Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

Submitting a complete record of 15 years of travel history would be quite challenging to many people, to say the least.


I applied for an Indian visa a couple months ago. The page gave me 100 characters to list countries I'd visited in the previous few years. If I used 2 letter abbreviations and skipped the commas I could have just about done it. As it stands I started at NZ and moved west. Ran out of space just before listing Pakistan. Oh well.


> Ran out of space just before listing Pakistan. Oh well.

I know jokes aren't allowed on HN, but this is great :)


Why do you visit so many countries?


I have hippie friends that just travel. He works remote part time as a frontend dev, she makes jewelery. The have one kid and another one on its way.

They often wonder why so many people don't visit any other countries, to see how other people live, gain understanding, experience and love.


Isn't it difficult to genuinely experience another part of the world (gaining understanding, experience, etc) without either speaking the language or hiring an expensive guide?


They are saying most know some level of English. As for the guide, they actually live for months whenever they go, make some friends and see what's there to see.


That's nobody's business. Maybe s/he likes to travel. Especially if you're in EU where there are practically no borders west of Russia, you can visit dozens of countries without sweat.


It's quite simple, I work for a multinational company with offices in about 100 counties. Add 20 or so countries in Europe which are easy enough to visit for a weekend break and 50 is quite a small number. Most people I know have visited at least 10 counties in the last 10 years, and many have visited 20+, just for tourist purposes


Also practically no borders within Russia, and you can visit dozens of republics without sweat.


Good question! That's what immigration will be suspicious about....


Why do you believe this is a lot of countries to visit?


Because the number is many standard deviations above average.


You americans are so funny sometimes.


I was a Canadian Permanent Resident and now a Canadian citizen and I needed to provide the last five years travel history more than a few times. I knew this and I kept a Google Sheet with the info from the moment I landed in Canada. Turned out that was not enough: the citizenship application required the list of countries visited in the last five years even before landing in Canada. Doh! I could scrape it together, though because I applied at like 4.5 years in. But 15 years? That is pretty near impossible to put together.


I think I have done about 200-250 international trips (using like 600-800 flight segments) during the past 15 years. And I have worked with people who travel 5x more...


Ya, do they want exact dates? F*ck if I know. I have trouble remember what dates I'm in the states when asked on my tax return, or when I was in California when asked on my state tax return.

I could try to figure it out via my passport stamps, I guess, at least for those countries that actually still stamp.


There's a reason I started keeping a full diary of every flight I've taken starting about 5 years ago...


Or giving the passport numbers of every passport you've ever held. I have the last two, but no idea of any before that.




Consider applying for YC's Fall 2026 batch! Applications are open till July 27.

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: