Last chance: Time is running out to get a European stamp in your passport

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I don’t know about you but I love collecting passport stamps, especially from countries I’ve dreamt about visiting since I was a kid. I vividly remember the first stamp I received. It was Hong Kong when I was 22. I must have stared at it for ten minutes and I was so excited to fill my passport, I took the ferry to Macau by myself to get another passport stamp.

When I started traveling often in my early thirties, I would practically beg the U.S. Border Patrol not to stamp my passport because they would fill up my passport pages with, what to me, were boring stamps. In fact, I was forced to add extra pages, something you can’t do anymore, which is why you should always select the bigger passport book with 52 pages. If you fill that book in 10 years (or five years for children under 16), you will have to get another passport, which is a nuisance, time consuming and expensive.

There have been many times that I crossed a border by car or train and the border patrol agent didn’t stamp my passport. I would ask and most of the time, they would oblige.

Unfortunately, as the world goes digital, it looks like time is running out to get stamps in your passport. According to USA Today, “The European Union’s commissioner, Ylva Johansson, for home affairs announced in a speech Friday the E.U. would switch on its new electronic Entry/Exit System (EES) on Nov. 10, which will remove the stamp requirement for most tourists.”

In Johansson’s speech, she said “Every single border crossing point. At every single airport, every single harbour, every single road into Europe. We will have digital border controls.” Later in the speech she said, “And when that happens, it will be goodbye to passport stamping, hello to digital checks. For all passengers from outside the EU. Making travel easier, and border checks gradually faster.

It might be faster but it definitely won’t be more fun. But one thing that it should do is make it harder for criminals to pretend they’re someone else, which I’m excited about. That’s because foreign visitors entering the E.U. will have their photo taken and fingerprints scanned upon entry. Commissioner Johansson said, “the Entry/Exit System will make it harder for criminals, terrorists or Russian spies to use fake passports. Thanks to biometric identification: photos and fingerprints. There’ll be an immediate warning: This person is not who he says he is.”

It will be interesting to see if you can still get a passport stamp if you request it after November 10, 2024 but I doubt it. I will miss the stamps but I do look forward to one day traveling without a passport, which I think will happen.

KEEP READING:

–12 passport tips that will save you time, money and headaches
–The most important thing I do when I travel internationally is …
–Rick Steves got pickpocketed in Paris: Here’s what he wants you to know
–The most important thing for travelers to do according to a safety expert
–What you need to know about renewing or getting an emergency passport in the U.S.