How old were you when you first left the country?

Definitely under 3
Parents were born and raised in Ireland and we went back every summer from the U.S.

I wish I could change my poll entry. I put down “21” but forgot ab out when I was eleven, visiting relatives in Buffalo< NY, and we crossed the border into Canada, to the other side of Niagra Falls.

I went on a family vacation to Toronto when I was 6.

So would an Englishman consider himself to have left the country when he travels to Scotland, or vise versa for a Scotsman traveling to England, etc? Or do you only consider yourself to have left the country if you exit the UK? Based on your post it sounds like the latter. It’s hard for us colonists to wrap our heads around the idea of a country composed of four constituent countries. :wink:

Looks like I’m the only “Something else?”, at least so far.

I have crossed an international border, but it was coming into my country, not leaving it.

The document I used to get my RealID was issued by the Department of State.

In what respects? I note your location as Oakville, where I worked for a year while living in Mississauga, and still continue to visit when it’s not virus season. While technically the GTA, both Mississauga and Oakville are still far enough removed for Toronto to be not Toronto, which is decidedly not like Michigan (it’s more like Sydney).

Is it our good Mexican food? I’ve still never found good Mexican in Ontario. You’re right to be envious! :smiley:

Our family went to Canada multiple times growing up. We lived near Boston and we had friends outside of Montreal that we visited a few times.

The first time I went anywhere outside of North America was a work trip to England when I was 24.

Oops Doug K, your post made me realize that I should have replied “Something else” as well, so you’re not the only one.

I became a US citizen as an adult, but I was born the child of a foreign diplomat in a country in Europe in which diplomats’ children take the citizenship of their parents’ country. I didn’t return to my country of citizenship until I was 4 years old. I crossed many international borders on the way from my birth country to my country of citizenship.

When I was about 13, my favorite uncle drove us to the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Ontario, Canada, just across the border from Detroit. We saw Timon of Athens and Cyrano de Bergerac, and a shop clerk tried to cheat me on the currency exchange. No passports or hassle for either of us. Good times!

So is there a way to change my poll reply from “3-10” to “Something else”?

I was 16 when I want on a school trip to Europe, the summer between my junior and senior years of high school: 11 cities in 6 countries in 30 days.

I’ve been to a few more since then but I still have about 182 to go…

I must have been about 8 years old. We lived in Toronto, and Niagara Falls made for a great daytrip. I remember walking across the Rainbow Bridge, and into the United States.

I was 19 years old and a student at the University of Toronto. Some friends and I got the idea to visit New York City for the weekend. And we did!

17, still Tijuana (Mexico) for me, 1968.
My girlfriend had to go down to pick up some legal documents for her older sister. Sister was a flake who lived in San Francisco but for some reason had gotten a Mexican divorce from her husband. God knows why the documents couldn’t just be mailed to her. My GF didn’t want to go alone so I drove her.

Just FYI, Stratford is considerably further than “just across the border,” and it’s not a Shakespeare festival; Festival is the name of one of the theatres there. I’m only pointing out the latter because people always tend to think that some type of festival is always taking place in Stratford. And while, like any small town, there are festivals, they’re incredibly hard to Google for because of that theatre!

10, we went to a resort in Majorca (Spain), which is pretty stereotypical for Brits. I thought it was paradise on earth. Couldn’t get over the enormous buffet restaurant where I could help myself to anything my heart desired.

Have been overseas every year since, usually multiple times. This is the first year I can remember where I haven’t yet got in a plane. I was supposed to be in Nice at Easter, and the Dordogne in June SOB.

I’d only consider I’d left the country if I left the UK. There’s no border checks between Scotland/England/Wales and whilst we might regard each other with exotic interest/suspicion/amusement, I wouldn’t regard a Scot or Welsh person as foreign.

From the age of 12, we, too, used to take a ferry to France, where I was the designated translator. My Dad insisted I interrogate every waiter to make sure the beef wasn’t, in fact, horse meat and my Mum wouldn’t let me pet any cats and dogs, because ‘they might have rabies’.

I lived near the Canadian border so quite young, maybe before 3 even. That almost shouldn’t count.

After that, lived in Brazil for a time in my early 20s.

I didn’t visit Europe until last year, was 47.

I was maybe 6-8 years old. We lived in the Los Angeles area and my parents liked venturing to Mexico for shopping. Tijuana and Rosarito Beach were our only destinations from what I remember. Mid 1970s.

I was in my 30s before I traveled anywhere that I needed a passport. I went to Italy to teach a class for my company. I had been to Windsor, Ontario, and Tijuana when was in college but that was just tiptoeing over the border and you just needed your driver’s license, so I didn’t count those. I’ve been trying to make up for lost time since then.