Stamped and Delivered

Confessions of a Passport Junkie

Years inside this book.
Every stamp, a quiet vow:
I was here. I lived.

(Dateline: Glasgow) They say the Real ID deadline is finally here. Again. After 20 years of delays, debates and DMV drama, it’s now 2025 and Americans are supposed to flash that little gold star on their license like it's a VIP pass through airport security. (Spoiler: It isn’t.)

Me? I never bothered. The DMV says I should be excited about my new Real ID. Cute. My passport has been my Real ID since…forever. Because I have something better. My passport.

My passport is my favorite book. Every stamp a plot point. Every wrinkle a memory. And the junkie that I am, my heart still beats a little faster at the sight of my passport…with airline tickets.

When I leave on an adventure, my wife always asks me the same three questions as she drops me at the airport: Phone? Credit card? Passports? Check, check, and hell yes, check. That’s all i really need.

My passport is my identity, my golden ticket, my E-ticket to adventure, my memoir-in-the-making. If my kids disown me again at customs, I’ll still be fine—because my passport knows who I really am.

To me, passports aren’t just documents—they’re Rorschach tests. They reveal the kind of traveler you are. Tourist? Expat? Immigrant? Nomad? There’s a spectrum. Tourists hoard fridge magnets. Travelers stockpile stories. Adventurers rack up near-misses. Explorers? They collect stamps like battle scars.

Passports are like time machines. Each stamp brings back memories…border crossings, adventures, foreign liaisons, and conversations.

My two passports—American and Canadian—each play their own role. The Canadian one whispers, "I'm polite, let me in", while the U.S. one shouts, "I dare you to try and stop me." Together, they’re a perfect pair.

But there’s a catch: my passport proves both my freedom and my dependence. It says I can go anywhere—but only if someone says yes. Every border I cross is a reminder that sovereignty isn't mine—it's on loan. For a weekend, a week, a month or 90-day Schengen stay. I will inevitably have to leave. And one day, a bored official or a hallucinating algorithm might decide my worthiness to enter otherwise. Did I overstay my visa? Did I pay my taxes? Did I get one too many radar speeding tickets last visit? Thankfully, I’ve never been declared persona non grata. So far.

Fun Fact: Only one person doesn’t need a passport: King Charles. But he had one before the crown—nobody likes a line-cutter. Queue up, Chuck…

People say, “You can’t have a narrow mind and a thick passport.” (Okay, I saw it on a T-shirt.) And I wish that were true. But some people collect countries like Pokémon, rushing through capitals just to add a stamp. Like Andorra for instance! But a full passport doesn’t mean you’re worldly. It might mean that you just might have too much money and too much time on your hands. Insight and perspective can be nuanced affairs.

I once had my passport thudded by a grinning Thai immigration officer, a moment so thrilling it kickstarted my adventure travel addiction. Since then, my passports have been used and abused in Kathmandu, Samarkand and Zanzibar. They’ve been scrutinized in backroom border booths. They've had crisp U.S. twenties slipped between their pages at sketchy land crossings—I call them tolls, entry fees if you will. Technically a misdemeanor. Probably violates the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA)—or used to?—but it always gets me in.

And you’re not officially in a country until you get that stamp of approval. Because prior to entry you are in the infamous gray area of state control. Not here and not there, yet. A diplomatic limbo, purgatory, a liminal space in-between that Steven Spielberg makes fun movies about—The Terminal, 2004.

There is a certain dramatic dance trying to enter a foreign country: Approaching the immigration booth humbled, hat-in-hand—sometimes bleary-eyed after a 14-hour flight. The mutual nods. The quick scan and thumbing through of your passport. Maybe a few suspicious looks at unseen before visa stamps. Foolish pride is quickly replaced with a tinge of humiliation or vulnerability feelings, knowing you have no rights, yet. Maybe a few questions: Where do you reside? Business or pleasure? Where else have you visited? How long are you staying? Do you have any cheese? Satisfied, hopefully…it is followed by a thud and a smile. Welcome to…

I love the beautiful visa stamps in them. My passport has more ink in it than a Portland tattoo convention on half-price ink night. And of course, I hate it when officials sloppily slap their states stamps sideways in the middle of a page. Or worse—those full-page stickers that hog precious space like a tourist with a selfie stick. (I’m looking at you Dominique the French Immigration Officer at Orly airport 1988!)

