How do I ensure that border agents stamp my passport neatly, without wasting space, ruining blank pages, etc?

I would just ask them to stamp on a specific page, and possibly at a specific point on that page.

Worked wonders for me with the Russians – I asked them (I learned how to do it in Russian, as those officers usually don’t speak English) to stamp the visa rather than the facing page.

When I did this on exit, they suggested putting the stamp on the machine-readable stripe, but I asked them to stamp right next to the entry stamp instead, and they did.

Equally, I got the Americans (at Dallas airport) to stamp the last space of my first stamp page, in a vertical manner, rather than the next page.

I travel a lot within Asia, and the Immigration officers of some countries are more diligent than others in finding empty spots in already used pages, rather than stamping a new page (China is probably the best country for that, Immigration officers are really cool about this part, at least). On the other hand, some countries are the worst offenders (and, incidentally, the US comes to mind…).

In a few countries, especially Thailand and Korea, Immigration officers have a nasty habit to stamp entry stamps systematically on new pages. I have resorted now to two strategies. In countries like Korea, where I can actually see my passport at all times, I tell them on which page to stamp. I usually put a small yellow PostIt marker to help them. I even had to grab the hand of a Korean Immigration officer twice, preventing them to stamp on a blank page, after leafing through my half-stamped pages, and looking for the next available blank page.

In countries where I can’t see what’s happening to my passport, like Thailand, I still resort to the same request, backed up by the yellow marker, but also cover the blank pages with full-page PostIt stickers bearing the word NO. In some places it works, even making the officers laugh, in some others, not so much. Thai Immigration officers are usually cold, sometimes all the way up to aggressive, and this strategy has not always been well-received. Verbal requests are ignored (as in “do not talk to me”), and I found a couple of times a full-page PostIt ripped off and the stamp on a blank page, despite everything. So your mileage may vary, depending on countries.

But the bottom line, if you put a marker in your passport and ask politely, you’ll have a lot of success.

I am a US citizen and was traveling between various countries in the middle east because of work. The frequency of travel was once every month. (I was a resident of the origin country hence didn’t need full page visas for it)

One visit would have:

• One exit stamp of the origin (about 1/4 page size)
• One entry stamp of the origin (about 1/4 page size)
• One full-page visa of the destination and the entry and exit stamps used to be on the same page 95% of the time.

At first, I had a standard 28-page passport and it used to fill up in a year. During that time I would request the immigration officers at the origin to stamp on a said page e.g. while in line I would check out which page has about 25% empty space and while walking up to the counter I would greet them, hand over my passport and say please stamp on page number XX. They always granted my request. I found out that it was easier and faster this way; otherwise, the immigration officer would take more time randomly opening the passport and searching for some space to stamp and I wanted to conserve 1 full page for the next visit’s visa. If the IMO was extra nice he/she would try to squeeze in a stamp on any available space making 5 stamps on one page but this was really rare.

If you don’t know the destination country’s language then you can use google translate and paste a post-it note on your passports back and point it out to the officer politely. (Get the translation verified first because google translate tends to be funny or off sometimes)

Whenever I had no more full empty pages I used to go for a new passport. This happened twice until I found out about the 52-page passport and went for that.

Also, some embassies or consulates offer to add more pages to your passport too. Unfortunately, that was not available in the country I was staying at.

And, if you are a very frequent traveler, always check how many empty pages you need before traveling. I once traveled with 1 full 1 half empty page (in one of the above visits) and after greeting the immigration officer at the destination I told him that page#XX was available for the full-page visa. He asked me how will I travel after this and I had to explain that I will get a new passport for the next visit. If countries have a minimum empty page requirement then they are entitled to not let you enter if you have less empty pages.