SOME destinations offer novelty stamps to put in your passport as a souvenir of your holiday.
However, you may want to think twice before putting it in – as it could see you banned from travelling.
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While official stamps are okay, novelty ones could invalidate your passportCredit: Alamy
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You could be stopped from boarding your flight thanks to a novelty passport stampCredit: Alamy
Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin, and the city of Ciudad Mitad del Mundo in Ecuador – where the equator runs through – offer novelty stamps for tourists to commemorate their trip.
The Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum in Japan, the Antarctic Heritage and the Welsh village of Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, which is famous for having the world’s longest place name, also offer souvenir stamps.
However, a British tourist was banned from flying due to the souvenir stamp in her passport.
Sixty-year-old Tina Sibley, originally from the UK, had flights booked to Phuket from Madrid in February 2020.
However, when trying to board her flight, she was stopped – because she had a souvenir stamp from Peru after visiting Machu Picchu.
She warned on Facebook: “Do not get these tourist stamps in your passport!
“I’ve just been denied boarding my flight to Thailand because of them. I’m gutted! Apparently they can invalidate your passport and immigrations are getting strict.”
While the British Embassy said her passport was still valid she had to get a new emergency document and book another flight, costing her £1,000 altogether.
In Taiwan, a woman was denied entry after her daughter added a Hello Kitty stamp to her passport, while anyone travelling to the US must only have “foreign countries place stamps or make notations or additions to this passport”.
Despite the warning, the UK government state that carriers have “no requirement” to check any other stamps in the passport other than the one needed.
They state: “For UK nationals travelling to the UK, they need to present a valid UK passport. There is no requirement for carriers to check other stamps in the passport, including novelty stamps, if they are satisfied that the passenger is a genuine UK national.”
Other countries are also likely to be stricter Israel no longer stamp passports due to the problems they pose if travelling to another country.
Destinations such as Bahrain, Qatar and the UAE are likely to ban any arrivals with an Israeli stamp in their passport.
A UK passport is also invalid is if there is anything spilled onto the pages, or there are any missing pages.
There are just four passport colours in the world, which all depend on the country.
Here is everything you need to know about renewing your passport and how much it costs.
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While it looks real, the Checkpoint Charlie stamp in Berlin could cause you problemsCredit: Alamy
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If you really want the stamp, then have it on a separate piece of paperCredit: Alamy