ljplicease | Apr. 10th, 2016

Economist article published a list of the top five and bottom five passports in terms of visa free or visa on arrival access.

Walk right in

You see articles about these lists published in Australian papers all the time because Australians like to travel. This one is slightly more interesting, because it is about the ramifications, rather than a pointless ego boosting “where is our rank, ra ra”.

In the article the author talks about what a drag it is to get a visa to enter Russia, which doesn't bode well for if my wife ever manages to chuck her Russian citizenship and we get to go visit Moscow. Long story short is that it is tricky in a corrupt and bureaucratic place as Russia for her to go back while she still has her difficult to relinquish Russian citizenship, but as an American it would be relatively safe. Apparently not painless though. The last time I had to figure out all the countries I had been to in the last X years was for my clearance so that I could be a government contractor.

My citizenships are 4th and 8th in the index. It is good to be German the article says, as they are on top of the pile. With dual US and Australian passports though, you can visit at least 176 countries, more than Germany. But it is a hassle to keep the Aussie passport up to date and it gets me into palaces (that my American passport doesn't already get me into) I am unlikely to ever visit, such as Iran or Bhutan. Oh, well except for Australia itself. It is super painless for them, but Americans are frequently surprised that they need a visa to go to Australia! The other night Lena was like “I need to get a visa” for our trip in 2017. I was like haha I don't need a visa and then I remembered I had to renew my Australian passport which is more of a hassle than the evisa because they of course have different photograph size requirements than the united states. When I am down in DC to drop off the application I can say hello to my old representative Joe Hockey who is now the ambassador to the US.