# How old were you when you first left the country? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 19, 2020, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-were-you-when-you-first-left-the-country/852119 "2020-04-19T12:45:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2020, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-were-you-when-you-first-left-the-country/852119/41 "2020-04-19T18:21:40Z")
6-7 - can’t remember exactly. Trip from the Detroit area to Windsor, Canada. ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2020, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-were-you-when-you-first-left-the-country/852119/42 "2020-04-19T18:54:11Z")
I was seven, in 1975, when my family made our first trip to a different country, but it was only a 400 km trip from Germany to the coast of the Netherlands. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2020, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-were-you-when-you-first-left-the-country/852119/43 "2020-04-19T19:07:22Z")
> [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](#): > > 8 or so, a day trip from Michigan to Ontario. > [@Broomstick](#): > > 6-7 - can’t remember exactly. Trip from the Detroit area to Windsor, Canada. Same, only at 9 or 10. Detroit to Windsor, repeated many times over the next few years. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2020, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-were-you-when-you-first-left-the-country/852119/44 "2020-04-19T19:23:32Z")
> [@IvoryTowerDenizen](#): > > Well, look at that! It’s funny. When my ancestors came to America, they immigrated from Canada; specifically southern Quebec to northern New York. Other people spent weeks crossing oceans; my ancestors drove down in a pick-up truck and the drive took a couple of hours. They probably made a few round trips to move the furniture and farm equipment. I used to travel back to my ancestral homeland to buy groceries. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2020, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-were-you-when-you-first-left-the-country/852119/45 "2020-04-19T20:30:19Z")
> [@Roderick\_Femm](#): > > Technically, the summer I turned 15 (I might have still been 14, I don’t remember the precise dates of the trip) family took a driving trip to California and Grand Canyon from Oregon. In San Diego, my father decided it would be fun to pop over into Tijuana. I’m not sure how we managed it since we didn’t have passports with us, perhaps in those days (1964) they didn’t require them. We spent a couple of hours, maybe; I don’t remember if we even got out of the car (I was a little scared, I had this image of a sort of outlaw town in my head, probably nothing like reality). When I was 15 or 16 my family took a day trip to Juarez (a few years before the big drug wars) and while we did walk around and shop and eat, we didn’t speak any Spanish\* and few people spoke English at that place and time, so a few hours there was plenty enough for us. We didn’t even think about needing to bring our passports. Perhaps we should have, but I was surprised when they didn’t check _anything_ when we walked into Mexico, and coming back into America they simply waved us through when we said we were American. \*I had taken several years of Spanish in high school but literally couldn’t understand the syllables people were saying, let alone the words, even if I could understand the majority of the words of a printed text. I’d say that even though my vocabulary is rusty, I probably would do just as good now as I did back then in spoken Spanish due to having absorbed some of the cadences from Spanish-speaking co-workers so that I can at least know _what words are actually being spoken_ even if I don’t remember what they actually mean. The former is a necessary condition for the latter so I end up understanding at least as many words as I did in high school. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2020, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-were-you-when-you-first-left-the-country/852119/46 "2020-04-19T20:44:19Z")
I was 21. Walked across the border at El Paso, Texas into Juarez. EDIT: An interesting side question might be at what age were you when you first _lived_ in another country. For me, that would be age 29, when I left for Thailand as a Peace Corps Volunteer. Ended up living in Thailand twice for a total of almost 25 years (24 years and 7 months to be exact) and turned 30, 40 and 50 in Bangkok. ---
**Author:** ![CatastrophicFailure](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8c91f0/32.png) [@CatastrophicFailure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CatastrophicFailure)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2020, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-were-you-when-you-first-left-the-country/852119/47 "2020-04-19T20:47:18Z")
I was sixteen the first time I left the States, to attend the Winnipeg Folk Festival. Didn’t leave again until I was 39 and my family and I decided to sell our house and travel. We traveled for a year and a half and made it to nine countries before coming back. ---
**Author:** ![Driver8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b5a626/32.png) [@Driver8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Driver8)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2020, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-were-you-when-you-first-left-the-country/852119/48 "2020-04-19T21:00:49Z")
I said 16-20. I think it was my first year out of high school I went to Portugal (and London for a couple of days) for an academic competition. That was my first time out of South Africa. It was a really great experience. It was maybe four or so years until my next overseas trip, to a sporting competition and tour of Italy. Since then I’ve moved to the US (and currently live almost literally on the other side of the world) and travelled to a various number of countries, mostly on work trips: Sweden, Cayman Islands, Barbados, Australia, China, and a few stops elsewhere while on a Panama Canal cruise. I don’t consider myself a huge traveller. I have been to quite a lot of the states though. ---
