We do need one, but Americans, as well as many other friendly countries, have what is called "Visa on Arrival" which means that you are automatically afforded a Tourist visa just for the asking and you can get it when you arrive at the country. It's easy for Americans, who hold one of the strongest passports in the world, to forget that that visa process for many people can be a long and expensive one, even for something as seemingly mundane as tourism.

This basically adds a "pre-authorization" step once every 3 years to make sure you're not an axe murderer or fall into any other ne'er-do-well category so they don't have to watch you pitch a fit at immigration when you get denied entry.

Edit: I'll add that I pay $100 every five years (Global Entry) so that I can get back into the US on my return flight with as little friction as possible.

[+] cwagner@lemmy.cwagner.me 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

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[–] Overzeetop@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I looked it up and I think we dropped to 9th this year, 8th last, but then Japan dropped by 4 putting Singapore in the top slot all by itself. I was chatting with a Senegalese poster on reddit a while back and the hoops he would have to jump through to enter the EU as a tourist are crazy, and it takes months to accomplish. I get the reasons for visas, but three's a part of me that is baffled at how humans drew imaginary lines on dirt and then spend a non-trivial fraction of our waking time making sure people don't go on the wrong side of them.

[–] socsa@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

We ended up having to cancel a Christmas trip to Portugal because apparently it takes more than 3.5m to get a Schengen visa with a Chinese passport that time of year. Not even with the $500 VFS Global line jumping fee.