Say goodbye to a pocket full of memories.
I usually have no hesitation in saying goodbye to outdated technology. Who needs a DVD? A landline? Remember, what were they?
However, it is a shame that the stamp on your passport disappears. The European Union joins countries such as Argentina, Israel and Macau, which have already abolished the custom of stamping passports, in phasing it out.
In fact, with Singapore introducing passport-free immigration this year, passports themselves may be on the endangered list.
In any case, the stamp on my passport will soon be gone and I'm going to miss it.
Of course, this didn't happen overnight. Here in Australia, in 2012 we became the first country to stop stamping passports and rely on facial recognition technology and electronic chips in passports.
But many other countries continued to ink those pages, turning passports into pocket-sized travel records.
As I flip through my old passport, I smile when I see a Seychelles stamp. This stamp has a distinctive curved butt, but it actually depicts a coco de mer, a native palm fruit.
What I like is the number of Japanese entry stamps. I love not only the image of Mt. Fuji, but also how all the immigration officers stamp the pages with geometric precision.
A flick through reveals that entry stamps and visas have gotten smaller in recent years. My old passport had visas from China and Russia, India and Mongolia, Zimbabwe and Myanmar taking up an entire page. Recent entries from these countries occupy a much smaller footprint.
The pages of my passport are also littered with novelty stamps from several exotic destinations, each a miniature work of art. There's a stamp from Port Lockroy in Antarctica that features penguins, and another from the Galapagos Islands in Chile, which is known for its amazing wildlife. An impressive design featuring a giant turtle and hammerhead shark.
I found an entry stamp from Rapa Nui, once known as Easter Island (technically part of Chile but 3,700 kilometers from the mainland), featuring the moai, the giant statues that created the island. No novelty stamps available at post offices were found. famous.
My passport also doesn't have a stamp for Machu Picchu, Peru's remote Incan fortress. I've been there a few times before and even considered getting my passport stamped at the entrance to the site, but I honestly couldn't face the line.
One country that won't be phasing out stamps anytime soon is the conservation-minded island nation of Palau. Known for its great diving, Palau has a lovely passport stamp in the shape of a jellyfish.
That's not the only way to mark your passport. Upon arrival in this Micronesian country, your passport will be stamped with the Palau Pledge, a commitment to sustainable tourism, and an immigration officer will watch you sign it before allowing you to enter the country.
Visitors pledge, among other things, to “not accept what is not given” and to “act rashly, act kindly, and explore carefully.”
Who wouldn't want that on their passport?
Related article: 50 most luxurious travel experiences in the world