**Author:** ![Driver8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b5a626/32.png) [@Driver8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Driver8)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2020, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-were-you-when-you-first-left-the-country/852119/49 "2020-04-19T21:05:52Z")
I said 16-20. I think it was my first year out of high school I went to Portugal (and London for a couple of days) for an academic competition. That was my first time out of South Africa. It was a really great experience. It was maybe four or so years until my next overseas trip, to a sporting competition and tour of Italy. Since then I’ve moved to the US (and currently live almost literally on the other side of the world) and travelled to a various number of countries, mostly on work trips: Sweden, Cayman Islands, Barbados, Australia, China, and a few stops elsewhere while on a Panama Canal cruise. I don’t consider myself a huge traveller. I have been to quite a lot of the states though. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2020, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-were-you-when-you-first-left-the-country/852119/50 "2020-04-19T21:09:25Z")
6 weeks or so. My parents took me to the U.S. as soon as possible after I was born to meet my grandparents for the first time. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2020, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-were-you-when-you-first-left-the-country/852119/51 "2020-04-19T21:09:56Z")
Oldest I can recall is when I was 3 or 4, and my parents took me to a trip to visit relatives in Asia, however, even before that, I’m told that I was already being taken on a number of short flights from the US to Canada and back, around age 0-3. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2020, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-were-you-when-you-first-left-the-country/852119/52 "2020-04-19T21:46:20Z")
1 week before my 10th birthday. My mother, brother and I flew from New York to what was then called Leopoldville in the Congo to join my father who was stationed with the UN there. First class on a Pan Am Boeing 707. I’ve never had more room on a flight. ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2020, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-were-you-when-you-first-left-the-country/852119/53 "2020-04-19T22:23:32Z")
Very young, I don’t remember the age. I was born in the US but have many close relatives in Canada. I must have been less than two the first time I went to visit them ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2020, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-were-you-when-you-first-left-the-country/852119/54 "2020-04-19T22:33:31Z")
> [@EinsteinsHund](#): > > I was seven, in 1975, when my family made our first trip to a different country, but it was only a 400 km trip from Germany to the coast of the Netherlands. I just remembered that it was also the first time I saw the sea! And I learned to swim that year! I had already learned the basics in our very calm barrier lake at home, but it was in Holland where I really swam the first time on my own, without aid. And if you learned it in the Northern Sea, I think you’ll survive anywhere. ---
**Author:** ![Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/malleus_incus_stapes/32/3293_2.png) [@Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malleus_Incus_Stapes)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2020, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-were-you-when-you-first-left-the-country/852119/55 "2020-04-19T23:01:00Z")
Toddler (don’t know the exact age). My grandparents used to have a house in St Martin, and my family would fly over to visit them for a week every year or so. EDIT: I may have been even younger when they took me to Israel for the first time. ---
**Author:** ![TreacherousCretin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treacherouscretin/32/476_2.png) [@TreacherousCretin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TreacherousCretin)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2020, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-were-you-when-you-first-left-the-country/852119/56 "2020-04-19T23:09:18Z")
I put 3-10 but I may have been younger. We lived in San Diego, and my parents loved going to Tijuana. I never could figure out the appeal, because as far back as I can remember it always depressed me and gave me the creeps. Mom’s huge extended family was Mexican, Dad’s adoptive Mother was Mexican, our household was bilingual, so there wasn’t racism behind my feelings. I think it was the squalor that disturbed me (this was TJ in the 50’s). ---
**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2020, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-were-you-when-you-first-left-the-country/852119/57 "2020-04-20T02:26:15Z")
I almost feel guilty for voting with the majority. I live in Michigan, and Ontario, Canada, is hardly “foreign,” despite it being a different country. If you’re a Michigander and want culture shock, go visit southern California. ---
**Author:** ![Smudge777](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ee59a6/32.png) [@Smudge777](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smudge777)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2020, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-were-you-when-you-first-left-the-country/852119/58 "2020-04-20T02:33:48Z")
Born in South Africa. Moved to New Zealand when I was almost 6. Prior to moving country, my family visited Lesotho, Mozambique, Botswana and Zimbabwe, all while I was between the ages of 3 and 5 (note, I remember none of it). ---
**Author:** ![blondebear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blondebear/32/1022_2.png) [@blondebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blondebear)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2020, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-were-you-when-you-first-left-the-country/852119/59 "2020-04-20T02:35:54Z")
Went to Tijuana on a family day trip when I was 7 or 8. Very weird experience, I remember a street vendor trying to sell me some kind of wooden ship model and getting into a heated exchange with my father. What I really wanted was a scorpion encased in plastic. Didn’t get either item, much to my disappointment. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2020, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-were-you-when-you-first-left-the-country/852119/60 "2020-04-20T03:01:08Z")
Canada (which doesn’t count) at 14. Emigrated to Canada at 24; First time to a third country, Mexico, at 25. First time flew commercial at 25, [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-were-you-when-you-first-left-the-country/852119.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-were-you-when-you-first-left-the-country/852119.md?page=4)