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Two passports are better than one

Prabhu Balakrishnan Avatar
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When it comes to Travel and passports: The more the merrier

If your ambition is to travel freely around the world, here is a pro tip: Given the shifting, odd and sometimes completely senseless restrictions imposed on international travel starting in the first quarter of 2020, do yourself a favor and acquire as many citizenships and passports as possible. One extra passport can open the door to flight paths that would otherwise be restricted at any point in time.

For example, if you are a citizen of country X, you will most likely have unrestricted rights to return to this country. This may in turn not be your final destination, but if you can’t go from country Y to country Z directly, perhaps you can go there via country X — and that’s where citizenship in country X will come in handy.

Two passports are better than one. Three passports are better than two. And four passports are better than three. I think you get the idea. If you have not done so already, this is the time to go out and acquire as many citizenships and passports as you can. It may be your most important investment and will help your freedom to travel.

Here is a scenario that is not exactly what is in force today, but was close to what was in force previously and could be akin to future rules: Let’s say you are in Puerto Rico and you want to fly to Sweden, but you are not a Swedish citizen. Let’s further assume that the EU has a general ban on non-EU citizens flying directly from the Americas to the EU countries.

In such a scenario, EU may still be open to people flying from Turkey (Istanbul etc) because it is not a member of the EU. You could fly from the U.S. to Turkey, and then from Turkey to the European Union.

But what happens if Turkey were also to stop people from flying from the U.S.? (This is not the case today) Then, being a citizen of Turkey would likely help, as a Turkish passport would get you from the U.S. to Turkey, from which you would be able to continue to an EU country. Problem solved!

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