6-7 - can’t remember exactly. Trip from the Detroit area to Windsor, Canada.
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.
Same, only at 9 or 10. Detroit to Windsor, repeated many times over the next few years.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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).
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.
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).
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.
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,