How many visas are in it ? Which countries are they for?
When was it issued?
Have you ever run out of pages in your passport?
I have only one visa in my passport because it is only a month old. The visa is a tourist visa for Kyrgyzstan.
I never ran out of pages. For my last passport I chose the extra pages option when I ordered it. I didnt use all the pages because I became pregnant soon after and that mean limiting travelling to more familiar countries which meant fewer visas or just stamps. As my personal saying goes 'the bigger the visa the weirder the country''. I only had one big visa that took up a whole page in my last passport.
Reply to this I just got a new passport yesterday and a new visa too... So one visa...
I had to get a new passport because my old passport was full, which sucked, because it was still valid for one year!! And in Holland they don't extend passports! So now I got a so called bussines passport, which has twice as many pages... That should last me it's five years... I personally would love it if I didn't get any stamps or visa's at all, I don't like having to pay for the visa's and I don't like having to get a new passport before the old one has expired... But such is life...
Oh and I hate it when they put a stamp on an empty page, making it useless to put a visa on that page, while they can put it on a page which has already got stamps and has plenty of room for more! If you are really unlucky and you are not European and travelling through Europe, you might have one stamp put into your passport on each and every page for all those pesky little countries and in the end not have a page left to put a visa on...
Don't know about your bigger visa, weirder country saying... Working Holiday Visa for perfectly normal countries like Australia or New Zealand take up a whole page. A visa for India does too, not such a weird country...
Reply to this Sad as it is to say, I have never been issued a visa, so I guess that the countries I have gone to are either very friendly towards Americans, or the country finds it more profitable to get money from its travelers in another way.
In America passports are good for one year. My second one--gotten when I was in highschool--expired when I was in college. I had to buy a new one before leaving for Europe, which wasn't so bad except that my picture was pretty bad. The woman at the post office (which is where passports are processed here) took me into a dark room without any light, and then flashed the camera. I now have a passport photo of me looking like a stunned deer. 😞
I don't remember how old I was when I got my first passport. I know I went to Australia at the age of three, and then Mexico from 7-13. So, at the age of 24, I am on to my third passport!
When I went through the smaller countries in Europe they stamped my passport in the same way--by finding a brand new page when the other ones were only half full! But, I must admit that I was disappointed not to get stamps going through some of the larger countries of Europe...so maybe there is a part of me that likes to have a catalog of memories. It's like creating an album while on the go.
Reply to this In America passports are good for one year. My second one--gotten when I was in highschool--expired when I was in college.
More questions to add to this thread.
How old were you when you got your first passport?
How many years is your current passport valid for and which country is it for?
I was 19 when I got my first passport.
The current one is valid for 10 years.
Reply to this Country of passport: The Netherlands, validity 5 years.
I got my first passport when I was, I guess, less then a year, perhaps after 3 or 4 month I would think...
Also not getting any visa's doesn't mean that much anymore... Less and less countries require visa's these days. In the past you would need a visa for almost any country you wanted to visit, even in Europe... Some Eastern European countries still had a visa policy only 10 years ago, now you can almost move around Europe without needing to obtain a visa for any country... South and Central America is visa free for the most part, at least for Europeans... Only Africa has still got quite a few countries that require visa's and Asia too, but it is (very) slowly getting less in Asia.
Reply to this Country of Passport: United States, validity 10 years
Melanie - are you sure your U.S passport is only good for a year? Mine is good for 10 years, although I think if you're younger than 15 they're only good for five. I suppose it's because you're less likely to resemble your photo the younger you are.
I got my first passport in college -- I was 19 or 20. First person in the family to get one, first person in the family to use it, although that's not at all rare in the US. You didn't used to have to have a passport to enter Canada and Mexico, you could just show your birth certificate to prove citizenship. When the law changed to require one for air/sea travel it caused a huge processing delay as thousands tried to expedite their paperwork in order to complete their travel plans, Caribbean cruises etc. That's the main reason you see a jump in the number of US passport holders in recent years. It was a huge headache, and I'm glad I already had one and avoided the fray.
Never been to a country where I needed to apply for a visa, yet, and never run out of pages. My passport has been used, but not nearly enough.
Reply to this Let's see, currently have visas from Iran, Pakistan, India, Syria, Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh, all take up 1 page. Also have a Pakistani visa extension, another page.
Then a few pages which are just full of stamps from various places, some big, some small.
The passport is far from full, and there's 4 years left on it, but I've had it since 2002 (when I was just turned 18), and it's falling apart, time to get a new one I think - one of those fancy new ones with the photo embedded in it if you get me.
Oh yeah, country is Ireland.
Reply to this Oops, I meant so say that in America passports are good for ten years, not one!
Reply to this Colombia is one of the Latin American countries that allows double citizenship with the US. I have both passports, and travel mostly with the US passport, as I get less hassles and troubles from it.
I have two visas on my passport from the US (Korea and China). I have yet to run out of pages on it, but I still have five years on it, so who knows. I got my US passport when I was 20.
