the entire concept of passports is weird, you try to visit a slightly different piece of the planet you were born on and then somebody goes "woah woah woah, first I need to see a very small booklet"
@VeryBadLlama Haha. Yeah, passports date way back, thousands of years. Back when every land / country was governed by a monarch of some kind, all citizens were, in practice, property of the king. So naturally, you had to have the king's permission to leave the land. Since every land had similar rules, they checked to see if you had your monarch's permission to leave. Being outside your own country without paperwork meant you were either a vagabond or an outlaw, so you were arrested. Each country expected this behavior from other countries. In ancient Rome you needed permission of some kind or an obvious reason to be out on the road. After all, you might be an escaped slave.
