International travel is getting more convoluted.
https://www.axios.com/2023/07/31/europe-travel-authorization-2024
Driving the news: New travel rules announced by the EU dictate that travelers from 60 visa-free countries will need to get a new authorization via the European Travel Information and Authorization System (ETIAS) starting in 2024.
Travelers from US, Canada, UK, other countries.
ETIAS authorization.
Cost- about $8.
Application may take a couple months.
ralph
I wonder how long this will last? Heck, I wonder if it will really go into effect on Jan 1 or if they will “delay” implementation.
Sorry for my ignorance. What is the difference between a visa and ETIAS? Don’t they both require permission to travel?
Wendy
Good question.
IDK.
The verbiage says ETIAS improves security and safety. A deep background check for unsavory characters?
The visas I’ve gotten in the past were not that comprehensive.
ralph
<Meet ETIAS, the European Travel Information and Authorisation System - Coming in 2024.>
Some countries are designated as Visa-exempt. Visitors from those countries can enter EU countries without a Visa.
The 30 EU countries that are slated to require ETIAS, allow people/visitors from the 60 countries to enter the EU without a Visa.
ETIAS is not a Visa. It’s called a Visa waiver.
<Under the ETIAS, these visitors will undergo additional security checks prior to being permitted to enter the EU. The ETIAS will be mandatory for citizens of such countries as the United States, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. >
ralph
I have dual citizenship…American and Irish. I can live work etc in the US, EU and UK. The Irish are part of the Common Wealth.
I have both passports, Irish/EU and American.
We dont need no stink’n visas
ETIAS is more Brave New World control, all in the name of security like the Patriot Act that brought you the wonderful experience of taking off your shoes to board airplanes.
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
For what it’s worth, Chaos theory posits that the more nodes a network has the more chaotic it becomes. Small groups are manageable but world wide networks, like air travel, are indeed chaotic so it’s no wonder that things like ETIAS come into existence to try to tame the chaos. I wonder if it doesn’t add even more chaos.
The Captain
Better dead than safe?
For travel purposes, and unless this new addition changes things dramatically, the two passports probably won’t help you. You’ll be traveling out and back on one…and the US passport will probably still be the better bet.
Whenever we’ve traveled (always with our US passport since citizenship in 2003) it’s been on that US passport. The holdups and general kerfuffle have routinely been worse when re-entering the US even as US citizens with a US passport. It seems to have gotten worse here and even better “there” over the years.
Certainly since Covid, our experience at passport controls when entering foreign parts were so slick it’s hard to imagine anything easier even with their passport. Anecdotally, I’ve heard of 2 different individuals who, on separateoccasions, thought it wise to travel out on their “old” passports for ease of entry (to Sweden and separately England) …and couldn’t even get on the plane home without the necessary requirements to accompany their foreign status and in spite of flashing the US passport they were also carrying. Took a couple of days at the US embassy to sort it all out.
Entering the US even on a US passport is often a worst experience than going to most other countries. Except some with Visa on arrival requirements that require USD which I don’t carry or additional passport photos. I now know to carry extra passport photos
But I have not had an issue to exit a country on one passport and entering the destination with their passport and reverse on return… but I am not staring and finishing from the US.
On a similar subject, all US air passengers will need a Real ID form of identification, starting May 7, 2025. This includes domestic flights, as well as international. The start date has been pushed back several times, in part because of the COVID crisis. In lieu of a Real ID, I believe you can also use a passport as an equivalent, but carrying a passport for domestic travel seems a little dumb.
A personal story. Last December, I had to renew my driver’s license with the California DMV. As part of that process, I also gathered the necessary documents for obtaining a Real ID. The long lead-time item was getting a certified copy of my original birth certificate from the state I was born in. It also cost some money, around $25 as I remember. But once I got the birth certificate, then everything else was fairly simple when renewing the driver license.
That would not at all mean I need a visa to enter the EU. I have EU citizenship.
The other issue is coming from the US to an EU country and trying to travel to another. There can be restrictions on that I have read. In my case there wont be.
