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Asia Minute: Several Asian Countries Score High on Passport Power

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More people continue to get COVID-19 vaccinations both around the islands and across the country, and that’s making some people are thinking about travel. Over the coming year, more of that travel is likely to be international. So how strong is your passport?

The relative strength of a country’s passport is determined by how many places its holders can visit without a prior visa.

A global residence advisory firm called Henley and Partners tracks the passports of the world and ranks them according to their power.

And in the latest survey, once again several Asian nations are at or near the top of that list.

And once again, the United States is a little bit further down that list than it used to be.

Japan leads the world when it comes to the number of countries its citizens can visit without arranging a visa ahead of time—193—two more than several months ago.

Singapore trails that number by just one, while third place is a tie between South Korea and Germany—whose citizens can pop into 191 countries with no previous visa planning.

It used to be that the United States and the United Kingdom topped this list. That was last true back in 2014, but now they’ve both dropped down to a tie for seventh place.

Although travel is starting to come back a bit on the domestic front, there are limits to even the strongest passports in the world.

Many countries are still not accepting any foreign visitors. And for others, there can be severe restrictions depending on how virus conditions are in your home country.

Bill Dorman has been the news director at Hawaiʻi Public Radio since 2011.
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