If you’ve been to only the airport of a certain city, would you count that as having been to that city?
For example, I’ve been to an airport in Paris, but I haven’t been anywhere else in Paris. Can I say that I’ve been to Paris?
Nope, doesn’t count.
It only counts when relating airport experiences. Everyone has been to Charles de Gaulle and Schiphol. So many people say: “Never been to Amsterdam, but GREAT airport though!” or “Never been to Paris, but I did get lost looking for the loos at Charles de Gaulle and ended up pissing in a plant pot on the third floor, or 5th floor depending on how you count.”
I would say you’ve been to Paris, (as your OP asks), but that you have not visited Paris (as the tread title asks).
Assuming the airport is actually in Paris, and not some surrounding town.
Yep.
By the same token, a drive through and a stop for gas and fast food doesn’t count as visiting either. You need to see and do something unique to the place, talk to somebody there, to have visited.
I like that, but my criteria is a little looser. You need to have set foot on ground that’s not an airport or bus terminal, you need to have gone to the bathroom, and you need to have had a meal. I’ve done the first two in Delaware, but not the third, so I’ve never been to Delaware even though we drove all the way through it. Twice.
I would say that with flight layovers and/or mere fuel stops I’d have “travelled *through *” but not travelled to/in the cities.
Y’all laugh but reading the online reviews has this ringing very plausible…
I think all these rules of how many poops one has to take in a place before one can say they’ve been present in a certain bit of geography are absurd. You’ve been there, or you have not.
In the OP, you can say you’ve been to the Paris airport. Paris itself is an agonizingly long bus ride away, but you won’t know that, would you? 
No, it’s certainly not a visit.
So I haven’t visited NYC, Chicago, Washington DC, Pittsburgh, or Cleveland. (All places where I’ve had a layover but not left the airport.)
I’ve had a layover through Charlotte to go to Kansas, but I’ve also spent the weekend in Charlotte, so I’ve visited. I have this nagging feeling that I’ve done layover through Atlanta at some point, but I may just be confusing myself because I’ve visited twice now.
Airports don’t count for anything. You can’t say you visited the city, the state, or the country if you never left the airport grounds.
I would also say no - only being in the airport doesn’t count as visiting the city; I’ve been in transit through Denver airport quite a few times and would never claim that I’ve visited Denver.
In the case of Edmonton Alberta (and I’m sure some other airports) you certainly can’t claim to have visited Edmonton if you have only been at the airport, since the airport isn’t even in Edmonton proper.
Nope. I’ve landed at Nairobi but never left the plane… so I have not been to Nairobi. I did the same in Kuwait and didn’t count Kuwait until I actually went into town and spent time there.
I have friends who were driving up to Scotland. She was doing the first bit of driving, while he had a nap. He said: “wake me up when we’re near York and we’ll swap”. She woke him up outside the cathedral. I think they have been to York. Though unintentionally.
My opinion is that airports don’t count. That doesn’t change my list much. The only places where I’ve been to the airport but not the city are Amsterdam, London, Dallas, Atlanta, and Puerto Rico.
I had the opposite experience with Paris; I’ve been to the city, but not the airport.
What about train stations? I changed trains in Brussels, once; don’t really feel like I’ve been there, though.
I regard the air transportation system as generic international territory, like the oceans or the sky. I do not include airport transits in my personal city, state, or country counts.
Likewise I’ve never been to Atlanta, Danver, Saracuse, Detroit, Charlotte, Memphis, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and Newark.
Hmmm, interesting question.
I have a couple that always make me hesitate.
I once flew to SE Asia via Amsterdam as KLM was a great deal. But we were 10hrs on the ground, each way. We did leave the airport and check out the city. Did a couple of touristy things, ate a meal then - back to the airport, and away!
Hong Kong. Back in the days before direct flights, one of my connecting flights to Singapore, was so late leaving Alaska, I would never make my connection in Hong Kong! Stayed overnight on the airline, spent half a day wandering around and doing some shopping, before back to the airport and away!
Tokyo. We have traveled through several times. (Best flight to Asia, JAL, non stop, Chicago -Tokyo, where they put you up and feed you, next morning you connect to Bangkok/S’pore/KL/Jakarta, etc) I’ve probably done this a half dozen times, or more.
But I would never claim to have visited any of these places. The places I consider I have visited were always places I spent weeks or months, so none of these would count for me. But I can see how people more accustomed to 10 day holidays might consider things differently.
My concern has always been that the person’s next question will be something more in depth, and I will feel a fool when they realize I was only there a half day or something!
Usually at airport transits you never pass through immigration, so you can;t count it as visiting the country, really. Train stations are a bit different: they’re part of a city, so if you get off a train and at least head off the platforms into the ticket hall/shops etc, I’d say you are in the city.
I’ve been to 45 countries (46 if you count the Cook Islands), but if you count airports then I could add:
Greece (changed planes in Thessaloniki)
Uganda (refuelling stop in Entebbe; didn’t even leave the plane)
China (two layovers in Beijing, including sleeping for a few hours in a hotel inside the terminal building; you do pass through immigration even when in transit, so my passport was stamped)
I could also add kind of add Namibia, as I’ve been inside the country’s territory, on a boat on the river that forms its boundary, and been smacked in the face by trees growing on naibian soil, but never actually set foot there. I doubt that would fly with the Travelers’ Century Club, though.
The 45 does include Slovakia, but that’s a bit dubious. I’ve “visited” it several times, but never really properly. I’ve hiked across the border from Poland; I’ve been on a boat on the river boundary with Poland and landed on the Slovakian side, and I’ve passed through twice on a train, but I’ve never spent a night there or anything.
(Although having said that, the TCC seems to count all sorts of minor islands, rocks and administrative subdivisions as “countries”. A quick glance at their list suggests I’d be up to well over 50, even leaving out the airport ones.)
In most of the cities I went to, the train stations did have a certain life and character of the city; more so than airports, certainly. Checking Wikipedia, I was probably at Brussels South, and there wasn’t really much there. And it was dark by the time I arrived, so I couldn’t see much even when I stepped outside for a bit.
So, I don’t count Brussels. Which takes all of Belgium off my list, too.
Orly is, CDG isn’t, and I agree with IvoryTowerDenizen’s assessment.
I concur with the consensus. Airports (train stations, bus stops) don’t count.
Nobody’s actually been to Delaware. Not even the people who live there.