The Most Powerful Passports in the World

Photo credit: atissue.com

Being a Filipino traveller, I know the difficulties of acquiring a visa to enter a country that doesn't give free access to Filipinos.   Besides the anxiety of not having enough money, time and energy; the most agonizing part of planning your trip abroad is the process of securing a visa. In addition to having to fill out forms and presenting documents, one has to pay visa fees (which most of the time is costly) in order to get access to your desired destination. The sad part is that doing all these doesn’t guarantee that your application will be approved. I have heard hundreds of heart-breaking stories of visa denial and the horror of having my visa denied gives me sleepless nights.   

But there are citizens who are just so lucky to travel the world with freedom and ease like the travellers from United Kingdom, Sweden and Finland. Citizens of these countries were just cited as the most powerful passport holders in the world as they have visa-free access or visa on arrival to 173 countries as published by GOOD Magazine. They are followed by the Americans, Germans and citizens of Luxemburg and Denmark with free access to 172 countries. Europe and North America have the best access to foreign countries but not all countries have the same privilege – Afghanistan and Iraq, for example. Afghans have 28 while Iraqis have 31.

Philippine passport holders, on the other hand, have visa-free access to 58 countries, only one-fourth of the globe. This isn't good news to young Filipino travellers like me. With the advent of budget airlines and hostels, more and more Filipinos travel more often than in the past. I could just imagine the difficulties they have to go through whenever they want to travel out of the country.  

I remember my dad’s stories that in the past, Filipinos can set foot in Japanese and Korean soils without a visa. But with the proliferation of TNTs in these affluent Asian countries, they had to require Filipinos a visa to enter their countries.

I am kind of envious of our Southeast Asian neighbors Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand because they have free access to 167, 163 and 68 countries, respectively.   

It looks like a country’s decision to give free access to foreigners is a reflection of the economic and political status of a country. A developing country like the Philippines is not given free access to richer and developed countries, say the United States and Switzerland. Citizens of these affluent nations are freer when it comes to travelling abroad.  

Well, enough of my rants. So here is the infographic originally designed by Rosie Spinks for Good magazine which shows the most and least powerful countries in terms of having free access to foreign countries.