Of course, using the city limits can also lead to weird issues. If you go to Las Vegas and never leave the Strip, were you in Las Vegas or not?
I once had to spend the night in the Casablanca airport. I’d never consider that the same as “been to Casablanca” or “been to Africa.”
This is the same relationship I have with Hartford (Connecticut) Bradley Airport. I’ve proceeded to head from there to Springfield (opposite direction from Hartford) or when headed to Mystic/New London/Uncasville I’ve blown right past Hartford on the Interstate. So I haven’t visited Hartford. Similarly every time I’ve landed and picked up my luggage and exited Newark Airport I’ve proceeded to head for New York, Weehawken or Princeton so I’ve never really visited Newark. And the one time I’ve actually left Atlanta Airport by ground, it was on the way to Anniston, AL – no visit to Atlanta.
By this standard, I haven’t been to London, Atlanta, or Dallas/Fort Worth.
When asked, I may mention that I’ve “been through Heathrow,” so people can count that however they want to. But, I mean, the extent of the experience was a McDonald’s where you didn’t even have to change dollars, and a bus ride on the “wrong” side of the road to switch terminals for the outbound flight to either Vienna or DC. It’s not a visit.
I haven’t been to Korea, Japan or Hawaii.
I’ve changed planes at Seoul-Incheon airport, and took a lot of pictures there of a parade of people dressed in traditional costume.
I’ve twice changed planes at Osaka International Airport, which is no longer an international airport. (I was changing planes between Sydney and Detroit back about 20 years ago.) I saw a fair bit of Japanese TV, including sumo wrestling, while I was not in Japan.
My non-visit to Hawaii was even shorter. On a flight from Los Angeles to Sydney, all the toilets on the plane stopped working shortly after take-off, so the pilot decided to stop in Honolulu for a mechanic so we wouldn’t have to last a 14-hour flight without toilets. The plane just sat on the tarmac without going near the terminal, so I definitely have not been to Hawaii.
The requirement amongst my globe-trotting friends and family has always been to say you visited a country, you have to clear customs & immigration. Ideally you should also leave the terminal building, but it’s not a hard and fast requirement - for example, spending a few hours at Changi is still considered to be “visiting Singapore” even if you don’t leave the terminal, since it’s huge and full of shops.
Domestically, if you don’t leave the airport, you don’t get to say you’ve been there.
Sounds like these are pretty standard definitions, from the looks of it. 
I was always under the impression that airports were ‘international territories’ so to speak, so as** Martini Enfield** (and others) have mentioned, until you clear customs, you are not officially on that country’s soil.
I haven’t been to Hong Kong or Singapore, and although I spent time in Australia I haven’t been to Sydney or Melbourne. I haven’t been to Dallas/Fort Worth but I don’t see that as a negative.
Say no more! Eh? Nudge nudge, wink wink, say no more!
IIRC, in the USA if you land and deplane, you go through ICE even if just in transit.
Nope.
Driving through a city in your car (not a bus) counts as a “special case”, especially for smaller cities and towns.
Definitely not, and it’s so depressing. I had a 30-minute layover in DC a while back and just kind of stared forlornly at the Washington Monument from the tarmac. Really need to get up there and see the sights - I haven’t been since my 5th grade safety patrol trip.
Yep, that’s partly why the “clearing customs” rule doesn’t work and, even if it was the same procedure in the US as in other countries, if you don’t leave the airport, that’s really not visiting the city. That’s just clearing customs for the sake of clearing customs and putting a “tick” on your “cities/countries I’ve visited” list. Or maybe doing some shopping, but visiting an airport is quite different than visiting a city to me.
But, as long as everyone knows the definition you’re using, use whichever one you want.
If someone asks me “have you been to X” and I’ve only been to airport or driven through it, I say “Just the airport, but I’ve never visited the city” or “No, just drove through it; didn’t get a chance to visit.” When someone asks you if you’ve visited a city, they’re generally not interested in whether you’ve been to that city’s airport or taken I-15 through town.
Just wanted to chime in that I concur with the overall favorite view here that airports don’t count. I draw the line at the point of exiting airport premises, which is the beginning of the completely non-international space of a country.
I count driving through as being in a place. You’re on terra firma. You open the car window and breathe the air of the place, you inhale its scents, you climb up its acclivities and roll down its declivities, you are physically in contact with the place. Unlike in an airplane which is a closed-off artificial environment, and seeing a place from a plane is like watching it on TV, which is why flyovers don’t count when automobile trips do.
I can see the driving through as counting, even though I don’t count it as “visiting” that city. I’ve been through Cleveland several times on the way to Buffalo or New York City over the years or whatnot, but this last summer was the first time I’ve really “visited” Cleveland. I personally will specify as being “through” a city if that’s the case, because, usually, when somebody is asking you if you’ve been to or visited a city, they are looking either for information about that city from you, or a point of commonality to start a conversation about the city, or something like that. Driving on the highway through the city doesn’t really give you much of a sense of the city. It’s like saying you’ve been to “Chez Louise” restaurant, but only stopped in to look at the menu.
I think it’s relative. This has been an interesting thread, for me.
By the ‘clearing customs’ criteria I HAVE visited Amsterdam and Hong Kong, and Tokyo ? Sorry, not buying it, it doesn’t work for me. Six or eight overnights at an airport in sight of Narita, even though I cleared customs each time, cannot possibly mean ‘Been to Japan’, in my mind. I’d be pretty uncomfortable saying I’d been in Singapore, having never left Changi.
But then when I think about it, people taking two week, eight country holidays, or those on Mediterranean cruises, going ashore only a half day in most places, isn’t really far removed from that, I suppose.
I was thinking more of countryside. You know, the land.
Yeah, I consider that as visiting the country or state, as mentioned before.
You’re on the witness stand, under oath, and you are asked if you’ve ever been to some city, state, or country, and you’ve only been to the airport, what do you say?
You say you’ve been to the airport.