Passports of History: fifteen travellers, their visas and stamps

Each traveller below has a passport from the country they belonged to. Tap it to open it and turn the pages. The visas and stamps tell the story of the journey, and the notes next to each passport point out the best ones.

The stamps are made up, but the dates and places are real. Many of these “visas” were really invasions, and the border control officers were never asked.

Kingdom of Macedon · 356–323 BC

Alexander the Great

He got his passport at twenty and used it until he died at thirty-two. He never went home.

19 stamps · 3 visas · 1 refusal · 18 stops

The journey

Alexander left Macedon in 334 BC with an army and one goal: to go as far east as the world went. He crossed into Asia, beat the Persian king twice and took Egypt, where he was accepted as pharaoh and founded the city of Alexandria. He burned the Persian palace at Persepolis on his way out.

In the end, the only ones who could stop him were his own soldiers.

Then he marched through what is now Afghanistan and Uzbekistan, married the Bactrian noblewoman Roxana there, and reached India. On the banks of the Hyphasis river his own soldiers refused to go any further, a refusal even he could not overcome. He came back through the desert and died in Babylon in 323 BC.

Homewhere the passport was issued

Stopa place he passed through on the way

Visa issueda full-page visa in the booklet

Entry refusedturned back at the border, or by his own army

Journey’s endwhere the passport closed

Retrace it today

Today the route crosses Greece, Türkiye, Lebanon, Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Pakistan and India. Egypt is the one country on this route that Plusvisa can help with: an e-Visa in a few working days.

Plusvisa can sort these for you

Egypte-VisaApply

Carthage · 247–c. 183 BC

Hannibal Barca

He crossed the Alps with thirty-seven elephants. Rome never let him in.

15 stamps · 3 visas · 1 refusal · 15 stops

The journey

As a boy of nine, before leaving Carthage for Spain with his father, Hannibal swore never to be a friend of Rome. In 218 BC he led an army and thirty-seven elephants across the Alps into Italy and won three huge battles. But he never got into Rome itself: in 211 BC he rode right up to its walls and then withdrew.

He reached the gates of Rome, but never got in.

He stayed in Italy for fifteen years until Carthage called him home, where Rome finally beat him at Zama. He spent his last years moving from one foreign court to another, always one step ahead of the Romans, and died in what is now Türkiye.

HomeStopVisa issuedEntry refusedJourney’s end

Retrace it today

Today the route crosses Tunisia, Spain, France, Italy, Lebanon, Türkiye, Greece and Armenia. None of these countries are on Plusvisa’s list yet.

See all visa guides

Roman Republic · 100–44 BC

Julius Caesar

His passport was cancelled on the Ides of March.

16 stamps · 3 visas · 0 refusals · 14 stops

The journey

Caesar’s travels follow his rise to power. As a young man he was kidnapped by pirates, who held him for thirty-eight days. He then served in Spain, and spent eight years conquering Gaul, today’s France and Belgium. He made two short trips to Britain.

Made dictator for life in February. Killed in March.

In 49 BC he crossed the Rubicon river with his army, which was against Roman law, and started a civil war. He won it with victories in Greece, Egypt, Türkiye, North Africa and Spain, and stayed in Egypt with Cleopatra. The Senate made him dictator for life in 44 BC. A month later he was killed in Rome.

HomeStopVisa issuedEntry refusedJourney’s end

Retrace it today

Today the route crosses Italy, Türkiye, Greece, Spain, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Egypt and Tunisia. Egypt is the one country on this route that Plusvisa can help with.

Plusvisa can sort these for you

Egypte-VisaApply

Ptolemaic Egypt · 69–30 BC

Cleopatra VII

Her Roman visa had two sponsors. Neither ended well.

14 stamps · 3 visas · 0 refusals · 9 stops

The journey

Cleopatra travelled less than the men in this series, but every trip mattered. Pushed out of Egypt by her brother, she sneaked back into her own palace, according to Plutarch rolled up in a bedding sack, to meet Julius Caesar. She then lived in Rome as his guest for two years, until he was killed.

She is said to have sneaked into her own palace rolled up in a bedding sack.

Her next ally was Mark Antony, whom she met at Tarsus in 41 BC, arriving on a golden barge with purple sails. They were beaten by Rome at the sea battle of Actium in 31 BC, and she left the battle early. A year later Rome took Egypt, and her life and her dynasty ended in Alexandria.

HomeStopVisa issuedEntry refusedJourney’s end

Retrace it today

Today the route crosses Egypt, Syria, Italy, Türkiye and Greece. Her journey starts and ends in Egypt, a country Plusvisa can help with.

Plusvisa can sort these for you

Egypte-VisaApply

Duchy of Aquitaine · c. 1122–1204

Eleanor of Aquitaine

Queen of France, then Queen of England, and still travelling at seventy-eight.

