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Unless you don't have the power of a privileged passport, that is.
If you are Syrian like me, or were unlucky enough to be born in another conflict-ridden developing nation, the process of traveling is not so easy.
The Syrian passport ranks as one of the weakest in the world - of the 199 passports ranked in the Henley Passport Index, only Iraq and Afghanistan had weaker passports. Syrian passport holders have visa-free or visa-on-arrival access to just 29 countries, compared to the more than 180 places you can easily reach with an American, German, or Japanese passport, to name a few.
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Traveling to most parts of the world is extremely difficult for someone in my shoes. Here are some of the most challenging things about traveling the world when you don't have a privileged passport.
I have to secure visas months in advance when I'm traveling to most places.
Taking your backpack and hopping on a plane is unheard of for many citizens of the so-called third world.
When I was planning my trip to East Asia or South America, for example, the first step was to decide which countries I wanted to visit beforehand and apply to each one individually, determining how long I was going to stay, and exactly when I would arrive. Casually deciding to visit Chile when you're in Argentina, or hopping on a bus from Vietnam to Cambodia, are not possible if you don't do your homework months in advance.
I have to prepare a long list of documents if I want any chance of getting a visa.
The process of applying for a visa begins months in advance for most places I want to travel to.
I have to prepare a list of documents required by each embassy, and it differs from one country to another.
To apply for a Schengen visa to travel around Europe, for example, I have to provide:
A visa application form that you can usually find online
Two photos
A valid passport
A round-trip reservation
Travel insurance
Proof of accommodation — a hotel booking or a statement indicating that a friend is able to host you
Proof of financial means, usually consisting of a bank account statement and a letter from your employer (if you're a freelancer like me, this step is much more complicated)
A non-refundable visa fee of 60 euros
Once you acquire all the necessary documents, you need to book an appointment at the embassy, which could be months in the future. Then you submit all the documents and spend the next 15 days praying you don't get rejected.
Even if I do everything right, I still expect my visa application to get rejected.
I can't count the times I've been rejected for a visa despite having all the required documents.
Embassies hold the power to accept or reject a visa application without providing a reason. In the event you are rejected, you might be forbidden from reapplying for another three months. In that case, good luck next time, because a rejection stamp on your passport will make the chances of acquiring a visa 10 times harder.
I'm likely to get questioned when I arrive at my destination.
Congrats, you beat the odds and actually arrived at your destination. Your plane lands, you disembark, and you run outside hoping your luggage hasn't gotten lost along the way this time.
Well, not so fast! If you're a citizen of weak-passport country, you're most likely to be redirected to a small room where you'll be questioned by a border control officer.
While the interrogation is usually just a customary procedure, it still induces anxiety, and you might spend up to an hour waiting for your turn depending on how many others are being questioned.
By the time you finish, your luggage most likely will have been moved to the lost and found area.
I'm always anxious of an emergency happening while I'm abroad because I might not receive any help.
When travelers from privileged countries face issues abroad, like losing a passport or having a medical emergency, they can trust that their embassy will be there to help them and bring them back safely. For someone like me, the Syrian embassy in most places either doesn't have the means to take any significant action or it simply doesn't care.
On top of a massive pile of paperwork, losing my passport abroad would result in exhaustive questioning to ensure I didn't "lose" my documents deliberately.
This neglect will cause every third-world citizen to remain anxious throughout their travel, and takes away from the whole experience of traveling.
If you reside in another country, your legal status could change on a whim.
Lebanon is one of the few countries where Syrians are granted a six-month visa at the border. Most Syrians living in the country leave every six months to renew their visa.
In 2013, while I was residing in Lebanon, I decided to travel to Turkey for four days since my visa was about to expire. When I returned to Lebanon, the border control denied my entry and I was subjected to an 11-year ban from entering the country. Turns out some new regulations were put in place during the brief time I was away.
As a result, my passport was confiscated and I spent the night in a detention room in the Beirut airport. The next day I was sent back to Turkey, a country I had no relationship with, where I spent the next month trying to get by on a very limited budget while waiting to fix my legal status in Lebanon. Fun times.
These hardships explain why so many refugees risk their lives trying to build a new life abroad.
A few years back I was chatting online with someone from Europe who asked me, "Why are the refugees spending $2,000 per person, and risking their lives traveling to Europe by sea on an inflatable boat, when you can buy a plane ticket for no more than $400?"
I tried to explain to them how hard it is for a Syrian to get a visa to most foreign countries, but I don't think I even scratched the surface.
Not every developing country is as devastated by war as Syria currently is. But many of them are still struggling economically and socially, pushing some of their citizens to seek a better life abroad. In response, some countries have implemented harsher regulations on travelers from those countries.
For many, these regulations signal that wealthy, developed countries are discriminating against these far-less-fortunate refugees. At the end of the day, I feel that my passport wasn't made to help me travel the world, but rather to ban me from entering certain parts of it.
