Passport Stamps & Other Vicarious Travel Snippets

By the time my previous passport expired, I had finally reach a minor goal: having so many stamps that I had to get extra pages inserted. This was well before the current passport office slowdown, so the process was fast, straightforward and free. Silly and superficial as this goal was, I considered it a feather in my traveler's cap. In fact, I worked toward it, asking to have my passport stamped at airports and border crossings that only give them on request. When I feel that I haven't been anywhere noteworthy beyond our borders, I occasionally pull out my passports -- both current and expired -- to look at the stamps and remember the trips: European countries now within the European Union that have erased border formalities at many crossings, China, Thailand, Turkey, Australia, New Zealand, Chile, Argentina and more, plus the post office Easter Island, the Austral Museum in Ushuaia and the British Primavera Station in Antarctica, whose unofficial, souvenir stamps are among the official ones.

So I was intrigued by a link to "Fill Up Your Passport" on a New York Times travel page. It linked to the rare on-line advertisement that I actually spent time playing around with. That page features and open passport complete with stamps. Click on any of the cities or countries and up comes a photo montage. Click on a photo and get more info on that destination. The passport stamp section is part of a Visa Signature Living on-line ad campaign. It hooked me, found myself clicking on some of the others too, including an interview with a Scots Guards officer at Buckingham Palace, afternoon tea at Claridge's London, astronaut training, heli-skiing, the Seychelles, New York City at Christmastime and the 28 Seven Wonders of the World (seven each of ancient, medieval, natural and modern wonders). I can't easily tell how many there are (the click-on list is long and scrolls dynamically down the left side of the screen), but there are a lot of them. Some are film clips, some are animated, some are still -- but I had a good time looking and traveling vicariously, even without digging out my own passports.

I already have a Visa signature card, but if I didn't, this engaging ad campaign my tempt me to apply for one.