16 stamps · 3 visas · 0 refusals · 15 stops

The journey

Eleanor inherited Aquitaine, a large part of south-west France, in her early teens and became Queen of France the same year. She went on crusade to Constantinople, Antioch and Jerusalem, and in Antioch her marriage began to fall apart. In 1152 the marriage was cancelled, and eight weeks later she married Henry, who soon became King of England.

At seventy-eight she crossed the Pyrenees in winter.

That made her a queen twice over. She later backed her sons in a revolt against Henry and spent sixteen years under house arrest. Once free, she took her son Richard’s ransom to Germany herself, and at about seventy-eight crossed the Pyrenees in winter to fetch a granddaughter for a royal wedding.

HomeStopVisa issuedEntry refusedJourney’s end

Retrace it today

Today the route crosses France, Türkiye, Syria, Israel, Italy, the United Kingdom, Germany and Spain. Most of her route is in Europe today, where these travellers would not need a visa from Plusvisa.

See all visa guides

Mongol Empire · c. 1162–1227

Genghis Khan

His gold pass opened every road in his empire. Few other borders opened for him willingly.

16 stamps · 3 visas · 1 refusal · 12 stops

The journey

Genghis Khan’s "passport" is a paiza, a metal tablet, often gold or silver, that let its holder demand fresh horses, food and lodging at relay stations across the Mongol Empire. He became Khan in 1206 and attacked China, taking the city that is now Beijing in 1215.

At the Indus river, he turned back.

When an empire in Central Asia killed his trade envoys, he spent two years destroying it, taking Bukhara and Samarkand. At the Indus river he stopped and turned back. Some of his famous campaigns he never joined himself: his generals led them, so those stamps say "by proxy". He died on campaign in 1227, and nobody knows where he is buried.

HomeStopVisa issuedEntry refusedJourney’s end

Retrace it today

Today the route crosses Mongolia, China, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Russia and Ukraine. None of these countries are on Plusvisa’s list yet.

See all visa guides

Republic of Venice · c. 1254–1324

Marco Polo

He was away from home for twenty-four years.

19 stamps · 3 visas · 0 refusals · 17 stops

The journey

Marco Polo left Venice at seventeen with his father and uncle. They travelled through the Middle East and Persia, spent a year in the mountains of Afghanistan while Marco recovered from an illness, and crossed the Gobi desert. In 1275 they reached the court of Kublai Khan in China, where Marco worked for seventeen years, travelling on a golden pass from the Khan.

He left home at seventeen and came back at forty-one.

His book claims he governed the Chinese city of Yangzhou for three years; local records do not mention him. He sailed home with a Mongol princess on her way to her wedding, by way of Sumatra and Sri Lanka. Back in Italy he was taken prisoner, and wrote his famous book in a prison cell.

HomeStopVisa issuedEntry refusedJourney’s end

Retrace it today

Today the route crosses Italy, Israel, Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, China, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Türkiye. Plusvisa can help with two of these today: Sri Lanka and Indonesia.

Plusvisa can sort these for you

Sri LankaETAApply Indonesiae-VoAApply

Marinid Morocco · 1304–1369

Ibn Battuta

He set off for an eighteen-month trip and came home twenty-nine years later.

19 stamps · 3 visas · 0 refusals · 21 stops

The journey

Ibn Battuta left Morocco in 1325 to make the pilgrimage to Mecca, and simply kept going. He travelled through Egypt, Syria, Arabia and Iraq, sailed down the coast of East Africa, crossed Türkiye and the Central Asian steppe, and worked as a judge in India for seven years.

A trip planned for eighteen months took twenty-nine years.

He was also a judge in the Maldives, visited Sri Lanka and Sumatra, and went on to China. He came home in 1349, then made two more trips: to Muslim Spain, and across the Sahara to the empire of Mali. In total he covered about 120,000 kilometres, one of the longest journeys anyone made before the age of steam.

HomeStopVisa issuedEntry refusedJourney’s end

Retrace it today

Today the route crosses Morocco, Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Tanzania, Türkiye, Uzbekistan, India, the Maldives, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, China, Spain and Mali. Plusvisa can help with four countries on his route: Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka and Indonesia.

Plusvisa can sort these for you

Egypte-VisaApply Saudi ArabiaeVisaApply Sri LankaETAApply Indonesiae-VoAApply

Ottoman Empire · 1432–1481

Mehmed II, the Conqueror

At twenty-one he took Constantinople. A few cities still said no.

16 stamps · 3 visas · 3 refusals · 13 stops

The journey

Mehmed became sultan as a boy, and again for good in 1451. Two years later, at twenty-one, he captured Constantinople after a fifty-three-day siege, ending the Byzantine Empire and making the city his capital. Not every border opened for him: Belgrade held out in 1456, and the Albanian fortress of Krujë refused him twice before it finally fell in 1478.

