Half a dozen passports, family of 3

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Passports allow you to travel, but they also symbolize the global disparity in freedom of travel. With their Japanese passports, my wife and son can travel to 190 countries without having to get a prior visa, the most of any country along with Singapore (https://www.henleypassportindex.com/global-ranking). Both my US and Irish passports allow me entry to 186 countries without a prior visa. But for the citizens of the 4 countries that we’ve lived in during this decade, the number of visa free/visa on arrival destinations dwindles significantly– Thailand (77), Egypt (49), Myanmar (46) and Nepal (38).

If you’ve never applied for a visa before, let me assure you that the process can be not only time-consuming, cumbersome and expensive, but depending on where you’re from and your ability to prove you aren’t intending to immigrate, there’s a strong possibility you won’t even get the tourist visa in the end.

There are over 12 million people in the world who are stateless, meaning they don’t have citizenship of any particular country and therefore can’t get a passport or many other forms of identification that we take for granted. This can happen for many reasons including racial discrimination, sexist nationality laws, and even bureaucratic accidents completely out of the individual’s control. It not only affects their ability to travel– stateless persons can also be denied an education, healthcare, employment, legal rights, and many other things citizens have access to.

I could go on about how privilege (and lack thereof) continues to separate and dehumanize us– after all, we still legally call a person from a different country an “alien” in the US. But what we really want to share today is that we are incredibly thankful for the many people we’ve met along the way who have opened their homes and their hearts and helped our family in so many ways.

Traveling is an incredible privilege, and making a home abroad is both a privilege and a great experiment. It’s not easy, rarely simple, but oh how you appreciate the kindness and patience of those who welcome you regardless of where you’re from or how long you’ll stay. Bless you dear friends!

On this occasion of Thanksgiving in the United States, we want to thank all who have helped us, taught us and opened our eyes and hearts over the past decade. This post, our first blog post, is dedicated especially to you, and also to our loving families whose support and encouragement have always lifted us up, whether through a Skype call or an e-greeting card or a text just to say hi. No matter what the latitude or longitude or time difference between us, we always feel the love.