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Comment by 11mariom | Hacker News Reader

Not the same extent like it was before… Now most of the times is just slowed down traffic (quick glance who's in car and move on), and more than that I was maybe stopped two times for quick chit-chat (where/why I'm heading). And I crossed, multiple times, borders of DK (they had checks since 2018?), DE, A, IT, CH, CZ…

Quick ID check happened once - when I was traveling with bus across border.

Back in a days it was a lot, lot slower and more detailed.

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If you miss the old days, try the bus from Vilnius to Minsk. It’s a full on border control just like in the times of the Soviet Union. Only 35 km away from an European Union capital city.

Your current state is how Canada used to be from the US. Early 2000s we just showed drivers licenses. Went camping, up to Nelson. Then it got less friendly (US side) then passports required. To the point we stopped going. It sucks when politicians make our world smaller as in 'we have access to less' instead of smaller as in 'it's a small world after all'.

Not just Canada but all of North America. I used to go into Mexico with my friends as a teenager to find trouble. No passport or adult supervision required.

I'm surprised how quickly people have forgotten that North America was a giant open border zone until very recently. You only needed a passport to travel overseas. In hindsight that was actually a pretty unique arrangement.

"Back in a days it was a lot, lot slower and more detailed."

Oh for sure, I have childhood memories of the really dark time, but it is way worse now, than it was back in 2015. I missed flixbus connections because of intense checks and changed vacation plans avoiding long waiting times at borders within EU (my recommendation, cross at night).

Flixbus are a primary target for those inspections...

Is this something new within the last year? I just travelled on Flixbus across Hungary, Slovakia, and Poland and received no checks.

Is it only certain countries?

> Is it only certain countries?

Every country can choose independently, and for each border. From a cursory search, it appears e.g. Poland currently only checks the borders with Germany and Lithuania. You'd have missed any checks on your specific trio, if this list was true at the time:

https://home-affairs.ec.europa.eu/policies/schengen/schengen...

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