OskiBear

The contrast is interesting. When I started using Global Entry ten years ago, I missed getting the US stamp upon returning - different points of entry (LAX, ORD, JFK, etc.)
Then when other nations stopped stamping upon entry/departure.

That said, there are still times when the passport gets stamped because I'm doing short hops/day trips back and forth across borders. The daytrip ferry ride from Buenos Aires to Colonia gets a lot of stamps - out of Argentina, into Uruguay, out of Uruguay, into Argentina. It gets filled pretty quickly.

DanishFlyer

Electronics aside, I still get entry stamps in the the USA every time (passport from Denmark).
In my last two passports I also had visas for studying/working in the USA.
Travelling to the USA for pleasure became much simpler when that last passport expired - no more arguing with check-in agents about whether I was travelling on visa waiver or on the visa (visa not expired, but also not valid, as I was no longer living in the USA), and no more lengthy questioning from CBP about how you go from working for The National Institute of Aerospace on an H1-B visa to teaching high school. It was kind of messy until a CBP agent at Philly took a black marker to the H1-B visa "CWP".

But I do like the stamps - still remember fondly the first US entry stamp from a Canadian airport. I found it hilarious at the time.

- DanishFlyer

OccasionalFlyerPerson

I still have loads of stamps in mine. And, I'm not even asking for them. I guess that I am not going to these countries that don't stamp. Also, I don't drive so use it for ID.

Do you have a big stick-in Iranian visas? I got one of the very last ones before they stopped doing them.

frank.lan.yufan

It’s the only ID you have when you’re abroad.

hfly

I guess it really matters where you travel then. Despite places like the UK and HK no longer stamping passports, despite having long term visas for China, India and Brazil, etc, I still managed to fill 158 (out of 162) pages over the last 8.5 years in my main passport, with an average density of 22 stamps per two page spread (yes accounting for full page visa pages as well AND blow through several 2 and then 4 year passports concurrently. The 10 year passport before that was 240 pages (about 228 filled at the same density) and some concurrent passports, so I suppose its going down. I actually want more countries to go electronic, because I do NOT want to have to renew my 10 year passport every 2-3 years when I run out of pages as there is no longer the possibility to add pages!

BRITINJAPAN4

That depends on the definition of abroad ? A french national does not need a passport in Germany !

cbn42

I think that countries are slowly moving away from physical visas and stamps, and more toward electronic record keeping. Maybe eventually passports will be in ID card format, but that can't happen until ALL countries of the world have successfully completed the transition. Maybe once the majority of countries have done so, an ID card passport will become the norm, and issuing authorities will provide a passport booklet only upon request for those who need one. I don't anticipate this happening within our lifetimes, but who knows.

s0ssos

Oh, I thought this thread was in reference to how the passport doesn't actually tell countries where a person has been. Like during this pandemic countries want to know, but many travellers can hide it. They can have 2 passports, or even with 1 and just not have stamps (many countries you can skip stamps. Even those Chinese, as someone mentioned, don't get stamps in Vietnam).

garykung

That should not be missed. I stopped asking for CBP stamps when CBP starts questioning my travel pattern. At that time, I only had the CBP stamps in my passport. I am a U.S. citizen BTW.

The U.K. still stamps passports.

China stamps everyone whenever possible.

Scots_Al

Well, no.

Many countries issue ID cards separately to passports, driving licenses, etc. In countries which require you to carry ID on you, then even as a visitor these are often officially accepted as fulfilling that function (with only visitors from non ID-issuing countries required to carry their passport).

londonsmiler

And some countries will insist on stamping your passport even when you request not to; in Israel when requesting what I understood to be a fairly common occurrence I had a severe dressing down about my perceived wish to “visit enemies of the fine state of Israel”

my favourite was the North Korean visa booklet though, complete with pasted on picture. I wish I had been allowed to keep that but they collected it at the end of the trip.

hfly

Garykung, assuming that we are talking about US passports, then perhaps you have not been to the UK in a while as US passports have been able to use E-gates for over a year, at LHR closer to 18 months in fact. Hence why I wrote what I wrote. One could be bloody minded and point out that one could request a stamp for the hell of it, or some other reason that one might have to try and get a stamp, but I stand by what I said.

Regarding China. Did I say that China stopped stamping passports? NO, I did not, different line and referring to the space saved by having long term visas for China. As I am sure you are aware that until about 5 years ago the maximum term one could get for a Chinese visa was 2 years, prior to that it was 1 year, however even those who regularly got 2 years could not get anything more than 6 months or even 2 entries back in 2007/8. So to spell it out for you, while my last passport probably had 14 Chinese visas of various flavors over a ten year period, my current passport has 3, 2x 2 years and a 10 year which will carry over after my passport expires, despite the fact that I have probably visited China far more with passport 2 than I did with passport one, hence a huge savings in pages, which was my point!