Airports don’t count. One must leave the airport and set foot on the ground (actual turf or dirt) in the city itself and also urinate (hey, I mark my territory) in the city itself to count as having visited the city and/or state and/or country.
Nope. And if it’s the closest thing I’ve done to being in the country, then I haven’t been in the country.
Personal case in point: I’ve changed planes in Heathrow/Gatwick on the way from the U.S. to European destinations, but I haven’t yet visited England. I didn’t clear customs there; I was still in the land of Enroute.
Try carrying some heroin through the airport in Singapore and see how that argument holds up.
I was island hopping from Trinidad to Antigua to Jamaica to Miami on BWIA in 1975. I stayed a couple of nights in Antigua.
Bamako was an unscheduled stop en route between Paris and Libreville, Gabon.
Entebbe was en route between Nairobi and a small local airport in Zaire.
I assume he was driven between these points, and the route from JFK passes through a lot of NYC.
But as for airports alone, these are No Man’s Land. I find it disingenuous at best to say you’ve “been to” a city just because you transited the airport. I’ve changed planes at Narita all the time, but next month will be my first time in Tokyo as far as I’m concerned (and not just because the airport is outside the city).
It’s been well over a decade since I last did the flight, but there used to be a special exemption in place for NZ 1/NZ 2 heading Auckland-Los Angeles-London (and vice versa); passengers didn’t have to clear customs even though you were in a transit lounge for an hour or two while they refuelled the plane, swapped crews, restocked the galleys etc.
In my opinion airports do count, provided they’re within city limits. There’s nothing special about an airport lounge, or even waiting in a plane at the gate, that makes you not within a certain city.
If you commit a crime in an airport (assuming it’s not a federal offense) you’re going to get prosecuted in whatever city you happen to be in, you can’t claim it doesn’t count as being in a city. While doing something in an airplane will get you prosecuted wherever the plane lands, not what state you happen to be over. So you can’t count jurisdictions by flying over them.
I don’t think anyone is arguing that being in an airport isn’t technically being in that city/country. At least I’m not. But it doesn’t count as “visiting a city,” which is what the OP is specifically asking about.
If I’m sitting in Charles de Gaulle, it’d be a bit disingenuous of me to tell a friend that I’ve “visited Paris.” Even saying “I’ve been to Paris” as part of conversational fodder would be misleading to me, as even though it’s technically and pedantically true, nobody gives a shit if you’ve been to the airport (unless you’re specifically talking about airports.) I don’t even remember half the countries and cities I’ve technically been in, as layover stops don’t mean anything useful to me, other than I’ve seen that city’s airport.
I’ve been to LAX and I’ve been to the airport in SF while waiting for connecting flights.
If I’m under oath and being asked if I’ve ever been to CA, I’m saying yes.
This thread is revealing that there are two types of people in this world. And if either type has been to the airport in a city, then they’ve been in that city.
Sure, I would say I’ve been to the airport and let them decide whether that qualifies as a “yes” or “no” depending on what they’re trying to establish. Like I said, I don’t even remember half the places I stop in, especially if we don’t deplane. My trip to Phoenix this past Thanksgiving had a layover, but god help me if I can remember where that was.
Sure, technical, “letter-of-the-law” types and more conversational “spirit-of-the-law” types. There is no doubt being in an airport technically means you’ve had a physical presence in that city/country where the airport is located. Of course. But I contend it does not mean you “visited” or “been to” the city in the way that word is normally used. Like, I’ve technically “been in” Reykjavik and Aukland and Istanbul and Turkmenistan (actually drove through that last one for about 10 minutes in getting from one town in Uzbekistan to another), but I would never say I’ve “been to” those cities or countries. Only if I’m trying to inflate my “places I’ve been” scorecard would I add Iceland, New Zealand, Turkey, and Turkmenistan.
Well, technically, no. As the Las Vegas Strip is located in Paradise and Winchester, not LV proper. Having said that, I have visited Las Vegas numerous times, and on at least a few of those occasions, I probably never enterer “Las Vegas proper”. Hell, I got married in the Little Church of the West there - located right outside McCarran Airport - both located in Paradise. But I still tell everyone I got married in Vegas.
As to everyone’s favourite transit airport, Schiphol: it is located in the municipality of Haarlemmermeer, not Amsterdam. So even if you’ve cleared customs and went outside for a cigarette break, you’ve not visited Amsterdam, as far as I’m concerned.
My general rule of thumb seems to be the consensus here: an airport, even within city limits, does not equal “the city” or “the country”, unless you actually travel outside it and do something. A meal, a quick tourist visit.
Travelling by car through a state in the US means I’ve visited it. However, I’ve also driven through Baltimore on I-95, whilst travelling from Philly to DC. But since I didn’t get out, I wouldn’t claim I’ve visited Baltimore. I have visited Maryland, however.
Does that make sense to anyone? 
Actually, I just thought of something.
When you apply for a visa, or when you’re filling out your customs declaration form upon arrival back to the US from a foreign country, there is usually a spot to list the countries (and sometimes cities) you’ve visited in the last X amount of years (the silliest one was the visa to the Russian Federation that asked you to list all the countries and cities you’ve been to in the last ten years. You’ve got to be kidding me.) The customs declaration form says “Countries visited in this trip prior to US arrival.”
So do people actually fill that out with their transfer points? I’ve never included those in either.
The nice thing is that it’s easy to turn that into a proper visit to Amsterdam, as the train runs in the airport and is 20 minutes to the city centre. It’s one of the few international airports I’ve been to where making a run into the city on a 4-hour or so layover is actually feasible and relaxing.
When I’m flying to the US via LHR, I will just state “AMS, LHR”. I am assuming the customs drone then understands that I mean my itinerary, without me actually claiming I visited Britain straight before coming over. Never had any questions regarding this method.
You’re right about the short trip into Amsterdam by train. Of course, I rarely think about that, as I never transfer in Amsterdam, I just end up there.
Well *obviously *you have physically “been in” the city (if the airport is actually within the city limits.) But you have not “visited” or “been to” that city if you have never left the airport. The only people that list airports when saying what places they have visited are braggarts who want to appear more worldly and well-traveled than they actually are.
Unless they add ‘…but only to the airport when mentioning those cities’.
Or perhaps the braggarts are the ones who have been to so many cities that they say they don’t count the ones where they’ve only stopped at the airport. Ok, not really, but still, it’s not that hard to be specific and eliminate misunderstandings.
That makes sense. Similarly, I’ve never had a problem or been asked about not putting a transfer point on my customs form. For example, on my last international trip, I was in India via Istanbul. I filled out “India” for “countries visited on this trip.” Certainly, the immigration and customs officials knew that the big influx of passengers is from the Turkish Airlines flight from Istanbul, but never have I been asked why I didn’t put “Istanbul” on my form, or when asked “Where are you coming from?” my answer of “India” was accepted. Same with my annual trips from Hungary (over a course of 6 years). Never listed a transfer point as “country visited,” (unless I was there during the year for work), and never been quizzed about it.
Imagine the following conversation:
A: “Yes, we’re real excited about the trip. We’ve never been to Istanbul before.”
B: “Oh, I’ve been to Istanbul.”
A: “Really? Wow, fantastic, what would you recommend? Did you see the Hagia Sophia? How’s the food? Do many people speak English?”
B: “Umm… I mean, I changed flights there once. Never left the airport.”
A: “… Oh, right. Well, thanks.”