Originally Posted By: DWallach
To be fair, the U.S. is a very big place. You can travel great distances and still be in the U.S. I imagine if the EU were to expand to include all of the U.K., Switzerland, and all of Eastern Europe, you'd find that far fewer Europeans would ever need or get passports.


Being pedantic, the UK and parts of Eastern Europe are already full members of the EU, but not the Schengen Agreement which allows free movement between the member countries without passports. There are also members of the Schengen Agreement who aren't members of the EU - Norway and Switzerland are two.

That said, most people's first use of a passport will be to visit France to pick up beer, or a holiday to Spain.