What’s the Best Passport to Carry? (And Why Do We Carry Passports?)
Part-Time Genius
iHeartPodcasts and Kaleidoscope
4.5 • 2K Ratings
🗓️ 10 March 2026
⏱️ 36 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Travel identification has taken many forms over the years, from stone tablets to an exhausting process that involved posting your itinerary on a church door. But how did we arrive at the standardized booklets many of us carry today? How do different countries use art and technology to distinguish their passports? And what’s the best (and worst) passport in the world, according to experts? Plus: Why you can blame a German spy for your embarrassing passport photo.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is an IHeart podcast. |
| 0:02.6 | Guaranteed Human. |
| 0:18.7 | You're listening to Part-Time Genius, |
| 0:20.8 | the production of kaleidoscope and IHeart Radio. |
| 0:28.3 | Guess what, Will? |
| 0:29.4 | What's that, Mango? |
| 0:30.3 | So, you know, I just got back from India, and of course, this got me thinking, |
| 0:35.6 | did you know that passports date all the way back to 1600 BCE? |
| 0:41.6 | You know, you always come back from a trip with some really wild facts, but this one, I got to be |
| 0:46.8 | honest with you, this feels hard to believe because I've just not picturing our ancient ancestors |
| 0:51.3 | carrying around these little booklets and collected stamps from |
| 0:54.2 | border crossings or anything like that. So what do you mean by this? If you think about it, |
| 0:59.5 | a passport is just a form of identification that people use when they travel far from their home. |
| 1:03.9 | And according to archaeologists, one of the earliest examples of that system is shown in this |
| 1:08.7 | ancient Egyptian tomb drawing. It depicts a magistrate handing out |
| 1:13.3 | identity tablets to foreign laborers all waiting in line. I do really love the idea of this. |
| 1:18.6 | Like somebody taking the time to preserve this sort of moment. It's like, I don't know, |
| 1:22.8 | it's like if you painted a portrait of people waiting in line at the DMV now, right? |
| 1:27.0 | It's pretty amazing. But that's not the only example. |
| 1:30.5 | Historians also cite the story of the Hebrew prophet, Nehemiah, and this is around 450 BCE. |
| 1:37.4 | He obtained a letter from his king to show governors abroad so that they would allow him to pass |
| 1:42.4 | through their land safely. And ancient Rome also had |
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