I was perusing my map of my air travel the other day, and an odd fact struck me: I’ve spent a night in The Netherlands, but not actually visited the Netherlands. And by not actually visited, I mean not even entered the country. Technically, that’s might not be true either, as I did pass through European Union passport control on a flight from Amsterdam to Nice several years ago. Not sure there.
Amsterdam Airport is Not The Netherlands
I’ve passed through Amsterdam Airport three times now. But I’ve never left Schiphol. Therefore, at least in my book, I’ve never visited The Netherlands. It’s not checked off on my travel map. I have a hard and fast line about visiting countries where I actually have to go out and see stuff. Only then does it count. Sure, the trip can be brief, and I don’t have to stay the night there. Two countries on my map I count as visited, but I haven’t overnighted within them. This makes sense for the Vatican City and Monaco. You can spend the night in the latter. It might be a tad more difficult in the former.
Anyway, last year I spent a night in Schiphol Airport, which puts The Netherlands in an odd spot. Overnight? Check. Flight? Check. Pass through passport control? Check. Visited? Nope.
Why I Wouldn’t Count Leaving the Airport a Visit Either
If I hadn’t been restricted from entering during my last visit, I certainly would have opted for an overnight hotel at the airport, but not the Yotelair within Schiphol. Rather than a tiny room, I would have had a real hotel room, and it likely would have been cheaper.
Yet, even then, this isn’t a visit. I might count an overnight as visiting a state that I don’t really want to see (like driving straight through), but an airport hotel just won’t do.
I know people have all sorts of metrics for counting states or counting countries. There are many countries I would like to visit, and while I keep track, I don’t have plans to visit them all. Time requires that I “play the tourist” where most visits are brief. But they must be real visits, and an overnight isn’t that.
What are the metrics you use for “counting” a visit to a country?
It does count, in my opinion, as long as you are on land. That means that overflights don’t count. However, it is in a separate column of countries. I have 4 categories. 1. Countries that I have been to at least 30 days. This implies some in depth knowledge about the country. 2. Countries that I have been to (not including categories 3 and 4). 3. Separate territories or other forms of government. 4. Countries where the visit was less than 2 hours, limited to an airport, or similar.
Examples of category 3 might be Jersey (Channel Islands), Gibraltar, Hong Kong, Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, Ascension Island, etc. I haven’t been to all of these. Ascension Island is part of the UK but so far away, it would be a separate entity on my list, had I visited the island.
The number of countries that are in my category 1 is only 4 but could eventually become 5. I might make the category 1 criteria more stringent, like 60 days.
Interesting categorization. I like your 30+ days one. I only have two countries where that is true, although the UK is a very close third. “Visiting” a place can definitely be subjective. We visited Monaco for only a few hours (maybe ~4 total), and that checks out for its size. But a time of, say, two days in Spain might hardly be a visit for some.