Eli5: How do you visit a foreign country not by airplane?

Question

I’ve flown to foreign countries. You get off the plane, your documents and luggage are checked, and you go on once cleared by customs. What about if I sail in on my boat? Whats the process for going ashore legally?

In: 7

Answer 1

The main differences are between organized/commercial forms of travel and private forms of travel. All ports of entry are similar to each other and follow similar procedures. A seaport works exactly the same as an airport if you travel in a similar way – let’s say you arrive at a port on board of an ocean liner – you get off the boat instead of the plane, your documents and luggage are checked, you pass through customs and you’re good to go. Land border crossing points do have similar procedures but there’s a lot less “organized” travel happening on land mainly because private road vehicles are a lot more common than private planes or boats. Main difference is that you mostly can’t just randomly arrive at a seaport or an airport in a private vehicle – theres a high chance that if you entry another country’s territorial waters in a private boat you will be intercepted by the coast guard and in the case of airtravel, once you enter a countries airspace, state authorities will immediately try and establish communication and in extreme cases if you don’t cooperate they will absolutely scramble a jet to intercept your cessna crossing the border. On the other hand, you can just randomly appear at a border crossing point that’s on a highway for example.

Also, in the cases of organized air and sea travel, the company providing the transport holds a responsability to check and make sure you have the required documents and meet the needed criteria to enter the destination country – they may face a fine if they bring a someone who cannot legally enter the destination country and they also hold the obligation to return said person to the country of origin. If you travel privately you are on your own – if they decide you don’t have the adequate documents to enter a certain country you are stuck and have to figure a way to get back all by yourself.