My most recent passport was issued on 07 April 2016, a 10-year version in anticipation of – at that time – my still pending retirement (Ted had retired just 2months prior) and lots of travel.
It has served me well!
Yesterday we filed for our passport renewals, and were given the option to keep our old passports (de-activated by having a hole punched through them). We don’t generally keep “stuff” as souvenirs, but wanted the chance to photograph the pages, which we hadn’t thought to do ahead of time.
Looking back through all the stamps has brought back wonderful memories. Interestingly, they are not in chronological order. I’ve always wondered, and still don’t know, why or how customs officers choose on which page they put their stamps.
Page 7: Charles deGaulle airport entry 18 Nov 2018 and exit 25 Nov 2018, bookending our Paris to Normandy Viking river cruise with son #1 and their wife; Mexico entry 29 Nov 2022 beginning our allowed 180 day stay in Mérida.
Page 9: exit from Chile at the port of Puntarenas on 07 Feb 2022; entry to Germany at the Frankfurt airport 09 July 2016 and exit at the Munich airport on 29 July 2016 at the end of 3 weeks that began near Bremen with my cousins and took us to Vienna, Salzburg, and eventually Munich; entry to Italy at the Rome airport 03 June 2024 to begin a short Italian tour with Exoticca.
Page 11: leaving Cape Town South Africa 04 April 2025; entering the USA dec 23 2021 on a B1/B2 six month visitor visa at the beginning of our 21/22 world cruise; re-entry to the USA via San Diego on Jan 02 2020 (note that the US is the only country using this date format) after our 2019/20 South American cruise.
Page 13: entry and transit through Keflavik airport in Iceland 03 July 2022 en route to Berlin; leaving the Schengen Zone via Amsterdam’s Schipol airport 23 November 2022; entering the Kingdom of Jordan 3 April 2022.
Page 15: entering Sharm el Sheik Egypt 5 April 2022; leaving the Schengen zone via Amsterdam Schipol airport on 13 May 2022 at the end of our 21/22 world cruise.
Page 17: entering the Schengen Zone via Frankfurt airport 02 June 2025; exiting the Zone via Keflavik airport in Iceland 13 June 2025, book-ending my trip to Germany with son #2; temporary Irish visitor visa 26 May 2023, beginning our land tour of Ireland.
Page 19: visitor visa issued by Komodo Island 20 Feb 2025; exit from Indonesia 26 Feb 2025.
Page 21 inexplicably blank.
Pages 23 through 31 were again blank, but customs/immigration officers seemed to like later pages. We’re often told on long trips that our passports need “at least 6 blank pages” – it would be so much easier if they were used in order!
Page 35 is pretty clearly marked “DO NOT STAMP THIS PAGE” and yet, with all those other blank pages available… 10 June 2024 leaving Venice Italy.
Because of the Schengen Zone, and because some countries choose not to stamp the passports of tourists on ships who do not stay overnight, there are far fewer countries’ stamps in my passport than countries we’ve visited (58 so far). Some countries, like the USA, don’t even open our passports once we’ve gone through their biometric (face recognition) screening. It’s too bad, because the stamps rekindle memories.
We pick up our new passports in just 2 weeks, at the same downtown Vancouver office where we dropped off our paperwork and payment.
It’s time to start making more memories!
Rose and Ted’s Excellent Adventure 
Funny, we also just renewed our US passports for another 10 years, opting for the fatter kind with more pages, which, surprisingly cost the same as the thinner kind. We were also able to renew through a new, very user friendly online option, even taking our own photos at home against a blank white door. I was proud of myself for getting that done. When Chris’s arrived about a week before mine, I got a little nervous, but then mine arrived — by registered, US mail. Given the chaos going on here, it feels good to have them in hand, even though the old ones weren’t due to expire till June 2026. I wasn’t at all sure we’d still have 6 blank pages! We have so much travel ahead, we weren’t sure when renewal would fit in or whether we’d have a functioning State Dept by then… (Big layoffs announced today). As former diplomats, we are very disheartened by this news, along with all the other reasons to despair. Planning travel seems a little like the proverbial fiddling while Rome burns, but it keeps us sane and sometimes we even get to reassure a non-American we meet abroad that we are not all MAGAfied and crazy. Gardening helps too — that’s the thing I’d find hardest to give up if I had a chance to make your lifestyle choice. I enjoyed your Alaska cruise but it will be a while before that one makes the list — might keep it in mind for 10 years from now with a grandson!
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Ours too were a 2026 expiry, but we’re trying to book flights into next year that needed 6 month validity. We joke that our 10 year passports are really only 9.25.
Travel planning is also what keeps me sane – that and watching our current landlord garden! 😆
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