I have told the story of my attempt to obtain a “Real ID” driver’s license. Strolled in to the Secretary of State office, with the birth certificate I have had all my life. The clerk looked at it, said “that isn’t a birth certificate, it’s a souvenir from the hospital”. I replied “it was good enough for the Navy”. She was not impressed. Fortunately over 60 years of wandering the midwest has landed me back in the county of my birth. In Michigan, County Clerks are the keepers of birth records, so I mosied down to the nearest branch of the Wayne County Clerk’s office, paid the fee, and, in a few days, had my certificate.
With the rising level of xenophobia in Shiny-land, I have since obtained certified birth certificates for both my parents. If I ever need to prove I am not the “anchor baby” of a pair of illegals, I can.
Steve
I never had my proper “long form” birth cert until 6 years ago. I just had a laminated card and thought that was all there was to it. But then I had a need to get it from Canada which I left back in 1978 (born in 69). Lucky my mum had an amazing memory for these things as the details I had to supply I would never know in order for me to prove I am the one requesting. Also lucky my best friend from 2nd grade grew up to be a CPA and I was still connected through Facebook as I needed somebody that was a Canadian doctor, lawyer or accounting (maybe a couple others) to vouch for me as well.
Cleaning out my mom’s stuff after her death, I found a state issued “certificate of birth registration”, which gave the city of her birth. With the city and the date, I wrote to the Van Buren County Clerk and obtained the certificate. There was a surprise on it. My grandmother’s background is a bit unusual: apparently, she was kidnapped as a small child by a woman who then skipped across the state line, married my great grandfather under an assumed name, and passed my grandmother off has her own child. The surprise was the certificate gives my grandmother’s maiden name as “Jennings”. The story step great grandmother told was that her first husband’s name was the same as my great grandfather’s, which was not Jennings. My aunt, who had dug into the family history after her retirement, mentioned a “Mr Jennings” as somehow being involved in the family, but she died in 2010, so I can’t ask her for clarification.
My dad grew up in New Jersey, but, I remembered him mentioning he was born in PA. PA has a central bureau for birth records, rather than the individual counties keeping the records. On that bureau’s web site, I found pages upon pages of what appeared to be scans of a computer printout for people born prior to 1918, or something like that. Fortunately, it was alphabetized, so I scrolled down, only being sure of dad’s name and birthdate. Found him, born in Yardley, in Bucks County. Filled out the form with the location and partial parent’s names that were on the printout and sent it to the PA bureau. Received a very nice certificate, which had an entry for dad’s parent’s place of birth: Canada, which I knew. iirc, it was #43 who was insisting he could revoke the citizenship of anyone he didn’t like, so, if they try to do that to me, I have documentation that they would need to deport me to Canada. I can make that move in an afternoon.
Steve…documented
I don’t recall doing any of that when I got my driver’s license with the fancy star on it. I may have showed them my passport, but I don’t recall the details anymore.
The passport would do it. To get a passport requires providing your birth certificate to the federal govt–which the state accepts as valid.
Except in Texas, unless your parents had money, or insurance, enough to have you born in a hospital, or you are white.
I’ve never had or even seen a “long form” birth certificate in my life. I used my plain old regular paper birth certificate when I got my passport. And my plain old paper birth certificate is a horrible old style mimeograph copy that is hardly readable in the first place.
My dad wasn’t born in this country and didn’t have a birth certificate. He became a citizen throw some impressive hand waving that would never work today. Basically, he was able to show that a grandparent probably was a citizen. That was good enough, back in the day.
My dad’s parents were naturalized citizens, having immigrated from Canada. If someone was really determined to have me deported, they could claim his parents were illegals at the time of his birth, so revoke his citizenship, then revoke mine, claiming I was the spawn of an illegal. I supposed there is a record somewhere of his parent’s naturalization. I may have had some of that paperwork, when I cleaned out dad’s apartment. I tossed all his family files when I moved in 96, because I never imagined the US would become so xenophobic as to start searching for excuses to deny or revoke people’s citizenship.
Steve
