Nobby wrote:
I simply don't understand why you don't just have a passport?
Hehe. Nobby. Imagine that all of Europe was one country. With no national boundaries or borders and no need for a passport to travel between them. How many people living in Europe would have one?
Heck. As several people have stated, you don't even need one to travel to the only two nations we border. You can go anywhere you want in Canada and return. All without a passport. You can travel anywhere you want in Mexico and return. All without a passport. So even those of us living on the borders don't tend to get them either. Even folks from other countries don't need a passport to cross those borders. They just need the correct IDs. Back in my teen years, one of the guys in the group was an Iranian citizen. He went on the obligatory TJ party nights with us just the same. The worst he ever got coming back was a comment that he needed to update the picture on his green card (he was like 8 in that picture). In fact, if he'd lied and said "US citizen" when asked his nationality, it's unlikely anyone would have looked twice. Most of the time, they didn't bother to even look at any photo ID at all. If you spoke good English and looked like the rest of the drunk kids staggering back across the border, no one cared...