At twenty-one, he took the city the world now calls Istanbul.

He fought in Greece, Romania, Bosnia and along the Black Sea. In 1480 he had his portrait painted by the Venetian artist Gentile Bellini. He died a year later while setting out on a campaign whose target he never revealed.

HomeStopVisa issuedEntry refusedJourney’s end

Retrace it today

Today the route crosses Türkiye, Greece, Serbia, Romania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, Ukraine and Italy. None of these countries need a Plusvisa e-Visa for most travellers today.

See all visa guides

Republic of Genoa, sailing for Spain · c. 1451–1506

Christopher Columbus

He always wrote "India" as his destination. He never got there.

16 stamps · 3 visas · 1 refusal · 16 stops

The journey

Columbus spent seven years asking the kings of Portugal and Spain to pay for a voyage west to Asia. Spain finally agreed in 1492. He landed in the Bahamas that October and was sure he had reached Asia; he called Cuba "Japan". He made four voyages in all, to the Caribbean islands and the coasts of South and Central America.

He thought he had reached India. He had reached the Americas.

On his third trip he was arrested by a royal investigator and sent back to Spain in chains. On his fourth he was shipwrecked in Jamaica for a year. He died in Spain in 1506, still insisting that the lands he had reached were part of Asia.

HomeStopVisa issuedEntry refusedJourney’s end

Retrace it today

Today the route crosses Italy, Portugal, Ghana, Spain, the Bahamas, Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Venezuela, Honduras and Panama. Most of these countries do not need a visa from Plusvisa for most travellers today.

See all visa guides

Portugal, then Spain · c. 1480–1521

Ferdinand Magellan

He changed countries to get his ships, and died halfway round the world.

17 stamps · 3 visas · 1 refusal · 13 stops

The journey

Magellan first sailed for Portugal, in India and Malaysia. When the Portuguese king refused him a ship, he moved to Spain, and in 1519 the Spanish king gave him five ships to reach the Spice Islands by sailing west. He crossed the Atlantic, wintered in Patagonia, and found the strait at the tip of South America that now carries his name.

He died in the Philippines. His crew finished the trip.

Then came ninety-nine days across the Pacific, an ocean he named, with almost no food. He reached Guam and then the Philippines, where he was killed at Mactan in April 1521. Eighteen of his crew sailed on and reached Spain in 1522: the first trip around the world.

HomeStopVisa issuedEntry refusedJourney’s end

Retrace it today

Today the route crosses Portugal, India, Malaysia, Morocco, Spain, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Guam, the Philippines, Indonesia and South Africa. The Spice Islands are in Indonesia today, and Plusvisa can help with Indonesia’s visa on arrival.

Plusvisa can sort these for you

Indonesiae-VoAApply

Kingdom of France · 1740–1807

Jeanne Baret

The first woman to sail around the world, travelling under a man’s name.

16 stamps · 3 visas · 0 refusals · 14 stops

The journey

Women were not allowed on French navy ships, so in 1767 Jeanne Baret joined an expedition dressed as a man, as "Jean", the assistant of the botanist Philibert Commerson. She collected plants in Brazil, crossed the Strait of Magellan and sailed into the Pacific.

The people of Tahiti saw through her disguise at once.

According to the expedition’s leader, the people of Tahiti saw at once that she was a woman; the ship’s officers had taken much longer. She left the expedition in Mauritius, worked there for several years, and returned to France around 1775, completing her trip around the world. Years later the French government gave her a pension, and in 2012 a plant was named after her.

HomeStopVisa issuedEntry refusedJourney’s end

Retrace it today

Today the route crosses France, Uruguay, Brazil, Chile, French Polynesia, Samoa, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea, Mauritius and Madagascar. Most of these places are visa-free or give visas on arrival to the passports Plusvisa serves.

See all visa guides

French Empire · 1769–1821

Napoleon Bonaparte

He went almost everywhere in Europe without an invitation. One page is burned.

18 stamps · 3 visas · 2 refusals · 18 stops

The journey

Napoleon was born in Corsica just after it became French. He made his name in Italy, then led an army to Egypt in 1798, where he was turned back at Acre. Back in France he took power and crowned himself emperor in 1804. He beat Austria, Prussia and Russia, and marched into Berlin, Madrid and Vienna.

About 600,000 men went into Russia. Fewer than 100,000 came out.

In 1812 he invaded Russia with about 600,000 men and reached Moscow, which then burned; fewer than 100,000 came back. He was exiled to the island of Elba, escaped, lost at Waterloo, and was sent to Saint Helena in the South Atlantic, where he died in 1821.