I also have my Colombian passport, which was my first passport and got when I was eight eight years old. I have to renew it every 5 years, and am currently on the third one--with three, well placed stamps on it.
Reply to this ....Asia too, but it is (very) slowly getting less in Asia.
Not including Central Asia and Iran. I think most of those countries give whole pagers that cost 30 Euros + with little sign of changes to come. And China...
Reply to this Malaysia and Singapore just give 90 day stamps, I imagine that S. Korea and Taiwan are the same as probably Hong Kong and Macau, oh and the Maldives also just stamps... Also U.A.E. and Bahrein give just a stamps upon arrival... Many of these countries used to have a visa regime, so that is what I mean with it is getting less, but I admit it goes very slow and it will take a long, long time... It's got to do with a countries wealth, as a country becomes more rich the entry requierments for us become less demanding. This in turn has got to do with our countries, because as a country becomes more rich, the western countries also put down the barriers to that countries citizens. Most visa regimes are reciprocal, we make it difficult for their citizens, they make it difficult for us. Why do we make it difficult for some countries? Because our governments are scared that the citizens of a poor country will come over and not leave. So for somebody from Chad for instance to get a Dutch visa, he will have to prove he has the means to stay for the duration of his trip, have a return ticket, have somebody in Holland who will vouch for him and much, much more... It used to be like this that if I wanted a visa for Chad, I had to prove I had a certain amount of money on my bank, have a hotel reservation and promise not to make use of their generous welfare system :-)
Reply to this I have NZ and Australian passports - both new as of about a year ago, courtesy of some low-life in Paris (not insinuating they were French, I don't know). Gone are the Inca Trail stamps/MP :-(
I now only have my work-related visas for Japan, and the visitor visa for Thailand earlier this year.
I'm a bit anal with my stamps - it used to annoy me when an immigration officer would just open it and stamp any old page, so now before I hand the passport over I ask them to put the stamp on page x :-)
Reply to this I kinda regret tossing my first passport with the E. European visas from the old days. I threw out the passport because of the unnaturally beautiful passport photo I had. I got sick and tired of people looking at it and saying I dont look as good as that photo instead of admiring my visas. :D
Reply to this If it were no longer valid you could've just replaced the photo ;-)
Reply to this Now I realise I could have just cut out the pages with the visas or taken a photo of them. :D
Reply to this We have British passports and both got our first one at the age of 15. We left on our travels 2 years ago and had about 20 free pages left in our old passport with 5 years left on the validity (in the UK they are valid for 10 years). In February of this year we had to get our passport renewed as we only had one page left! So basically 4 years of our passport was wasted 😞
The new one we decided to pay extra for the 48 page one so it would last. This cost us though, because we got it renewed in an embassy abroad it cost a whopping £144 each! 8 months on we have already used 9 pages, so we don't think it is going to last us as long as we hoped! We've kept our old passport though as it has loads of visas and stamps in that we want to remember like Macchu Picchu. Our new passport has Cambodia and Thailand visas in so far for full pagers and loads of normal stamps, soon to have an Indian visa in too!
It's really annoying that countries like Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia and China which have a full page for their visas and then also use a blank page to stamp you in and out. Can't the idiots just stamp the visa? Some countries are great and will stamp where you want or will use their common sense and stamp on a page which already has stamps on it. Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia and Macau do only have 90 stamps for UK passport holders and are some of the nicest immigration officers...very sensible about where they put their stamps! 😉
Reply to this Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia and Macau do only have 90 stamps for UK passport holders and are some of the nicest immigration officers...very sensible about where they put their stamps! 😉
The ones in Thailand are also very considerate. 😊
Reply to this The ones in Thailand are also very considerate
Have to disagree with you there, Mell!
When we were running out of pages and wanted to keep one full page blank, we asked the Immigration officer very nicely if he minded stamping on a particular page. He looked at us then looked through the passports and chose the page we wanted to keep blank and then stamped on it and threw our passports at us and said 'you don't tell me where to stamp!'...all the Thai immigration people we have come across have been quite arrogant, we've never had a good experience with them!
Reply to this 'you don't tell me where to stamp!'...
He sounds like a nut case. :D
Reply to this Country of Passport: UK
My current passport only has six blank pages left, and 8 years of validity remaining which is a pain in the butt as they're so expensive to replace... I have a few full pagers in there... China, Indonesia, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia and India, but loads of stamps from where we've crossed multiple borders without staying in the country for any length of time... My previous passport I washed which was a real bummer as it had some great stamps in!!!
My favourite stamp is definately the Macchu Picchu one (the one you get at the actual ruins, not at the start of the inca trail, which t.b.h. is a bit dull), it actually has a picture of the ruins!!!!
One thing I did notice which was interesting, is other than China (which stuck its visa on the last page), All my asia stamps/visas start from the front of the passport, all my South America stamps start at the back and work their way forward, and my Oz/NZ ones are right in the middle...
My Wife only has a single blank page left.... and I'll bet Japan sticks its stamp right in the middle of it next year! 😞
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