If you’re an avid traveller you probably know all to well the pain of trying to find a blank page in your passport for your next visa. It’s extra painful when you SHOULD have the space, but instead an almost blank page has one random stamp in the middle, costing you precious passport space. However, this is where the humble post-it note could come in handy…
Now before you get too excited, no, you can’t magically extend the life of your passport by using post-it notes as extra pages. We tried. They said it wasn’t legal or something. BUT, you can use the sticky notes to have more control over where passport officers lay their rubber stamps.
Since many visas need a full page, and some countries even require you to have 2-4 blank pages in your passport to enter a country, it makes sense to economise the space. The trick is simple: stick a post-it on the page you want left blank with a concise note saying you’d like these pages left free for a visa. Use your manners so the passport officer wants to do it for you of course!
ALSO READ: HOW DO I…GET A SIM CARD OVERSEAS
Australian Business Traveller journalist and avid traveller Chris Chamberlin, uses the post-it hack when he travels and swears by it. “If you notice your passport is starting to fill up, grab those sticky notes, write a short and polite message, and stick them in your passport. I’ve been travelling with these in my passport for over a year now to preserve my last remaining ‘double blank’ page, and all the passport officers I’ve encountered have been most obliging,” he says.
An officer can always choose to ignore the note, but Chris says it’s always worked for him and it’s just as easy for them to stamp elsewhere if they know there’s a reason NOT to stamp those pages.
Why the post-it though? Couldn’t you just write that you need the blank pages for a visa in the passport itself? NO. Please don’t do this! If you write in your passport they can declare it defaced and invalid, and passports aren’t cheap…
Have you tried this hack before? Let us know in the comments if you’ve found it works!
Still looking to fill up those pages? Check out where we go.
