Does any one know if it is possible to get individual country stamps in a passport while traveling in the European Union? Thanks. Monte

Hi Monte!

I think that should be possible. You'd probably have to ask for it, though. However, if you have any plans to go to a country that requires a visa, I would not waste any pages for "vanity" stamps.

When I travel in Europe I actually just take the German ID which is valid as a travel document all over Europe. No stamps in there, obviously.

My husband has his stamped everytime we go over and he holds a Canadian passport.
He never asks, they seem to get stamp happy when he shows up.

Thanks, all. I have been to several EU countries but always in and out by air. We are traveling by train this time and I understood that there were no border crossing posts anymore. If that's true where do I go for a stamp. Oh, the stamps aren't a vanity thing for me anymore. They comprise part of my historical life experiences tha I am leaving for my grand children to whom we always send postcards from exotic places. Monte

I like the idea of leaving your passport as a historical document of their grandpa's life very much. Traveling by train there are indeed no real checkpoints. But they still often come through and check on just a few sample people. I am quite sure they do carry stamps. I'd just stop the "douanier" and ask him/her. Maybe you could start a series of photos with border agents. Careful in Austria, these guys are not funny. It's the only time I've literally been arrested in my life. They were very respectful about it. No handcuffs or anything and I actually had to drive the car back to their main office but I had a customs agent sitting next to me. He felt clearly uncomfortable about it because he knew his boss was overzealous. It ended with an apology from their side and reimbursement of the fine and tax they made me pay as well as restitution of the car which they had confiscated because they thought I had smuggled it and they would put me on a trial. Quite the adventure.

As a souvenir from this event let me tell you a little joke that people who lived in this region and knew about the overzealous Austrian custom officers all knew.

Q: What is patrolling on the Austro-German border and has an IQ of 60?
A: An Austrian Customs officer.

Q: What is patrolling on the Austro-German border and has an IQ of 180?
A: An Austrian Customs officer with a German shepherd!

Cheers,

Till

Where they put the stamp probably really doesn't matter. I have one of those new passports that looks like a comic book. I really liked the old style better. My wife said if we have time to kill we can pull out our new passports and read all the little snipits of knowledge the State Dept. has thoughtfully included.

Till, did you use any bad words? Monte

I used bad words only in my head. :)

The background of the story was that I had taken one of my grandmother's cars to Germany for two weeks. With her written permission, of course. The Austrian douanier said that I was trying to smuggle a Swiss car into the European Union to sell it there. In his expert eyes I was therefore smuggling a rather big ticket item which is a crime that needed to be followed up in court. They confiscated the car, and made me pay the tax I would have had to pay if I had declared the import of the vehicle plus the fine.

But the fact that I had a written statement from the car's owner saying that this was a "loaner" and the fact that he actually "caught" me when I was just trying to bring the car BACK to Switzerland, spoiled his endeavor. Now, it's just a cool story to tell.

Till

Right, good story there Mr. Big Time Smuggler.

Thanks to everyone. I've got a handle on it now. Monte