This map illustrates how powerful the Irish passport is compared to other countries in the world

When it comes to hassle-free travel throughout the world, Ireland is blessed compared to other countries.

Lucky is the person who gets to visit 149 countries in their lifetime, but if they so wished, that’s the number of countries that an Irish person is allowed to visit visa-free due to the power of the Irish passport. Ireland has ranked in fifth and sixth place on the 2017 Nomad Capitalist Index and the 2016 Passport Index respectively in recent times and an interactive map put together by gotocourt.com.au easily illustrates how good we have it compared to other countries in the world. According to the map below, 149 countries of the world are ‘open’ to Ireland, 76% of the entire world. Click the image to open the full interactive version (via Go To Court). ‘Open’, in this case, refers to countries that either do not require a visa from a citizen of a given country, or offer visas on arrival. That doesn’t mean that the other 24% of countries are ‘closed’ to Ireland by the way. Countries deemed ‘not open for travel’ refer to countries where a visa is required to enter the country and in Ireland’s case, that includes the likes of USA, Canada and Australia. With access to 153 countries (78% of the world) each, Germany and Singapore have the most powerful passports in the world, while at the other end of the scale, things are a little more complicated for China (55 countries – 28%), India (44 countries – 22%) and Afghanistan (23 countries – 12%). Time to get ticking those 149 countries off the list, these new Aer Lingus routes for this summer might provide some suggestions where to start.