This video was made possible by Dashlane.
Manage your online security for free at dashlane.com/HAI.
So, what’s the furthest you could legally travel without a passport?
You know, for the next time when some guy under a bridge starts talking you up, lures
you in with some free ho hos, and next thing you know it you’re doing international drug
runs until the feds seize your passport.
Now, of course, there are some situations where you can travel across any international
border without a passport.
For example,—get ready for some pedantry—this is a United Nations Laissez Passer which is
not technically a passport.
It is a travel document issued by the UN to the staff of itself and other international
organizations.
This works largely like a normal passport and even has some extra special features like
visa-free access to more countries than some passports and certain levels of diplomatic
privileges with the added disadvantage of that apparently immigration officers often
don’t know what these are and get confused.
Of course that’s because these are rather rare which is also why, for the purposes of
this video, we’re not going to close up shop one minute in and end by saying the furthest
you could travel without a passport would be Whangarei, New Zealand to Tangier, Morocco
on one of these bad boys.
So let’s say, what’s the furthest you could travel without a passport as a normal
person—ie not sailing a boat from New York nonstop through international waters to the
Indian Ocean and calling it a day which you could technically legally do without a passport.
Returning to any country might be difficult, though.
Although, the US has a rule for American citizens when taking a cruise that departs and returns
to the same place, for example, from Miami to the Bahamas to Miami, where you don’t
need a passport to get back into the US—only proof of citizenship like a birth certificate.
This rule is intended for cruises to places like the Bahamas and Bermuda where passports
aren’t required to enter when on cruises but the notable detail for this rule is that
it’s only for cruises that only visit Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, and Bermuda so while
you can visit other countries without a passport, you can’t get all that far away from the
US.
Cruises are one of the few ways you can cross international borders without a passport,
though.
But, a better solution to our big question lies with empires.
Of course the last time I made fun of the British they got a bit salty so let’s just
forget about them and talk about the French.
The UK will need to get used to people doing that pretty soon anyways.
Like the Brits, the French still hold on to a few far-flung pieces of their former empire.
In fact, France is the only country to hold territory on six of the seven continents.
Thanks to that, you could travel from Urepel, France to the town of Vao and still be in
France despite them being 10,900 miles or 17,500 kilometers away from each other.
Of course that’s because Urepel is in metropolitan France and the other is in New Caledonia—an
overseas collectivity of France.
Now, this is probably the furthest distance between two points in a single country.
Feel free to fact check me on that but wait, wait, wait—I know you’re about to clap
down a comment saying that its further from the Svalbard, Norway to Norway’s Antarctic
claim but Norway’s Antarctic claim is very much disputed by literally everyone except
for these guys so it doesn’t count.
If the Sahrawi Republic better recognized than you, you’re really not doing too well.
Getting back to New Caledonia, there’s a problem preventing passport-free travel to
this bit of France.
It’s way too far from metropolitan France for a non-stop flight so you have to connect
via a foreign country so you’d need a passport.
There are closer bits of France overseas, though, such as Réunion.
Réunion is an overseas department of France meaning it is just as much as part of France
politically as Île de France—the region Paris is in.
It’s basically the political equivalent of Hawaii to the US.
There are plenty of nonstop flights from France to Réunion and, in fact, this eleven hour
hop down south is the longest non-stop domestic flight in the world.
While there is an immigration check, all you’ll need, assuming you’re an EU citizen, is
your EU identity card.
But you could go even further than the 6,000 miles or 10,000 kilometers to Réunion if
you experience the joys of domestic flying in the US of A. One could, for example, drive
from Point Udall in the US Virgin Islands to St. Croix, fly to San Juan, Puerto Rico,
fly to Chicago, fly to Los Angeles, fly to Honolulu, fly to Guam, and drive to Point
Udall—yeah, they were named after brothers.
9,500 miles or 15,300 kilometers lay between those two points which are both, of course,
in the US so you wouldn’t need a passport to fly between them assuming you’re American.
You would only need a US government issued ID for the customs formalities when flying
to or from Guam or the US Virgin Islands since they’re US insular possessions.
That means that this is, probably, maybe, possibly the furthest distance you could travel
as a normal person on normal, scheduled transport without a passport.
If you think I’m wrong, though, leave a comment and if you’re right, you’ll win
the satisfaction of being right on the internet.
Of course with your newfound, “being right on the internet fame” you’ll want to stay
on brand and make sure you never enter the wrong password when you go to login somewhere.
You could memorize all the unique, complicated passwords that you, of course, use for each
website you have an account to prevent hacking or you could use Dashlane.
Dashlane securely stores all your passwords and then autofills them on your device when
you go to login.
Dashlane does that for you for free when you sign up at dashlane.com/HAI.
They also have a whole suite of online security tools with their premium offering including
dark web monitoring, encrypted file storage, a VPN, and more which you can get for 10%
off by using the code, “HAI” when upgrading.