If I want to travel to Europe, I can get into any country with my passport.
I noticed that to visit Australia I would need a passport and a visa and proof of return ticket. What is the reason for this? AFAIK, New Zealand does not require anything more than a passport.
Here’s a list of requirements for entry into all countries:
A passport is issued by your country, certifying you as a citizen in good standing empowered to travel beyond its borders and return. A visa is a permission to enter issued by the country/-ies to which you are traveling, authorizing you to enter its borders.
All a passport is is a certification from your home country that you are who you say you are. It’s up to other countries (or to organisations such as the EU) to decide whether that’s enough for them to keep track of you when you visit them. Many decide to impose their own controls, typically involving visas.
And Australia will also let you enter on an Electronic Travel Authority - http://www.immi.gov.au/faq/visiting/visiting01.htm#i
(And FWIW, there’s plenty of European countries that require a visa for US visitors.)
(And FWIW, there’s plenty of European countries that require a visa for US visitors.)
None of the European countries require them for visits less than 90 days that I can tell from that website.
I understand the difference between a visa and a passport I was more or less curious why Australia required visas when so many others did not.
You might look at reciprocity. I’d guess that Aussies need a VISA to travel to the US, so it might be that the countries haven’t been able to reach an agreement on eliminating it both ways.
Except Russia, Ukraine, Belarus or Turkey
On a tangengtial note, the US requires a visa for all foreign nationals except citizens of the following countries:
Andorra, Iceland, Norway, Australia, Ireland, Portugal, Austria, Italy, San Marino, Belgium, Japan, Singapore, Brunei, Liechtenstein, Slovenia, Denmark, Luxembourg, Spain, Finland, Monaco, Sweden, France, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.
Don’t forget Moldova!
Not trying to be a smartass…but are Russia, Ukraine, etc… actually considered to be part of Europe? 
Jesus no! I hear it’s all the rage! 
Yup. I think you are confusing the EU with Europe.
They require the return ticket to minimize the chance that you’d try to stay there. They don’t want unapproved immigrants.
Plus Bulgaria and Romania require them for over 30 days. Although I admit a lot seem to have dropped the requirement since I last got into that topic!
Everything west of the Ural Mountains on the Eurasian landmass is considered to be Europe. That includes all of Ukraine and Belarus and a large chunk of Russia (including most of its major population centers).
An important distinction re: the need or lack thereof for a visa: the U.S. and some other countries make some important distinctions regarding the purpose of the visit when determining whether a visa is necessary. Even if a given country normally doesn’t require a visa for nationals of a given country for a brief vacation trip, they may still require a visa if you are coming for certain work-related purposes, even if the visit will be very short, or if you have previous immigration violations, certain diseases, or criminal convictions. (The U.S., for example, would require a visa in all the above circumstances.)
Eva Luna, U.S. Immigration Paralegal
M.A., Russian & East European Studies
Good idea, but no. Australia is a part of the Visa Waiver Program.
(Interestingly, the Australians government refuses to give this information out themselves.)
I can understand their not offering that information - they’d cause all sorts of problems if they got anything wrong or out-of-date. (And I was surprised the US governement bothered to create such a list as in the OP.)
The tricky one is Turkey, which is technically in both Europe and Asia. The Bosporus strait separates the two parts, and although the vast majority of the landmass is in the Asian part, Istanbul is in the European part.
Canadian citizens also generally do not require a visa for visits of less than 90 days, as mentioned further down on the page that you link to.
I think Azerbaijan is even trickier. If you consider the Caucasus to be the southern limit of Europe between the Black and Caspian seas, then a small portion of Azerbaijan is European.
This reference agrees with that analysis, at least.
As the holder of an Irish passport, I required avisa to visit Australia earlier this year. I acquired one in electronic from from the UK Australian Embassy’s website for A$20.
After a little more digging, it comes as a surprise to me that a small portion of Kazakhstan is in Europe as well. Cite. The easternmost limit of Europe apparently follows the Ural River from the Urals to Caspian.
There’s a trivia question for you: “What European country borders China?”
And, for the record, both Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan require visas from Americans.