I love looking back on photos of trips taken, holidays had and journeys away. Another thing I like to look at are peoples passports. I think a passport can say a lot about someone but it's also a personal history and each journey represents a trip taken for a reason whether it be for pleasure, work or otherwise.
I've been so fortunate to have travelled to many places around the world from a young age and to have had some of the most amazing and unforgettable experiences; sailing the Nile, working at the Athens Olympic games in 2004, and visiting many unspoilt beaches and villages in Greece, Turkey and The Philippines. I regularly need to present my passport as a form of identification or have it on hand so that my office can deal with the rigmarole of residence and work permit updates.
Recently, I discovered that in less than a year, my passport will expire and the thought of a clean fresh one saddens me a little as I won't be able to look back at the one I have with its crinkled frayed edges, tattered and water marked pages, and happily reminisce on all those journeys I have taken over the last ten years.
Interestingly, I was talking about this with my sister a while back who posted about her passport and travel history, which in her past life as a flight attendant, took her to far away and exciting places which filled her passport full of stamps to amazing places like Dhaka, Trivandrum and Oman, to name a few.
When I started composing this post and tracking my trips by year and date, an idea to google the words "passport tells a story" popped into my head. To my surprise, I came across this blog post by Mr Bojangles which is entitled with those exact words writing pretty much exactly the same thing about his passport.
So I decided that I would attempt, through the water marked and stained pages, to trace my steps back over the last ten years and list all the borders I have crossed and when. 5 July 2000 - Bahrain International Airport, Bahrain
9 July 2000 - London, UK
22 October 2000 - Nadi, Fiji
29 October 2000 - Melbourne, Australia
24 July 2004 - Istanbul, Turkey
10 August 2004 - Athens, Greece
28 August 2004 - Istanbul, Turkey
5 September 2004 - Melbourne, Australia
14 August 2005 - Athens, Greece
16 September 2005 - Istanbul, Turkey
26 September 2005 - Athens Airport, Greece
7 October 2005 - London, UK
16 November 2005 - Istanbul, Turkey
25 November 2005 - Cairo, Egypt
10 December 2005 - Istanbul, Turkey
12 December 2005 - London, UK
18 March 2006 - Athens, Greece
25 March 2006 - Melbourne, Australia
8 April 2006 - London, UK
5 May 2006 - Istanbul, Turkey
8 May 2006- London, UK
16 June 2006 - Amsterdam, The Netherlands
18 June 2006 - Luton, UK
6 July 2006 - Rimini, Italy
7 July 2006 - Republic of San Marino, Italy
9 July 2006 - Luton, UK
8 August 2006 - Samos, Greece
9 August 2006 - Kuşadası, Turkey
14 August 2006 - Rhodes, Greece
23 August 2006 - London, UK
15 September 2006 - Berlin, Germany
17 September 2006 - Stanstead, UK
21 September 2006 - Istanbul, Turkey
24 September 2006 - London, UK
20 October 2006 - Paris, France
15 November 2006 - New York, USA
21 November 2006 - London, UK
23 November 2006 - Istanbul, Turkey
26 November 2006 - London, UK
8 December 2006 - Melbourne, Australia
28 April 2007 - Istanbul, Turkey
14 July 2007 - Edirne, Kapıkule, Turkey
29 August 2007 - Kos, Greece
3 September 2007 - Bodrum, Turkey
19 December 2007 - Melbourne, Australia
14 August 2008 - Melbourne, Australia
27 August 2008 - Istanbul, Turkey
17 October 2008 - Lyon, France
19 October 2008 - Istanbul, Turkey
26 January 2009 - Melbourne, Australia
6 February 2009 - Singapore
15 May 2009 - London, UK