HomeStopVisa issuedEntry refusedJourney’s end

Retrace it today

Today the route crosses France, Italy, Egypt, Israel, Czechia, Germany, Russia, Poland, Spain, Austria, Belgium, the United Kingdom and Saint Helena. Egypt is the one country on his route that Plusvisa can help with.

Plusvisa can sort these for you

Egypte-VisaApply

Gran Colombia · 1783–1830

Simón Bolívar

He freed six countries, and one of them is named after him.

17 stamps · 3 visas · 0 refusals · 17 stops

The journey

Bolívar was born in Venezuela when it was still ruled by Spain. As a young man he lived in Madrid, was in Paris when Napoleon crowned himself emperor, and swore in Rome to free South America. In 1811 he gave up being a Spanish subject.

A whole country was named after him: Bolivia.

Over the next twenty years, mostly on horseback, he led the fight for independence: he crossed the Andes in the rainy season and won battles in Colombia, Venezuela and Peru, while his general Sucre freed Ecuador and won the final battle at Ayacucho. In 1825 a new country, Bolivia, was named after him. He escaped an assassination attempt through a window in 1828, and died in Colombia in 1830.

HomeStopVisa issuedEntry refusedJourney’s end

Retrace it today

Today the route crosses Venezuela, Spain, France, Italy, the United States, Colombia, Jamaica, Haiti, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia. Most of these countries do not need a visa from Plusvisa for most travellers today.

See all visa guides

United States of America · 1864–1922

Nellie Bly

She beat a famous fictional record with one bag and a monkey.

16 stamps · 3 visas · 0 refusals · 14 stops

The journey

In 1889 the journalist Nellie Bly set out to beat Phileas Fogg, the hero of the novel "Around the World in Eighty Days". She left New Jersey with one small bag and a single dress. She sailed to England, met the author Jules Verne in France, took the train through Italy and sailed through the Suez Canal.

Around the world in 72 days, with one bag and a monkey.

She passed through Yemen, Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Singapore, where she bought a monkey, then went on to Hong Kong and Japan. After a stormy Pacific crossing, a special train took her across America. She was back in New Jersey after 72 days, 6 hours and 11 minutes.

HomeStopVisa issuedEntry refusedJourney’s end

Retrace it today

Today the route crosses The United States, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Egypt, Yemen, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan. Plusvisa can help with two countries on her route: Egypt and Sri Lanka.

Plusvisa can sort these for you

Egypte-VisaApply Sri LankaETAApply

Questions readers ask

Are any of these documents real?

No. Passports in the modern sense date from the First World War; before that most people travelled on letters of safe conduct, if anything. The paiza carried by Marco Polo is the closest thing here to a real travel document. The dates, places and events on every page are drawn from the standard histories; the stamps and visas are our invention.

Why these fifteen?

They cover more than 2,200 years, five continents and the Pacific islands, and most ways of travelling before the aeroplane: on foot, by horse, camel and elephant, by galley, sailing ship and steamship. Four of them are women, which took some effort given how the records were kept. Hannibal and Ibn Battuta were added to the original list because one brought elephants and the other travelled further than anyone else of his time.

Why do the stamps carry horses and camels instead of aeroplanes?

Nobody in this series flew. The arrival and departure stamps use the transport the traveller actually used on that leg, drawn from the Game Icons library (CC BY 3.0).

Can I use the passports or the maps?

Yes. The whole set is published under a Creative Commons Attribution licence (CC BY 4.0): share it, embed it, put it in a classroom, with a link back to Plusvisa.

What would these travellers need today?

Each section ends with the modern countries along the route. Where one of them is a destination Plusvisa processes — Egypt, Sri Lanka, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Vietnam or Cambodia — it is linked to the visa guide. For everything else, the Visa Index has the current rules for your passport.

Maps: Natural Earth. Map, transport and emblem icons: Phosphor Icons (MIT) and game-icons.net (CC BY 3.0). Passports of History by Plusvisa, published under CC BY 4.0.

Passports
of history.

Alexander the Great

The journey

Hannibal Barca

The journey

Julius Caesar

The journey

Cleopatra VII

The journey

Eleanor of Aquitaine

The journey

Genghis Khan

The journey

Marco Polo

The journey

Ibn Battuta

The journey

Mehmed II, the Conqueror

The journey

Christopher Columbus

The journey

Ferdinand Magellan

The journey

Jeanne Baret

The journey

Napoleon Bonaparte

The journey

Simón Bolívar

The journey

Nellie Bly

The journey

Questions readers ask

Get your e-Visa in about three business days, without the portal headaches

Passportsof history.

The journey

The journey

The journey

The journey

The journey

The journey

The journey

The journey

The journey

The journey

The journey

The journey

The journey

The journey

The journey

Questions readers ask

Get your e-Visa in about three business days, without the portal headaches

Passports
of history.