the.com/visa
a stranger's permission slip deciding whether your feet may touch their dirt
means an official endorsement on a passport that grants the holder permission to enter, stay in, or leave a particular country.
from From the Latin 'charta visa,' meaning 'paper that has been seen' — 'visa' being the feminine past participle of 'videre,' to see (a cousin of words like 'vision' and 'visible'). The idea is delightfully literal: a document an official has laid eyes on and approved. The word reached English through French in the 19th century, carrying that same sense of a paper inspected and waved through.
- word origin
- Latin charta visa, meaning paper that has been seen
- passport power
- strongest passports skip visas for 190-plus countries
- henley index
- global rankings score citizenship by visa-free access
- transit trap
- some countries demand visas just to change planes
- schengen reach
- one Schengen visa unlocks 29 European nations
visa inc — payment network processing $8.3 trillion in transactions annually as of 2023
mastercard — competing payment network processing $6.8 trillion in transactions annually as of 2023
schengen visa — travel permit allowing entry to 27 european countries without additional border checks