Traveling The World On A Third World Passport

 

 

What Is It Like And How To Overcome It

There are many things in life that we can choose to be but one thing we can’t choose is where we are born. The location of our birth can determine the opportunity we will get, the privilege we will receive, and it can predefine how our lives will play out. I truly believe that traveling the world is a rite of passage every human being in this world should take, but unfortunately, the access to this privilege is predetermined by which country we are born in and the passport we were given.

I have been traveling the world since 2012 and every time I mentioned to the first-world passport holders, the things I have to go through in order to go to a place like Europe, they were shocked.

I am a Thai citizen through and through and my Thai passport is ranked 54 on the Passport Index with 39 countries visa-free, 41 visa-on-arrival and 116 countries visa required. In comparison to European passports which ranked 2 – 10 on the Passport Index with over 119 visa-free, 36 visa-on-arrival and only 43 countries visa required, you can see the difference.

Every time I hear first-world passport holders complain about doing a visa run or having to apply for an electronic visa online, I cringe a little. For us third-world passport holders, we have to go through much worst to get to places they can simply hop on a plane and be there in no time. How much worst? Well, let me explain the things we have to go through just to get to Europe.

What Is It Like?

Europe does not make it easy for us to travel to their continent, in contrary to them coming to us. The entire process takes at least 2 weeks to a month from us calling to book for a time slot which can be fully booked up to 2 weeks, to us picking the passport up which can be 3 days to a month from the day we apply.

Planning A Trip

Planning for a trip for people with a first world passport can simply be just buying a plane ticket and show up on time, but for us, it requires extensive planning weeks in advance.

For Europe, first we would have to find the embassy to apply, read up their document requirements and followed the list to a tee. Documents involved are usually a valid return flight ticket, all the accommodation booking details for the entire stay, an itinerary of the entire trip, a 3 months bank statement with cash movement (to prove that it is your money), a letter from work proving that you have something to return to, non-refundable fee from 50 – 200 USD and many more. If anything is missing from the documents, we would get rejected outright and we would have to make an appointment again.
As you can see, going somewhere with a third world passport requires extensive research and careful planning that hinder us from exploring the world as freely as other types of passport.

The key is to never give up and keep trying. You just need to know what the embassy is looking for in your application and try to prepare enough documents to reinforce it. When it comes to applying for a visa, it is always better to be over prepared than under prepared.

I hope this guide helps shed light on how lucky it is to be a first-world passport holder, the situation us, third-world passport holders have to deal with and how we can overcome the lim