On a passport

I remember reading one of the Evan Tanner, Spy Who Couldn't Sleep series by Lawrence Block that he wrote in the 1960s. It was kind of a weird take on the very popular spy type books that were popular then. Anyway, he leaves his house on ordinary personal business one day and winds up off in a foreign country on one of his weird and funny adventures, and thinks about how important it is to always have your passport on you at all times, because you never know when you'll have to leave your own country. Of course, that's not very American thinking. Europeans are much more inclined to visit other countries, because they're all so close to each other. Here, it's only convenient to go to Canada and Mexico if you're close to their borders.