Passports - When? Do I really need one?
Published Monday, January 28th 2013As a travel concierge, one question I am often asked is when to get passports for your vacation. One of the first steps in planning your vacation should be to obtain a passport for both you and your traveling companion. Because travel plans are usually made significantly in advance of your vacation, it is best to have the passports during the planning process. With the new TSA regulations of the past couple of years, your airline ticket must match your government issued ID exactly. If there are any changes to your name or ID after the tickets are issued, this can result in costly penalties. Of course this only applies if you are leaving the country for your vacation. If you are traveling to another US destination, we only need to be concerned about the name as it appears on your driver’s license.
If you already have passports, please check the expiration date because for some countries, passports must be good at least 6 months past the date of travel! Passports can be renewed within 9 months of the expiration date; please do not wait until the last minute to take care of this.
As a couples travel concierge, I’m also asked every day “Do I need a passport for my cruise?” This is actually a tricky answer. The legal answer is possibly not. If you are departing from and returning to the same US port, legally you can board the cruise ship with an original / certified copy of your birth certificate and a government issued photo ID. Do I recommend this? Absolutely not!! Any time you are leaving the country, it is in your best interest to have a passport. Your birth certificate does not prove citizenship, only that you were born! Although the cruise line will certainly let you on the ship, there are too many “what if’s” that can occur? What if there is an emergency and you need to fly home from an island or another country? You will not be able to do this without a passport! What if you miss the ship? You will have no way to fly to the next port of call to catch the ship, or fly home if needed. I could give many scenarios, but I think you get the point. This is also something that can be discussed during the travel planning.
On the note of a passport, please do yourself a favor and get the passport book – NOT the passport card. The passport cards are only good for select land border crossings (US/Canada and US/Mexico) – it will be of no value if you have to fly home. I promise you folks in Jamaica and other countries will have no clue what that card is!
If you have any questions, a great resource to visit is www.travel.state.gov
Happy Travel Planning!
Comments
Leave a Reply
indicates a required field