Back in the day, one of my favorite pastimes was Passport Poker. A wonderfully ridiculous airport lounge game played amongst global wanders, NGO-types, and flying commercial business road warriors. My passport was always nearly unbeatable in any hand, where we competitive types bet unusual visa stamps like poker chips. “I see your Zimbabwe and raise you an Uzbekistan.” The beers kept coming. (Although I fondly recall one game of one-upmanship when a Dutch Médecins Sans Frontières worker, despite protestations that it wasn't a country, won a hand with an odd-looking Iguassu Falls stamp. Well, she earned an extra four thousand shillings (about forty bucks back then) because in fact, it was a stamp…and it was in her actual passport!?)

So don’t even get me started on the sad extinction of stamps altogether. QR codes and facial scans? Efficient, yes. But where’s the romance in that? I miss the thud. The ink. The moment. It's like the velvet rope being opened and the bouncer waving you into a VIP club you didn’t even know you were cool enough for.

Yes, I admit, there’s also a romance to it all. I consider myself a lucky thrillionaire (Net worth: 27 unforgettable meals, 19 close calls, 3 near-arrests, and scores of global friends.) Seriously, I count my wealth in experiences, friends made across borders, and meals I can’t pronounce. My passports tell those stories. They’re filled with chapters I couldn’t have written without leaving home. The night border checks (Papers. Let me see your papers.), the awkward inspections (Latex gloves sometimes included.), and the backroom interviews where a younger, beardless version of me stares from a photo while I try to explain why I’m now older, scruffier, and slightly more suspicious looking.

“When you start looking like your passport photo, it’s time to go home.” – Erma Bombeck

I’ve paced nervously while my passports been held hostage by embassies for visa processing. I felt naked being without it in my presence. Less than whole. That happens less and less now, access to the world has gotten much easier since I first started traveling broadly in the early ‘80s.

And I’ve grieved the retirement of old, dog-eared passports—soft with time, smudged with adventure, crammed with stamps that look like international tattoos. New passports? They feel sterile. Clean. Unloved. Like crisp white sneakers that haven’t been scuffed by the world.

Did you know U.S. passports have 30 security features? Barcodes, holograms, invisible ink, RFID chips, microtext…They’re basically James Bond gadgets made of paper. But even with all that tech, the real magic is how they make you feel. Powerful. Independent. Mobile.

Unless, of course, you're not. The global mobility lottery is a cruel game. A good passport means you can come and go. A bad one means you can’t even leave. Statelessness is a bureaucratic purgatory—proof that without the right paper, you're not just stuck, you're invisible. There are places where women need their husband's consent to travel—it’s the husbands passport, not hers! Places where dissidents can’t get an exit visa. And then there are digital nomads with sleek MacBooks and multiple residencies in beach towns, surfing on geopolitics like it’s a lifestyle brand.

One group migrates by choice. The other by necessity. Expats have cushions. Immigrants have cliffs. Expats skim a place. Immigrants embed. There’s a difference. Like I said, a lottery.

Luckily, knock on wood…I’ve never had my passport stolen. Never left it in a hotel safe. It’s always safely stowed in my front zipped pocket of my KÜHL travel pants. (An unpaid product endorsement BTW.) But I know how much it would hurt to lose it—not just for the hassle (Right, Rainey.), but for the heartbreak—all those memories lost.

Yes, my passport is my favorite book.

Someday, maybe passports will vanish—replaced by retina scans, chip implants, or whatever biometric horror awaits us all. Until then, I’ll keep thumbing through mine: soft, frayed, creased and glorious. The best book I’ll ever own. And Dominique—leave me a blank page next time.

Long live the passport…that I used today entering Scotland! Thud…

Thanks for the privilege of your time, it is the most precious thing we have, and I appreciate it. Be well.

William D. Chalmers © 2025 All Rights Reserved.