The summer travel season is coming to a close soon, but that doesn’t mean the world exploration has to stop!
For years, the Caribbean travel gaze has primarily been the United States–followed by Canada and England–or bust.
But if you didn’t have a US travel visa, of course, that directly impacted those travel plans (pretty sure a lot of us have experienced the strong ambivalent feeling of hope and dread while waiting for the visa officer to deliver our fate as to whether or not we’d be prepping for a vacation to The States or a staycation in Bago or up the islands).
Access to travel has never been as accessible as it is now, with so many more options becoming available, allowing for so many more travel options allowing us all to go further into the world than we ever previously thought.
Best of all, this includes access to destinations that don’t require a visa!
The Henley Passport Index, which periodically measures the world’s most travel-friendly passports, has just released its latest report and an analysis of what might lie ahead. The index is the original ranking of all the world’s passports according to the number of destinations their holders can access without a prior visa.
The 2024 index–which was first released at the start of the year–was recently updated again in July, listing 227 countries and the number of countries that it has visa-free access to.
Trinidad & Tobago ranks as the sixth most powerful Caribbean passport with visa-free access to 151 destinations around the world. When ranking among all countries, T&T places 27th overall, up three spots from 2022 with a ranking of 30.
Barbados tops the list for the Caribbean
Barbados has yet again been ranked as the most powerful Caribbean passport, with visa-free access to 165 destinations around the world.
The Bahamas comes second with 161 destinations, while St Kitts & Nevis and St Vincent & The Grenadines tie for third with visa-free access to 157 countries.
The top 10 Caribbean passports to hold in 2024 are:
- Barbados (visa-free access to 165 destinations)
- The Bahamas (161 destinations)
- St. Kitts & Nevis | St. Vincent & The Grenadines (157 destinations)
- Antigua & Barbuda (153 destinations)
- Trinidad & Tobago (151 destinations)
- St Lucia (148 destinations)
- Grenada (147 destinations)
- Dominica (143 destinations)
- Jamaica (89 destinations)
- Haiti (53 destinations)
When we take a wider look at the global rankings, Singapore has been ranked as the most powerful passport in the world, with visa-free access to a whopping 195 destinations.
There’s a five-way tie for second place between France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and Spain, all of which have visa-free access to 192 destinations.
Austria, Finland, Ireland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, South Korea, and Sweden have a SEVEN-way tie for third with visa-free access to a total of 191 destinations.
This marks another year that a country from the Asia Pacific (APAC) region tops the global index.
The ascendance of APAC countries in the Henley Passport Index rankings is a relatively new phenomenon. Over the index’s 19-year history, the top spots were traditionally held by EU countries, the UK, or the US, and experts suggest that the APAC region’s position of strength will continue.
For context, Japan held the top spot back in 2021, with Singapore and South Korea holding the second and third spots, respectively.
The 10 best passports to hold in 2024 are:
- Singapore (visa-free access to 195 destinations)
- France | Germany | Italy | Japan | Spain (192)
- Austria | Finland | Ireland | Luxembourg | Netherlands | South Korea | Sweden (191)
- Belgium | Denmark | New Zealand | Norway | Switzerland | The United Kingdom (190)
- Australia | Portugal (189)
- Greece | Poland (188)
- Canada | Czechia | Hungary | Malta (187)
- United States (186)
- Estonia | Lithuania | United Arab Emirates (185)
- Iceland | Latvia | Slovakia | Slovenia (184)
Now that you know how your Trinidad & Tobago passport ranks, where will it carry you next?
