This is one of my favorite parts of any international trip — and soon, 29 countries will banish it

My husband has long joked that one of my very favorite things about traveling abroad happens in the first few moments of any trip. But yes — there’s a certain intense thrill and sense of satisfaction I get every time I hear that satisfying thunk of a passport stamp going into my weathered little blue book of journeys. It’s one of the most underrated joys of international travel — a small but tangible marker of adventure, proof that I was there at a particular moment in time, maybe a birthday, an anniversary, an important work trip, or some other bucket-list-checking opportunity. I flip through my passport regularly like it’s a scrapbook, each page filled with faded ink and stories only I know.

But soon, in much of Europe, that ritual is coming to an end.

Beginning October 12, 2025, 29 countries in the Schengen Zone — including favorites like France, Italy, Spain, Germany, and the Netherlands — will begin rolling out a new Entry/Exit System (EES), as reported by Travel + Leisure. By April 2026, the plan is to do away with traditional ink stamps entirely for travelers like me, replacing them with biometric scans: fingerprints, facial recognition, and digital records.

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To be clear, the change doesn’t mean less travel or tighter borders. It’s about modernization, efficiency, and security. Officials say the new system will reduce human error, speed up processing, and make it easier to track overstays. For frequent flyers, especially those using e-gates, it might even mean breezing through borders a little faster.

Still, I can’t help but feel a little heartbroken.

For me — and I know I’m not alone — passport stamps aren’t just functional. They’re meaningful. They’re official souvenirs you can only earn.

When this change takes full effect, that moment will disappear — not just for me, but for millions of travelers.

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It’s hard not to see it as the end of an era. Soon, passports will look a lot emptier, even if we’re traveling more than ever. No old-fashioned inked evidence, just a digital log stored in a server somewhere.

Of course, I understand the reasons behind it. The world is changing. Travel is changing. Maybe it’s for the best — more seamless, more secure, more streamlined.

But if you’re like me and treasure those little stamps as tiny time capsules, now might be the time to take one last look at your passport — and savor the stories it tells, before the ink fades away for good.

Yahoo CreatorAlesandra DubinAlesandra (Alice) Dubin is an award-winning travel and lifestyle journalist. She has a BA from UC Berkeley and an MA in journalism from NYU. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and their twins.FollowFollow