Holy crap! It costs over $100 just to get a passport! So not only do you have to be wealthy in order to afford travel, but you have to be wealthy enough to afford the documents to gain permission to travel! Sheesh!
(no specific travel plans for me, but it takes about 2 months to get a passport and I know I will leave the country when the means and opportunity present themselves, and the likelihood that I'll be organized and remember to apply 2 months before departure are slim and none. besides, by the end of this year you'll need a passport even to cross the border into Mexico or Canada or the Bahamas or whatnot, so hey, why not? mark it off my list)
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You can get by without a passport with Canada still. You can with Mexico, even, if you're white and lucky. And if you think the passport fee is bad, you should see how much it costs to get a visa for most countries.
~Sid
Right, for now. (and yeah, forever if you're white and have money and blah blah blah) But word is end of this year/beginning of next they're going to start cracking down on those borders too, and a passport will be the only way to be sure you're getting across. No more spring breaks in Cancun or the Bahamas with only your drivers license.
As for the visa issues, no kidding! I've been getting a crash course from my Canadian friends - the wife, who is already in this country because her husband accepted a post doc here doesn't have permission to work. So she applied for a work visa - $180! Just to have the opportunity to maybe be allowed to work (they could still turn her down, after two months of 'processing'). No wonder there are so many illegals.
ah, $180. so cheap! my visa to hop the pond was $560. and since duncan and i hadn't lived together for 4 years prior to my applying (why that's the magic number, i've no idea), it's only for 2 years. which means another $560 for the extra year before i can apply for citizenship (and i don't even want to think how much that will cost me!). meh.
on another note, if you're ever looking for a travel excuse, oxford is a lovely destination, and i know a couple of great (well, truth be told, crap) tour guides! (hint, hint)
Bleh, they've been talking about closing the Canadian/Mexican border every year for the past five years. If they haven't yet, they're not going to start now.
$180 is awful cheap, though. While it's not as bad as K's visa costs, my visa to India was right around $500 bucks (though it's good for ten years, which rocks). It's actually cheaper for me to claim citizenship than get an extended tourist visa like I did.
~S.
That was for her work visa, I don't know how much it cost her just to have permission to stay here for two years. But I figure eventually she herself will turn up here and fill us in!
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