check back with me in 50 years to see if I’ve reached my goal. While there’s not much I can do besides be grateful for not having to go through customs at JFK, I do hope that, one day, visa policies will become more equitable — after all, citizens are not their government.