Global Citizenship

I was listening to my daily episode of the Morning Brew on Spotify a few weeks ago when I heard a crazy stat.

In the last three decades, the total amount of passport holders in the U.S. has jumped nearly 10x.

While this may make getting the perfect IG photo at the Trevi Fountain a bit tougher, it demonstrates that more Americans than ever have the access and means to travel internationally.

Now, my point isn’t to persuade you of all of the great benefits and “personal growth” you can experience from spending time abroad.

Numerous studies conducted by economists and academics with far greater insight, prestige, and intelligence than I have demonstrated the plethora of benefits from global exploration.

I believe more Americans having passports is indicative of a larger trend we have seen exponentially evolve over the past 400 years.

Never before in history have there been more ways to become a global citizen.  

Up until 1648, nation-states like France or Sweden didn’t formally exist. Sure, there were kingdoms and empires that stretched from modern-day London to Istanbul, but territorial authority and who governed who in a given land were blurry.

The Thirty Years War represented this great power struggle, as territories fought over religious tolerance and dominance in Europe for decades, costing millions of lives.

In 1648, after the war ended in what was essentially a giant draw, all of this changed. A series of negotiations and agreements took place known as the Peace of Westphalia.

These agreements established the “Westphalian” system whereby countries recognized the territorial sovereignty or authority of the lands within states.

The meetings laid out the basic tenets that all states were formally equal, operated within a larger system, and that there would be no single power that controlled the others.

Many political scholars see the Peace of Westphalia as the beginning of international relations. How countries recognize each other diplomatically and within the larger world order today was established during these negotiations.

There have been challenges to these ideas since then. Germany during World War II and Russia in its aggressive territorial pursuits of Ukraine currently represent a complete rejection of Westphalian principles that recognize state sovereignty.

Despite this, we can’t ignore that the Peace of Westphalia is what successfully created the bedrock for our largely peaceful international order today.

Positive international initiatives to end extreme poverty and reduce global emissions, organizations like the European Union and the United Nations that help maintain order, and the World Trade Organization that catalyzes economic growth, would not be possible without the precedents set in these agreements.

In the past 400 years, we have made incredible progress on an international scale to transcend social, linguistic, and religious differences in favor of cooperation.

Now, in the last half-century, individuals have far greater opportunities to live in and peacefully interact with other parts of the world.

Schengen Zone

The best example of this is the Schengen zone.

Started as an intergovernmental project in 1985 in the small town of Schengen, Luxembourg, the region now allows over 400 million Europeans to travel freely between 27 different countries.

Today, if you are born in one of the 27 Schengen territories, you can live and work in any of these places as you see fit.

These countries offer an incredible variety of educational opportunities, religions, cuisines, and cultures. By working together, the Schengen territory can exchange ideas, optimize supply chains, and trade much more efficiently than anywhere else in the world.

Today, members of the Schengen region represent the richest and happiest nations globally.

It is crazy to think that countries that were at all-out war with each other less than a lifetime ago have collectively opened their borders in pursuit of economic strength and connectedness today.

Individuals born in the Schengen area have the complete agency to live and work in the places and ways they want because of how successful these countries have been diplomatically in the last century.

Countries outside of the Schengen territory, like the U.S., also benefit from these developments.

For foreign visitors, the Schengen Agreement offers unrestricted travel between countries for up to 90 days during a given 180-day window (as a U.S. resident) and up to 6 months with a Schengen visa. With the upcoming Paris Olympics, it is now possible to even obtain this travel cheat code digitally.

While studying abroad in Austria during my senior year of college and traveling throughout the European Union with a Schengen visa, I was blown away by the ease and autonomy I had perusing between countries. (BTW if you want to check out some of these adventures, see my ~unfinished~ journey here).

Because of these diplomatic advancements, it has never been so easy to take that post-college backpacking trip you went (or wish you went) on.

Golden Passports

If you are a broke post-college grad like me, this may not apply to you yet.

Once you have maxed out your 401k and have extra cash, however, you could buy more Bitcoin or a Bored Ape NFT.

Instead, how about citizenship in another country?

Various nations in recent years have created “Golden” Passport opportunities that give well-off individuals the opportunity to obtain citizenship through investment.

Offered in more than a dozen countries worldwide today, including Spain, Greece, and Turkey, many millionaires and investors are taking advantage of these policies to live internationally and find new business opportunities.

As Dr. Kristin Surak discusses at length in her new book, “The Golden Passport: Global Mobility for Millionaires”, more than 130,000 new residents of the EU have obtained citizenship this way, with tens of thousands more gaining citizenship each year.

Many of the locations where golden passports are available are in tropical, small countries in the Caribbean and Mediterranean.

One of the most popular today is St. Kitts and Nevis. The first CBI (citizenship by investment) country, the island nation is located in the Caribbean about three hours from Miami.

Through its program, prospective investors can obtain citizenship through various routes such as donations for economic development, commercial real estate, or private residences for less than half a million dollars.

Additionally, St. Kitts and Nevis (and other nations like it) provide the perfect opportunity for the ultra-rich to hedge against potential conflict in their home countries.

Also, just take a look at the place. Not a bad way to lay low if you see COVID 2.0 spreading or civil war at home.

Digital Nomads

The most recent and evolving way we are seeing citizens of one country become residents of another is through digital nomad programs.

When the world shut down in March 2020, many workers were forced to do their jobs remotely.

Noticing this trend, the Baltic State of Estonia saw an opportunity. In July 2020, they launched the first digital nomad program, offering foreign, remote workers to stay in the country for up to one year.

Since then, more than 50 countries worldwide now offer similar programs enabling digital workers to live and earn abroad.

For remote employees, living internationally not only allows them to see new places without burning through all their annual PTO on a 2-week trip to Aruba but also reduces their cost of living.

For countries that offer these programs, they can boost tourism revenues and grow their economies through newfound consumer spending. It’s a win-win.

While many companies have reversed their policies on the level of remote work we saw immediately after the pandemic, we are unlikely to return to a fully in-person work model.

Roughly five million employees in the U.S. today are remote, which is expected to jump to more than 32 million in 2025, according to research by Upwork.

With digital work here to stay and more options to live abroad, living like “Emily in Paris” may not be pipedream after all.

Siloed Beginnings

When we are born, we have very little control over our environment, the country we reside in, or even the social groups we are a part of.

As we grow older and travel, we begin to interact with and learn from people with attitudes and backgrounds quite different from our own.

This happens in many ways. Through the schools you attend, social clubs you join, or that Bar Mitzvah you went to in Middle School, you learn more and more about the world at large.

Yet, unless you decide to take action and leave the environment you were born in, your level of learning plateaus. There is only so much you can discover about the world from your high school social circles or your Twitter feed.

Whether you have a wanderlust to travel, a desire to live abroad, or simply want a change from your current environment, you have hit the historical jackpot.

Our world is more connected than it has ever been.

It would be a real shame if we reduced our exposure to it through TikTok and week-long spring breaks in Cancún.

So, as 2024 begins, I can only encourage you to look at the opportunities you may have to see and live in places far different than where you were born.

You may find yourself planning your next, big adventure.

-John Henry

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