You will often see the Ship used to refer to things happening overseas, perhaps from another place, or referring to a person who is from overseas. The main energy of the Ship card, though, is that of travel, journeys and movement. It can refer to adventure, to exploration in the sense of movement, moving from A to B, and travellers in general, people who move around a lot. Generally, that travelling aspect should be present in some way if you are using the Ship to refer to foreign countries; it’s the sense of a place being “overseas” or of movement and travel around the world as a whole.
The energy of the Garden, though is more about the “outside” world, the physically external. So this is why it is used to refer to places where people gather, public places, the social world, a place for extraverts, or literal outdoor places such as parks, natural landscapes and land in general.