By far the most important travel document is the Passport. Surprisingly, only 46% of Americans own one, which translates into 54% of us has never left the country.
To obtain a passport, you can visit your local post office, collect a DS-11 form fill out the required information and mail it to the National Passport Center. This can also be processed online. If you’re in a hurry and require a passport immediately, there are a lot of services that offer expedited processing for a fee. I often use the expedited option due to the frequency in which I use my passport, however, it may not always be the most economical. The expedited service that I use is at the New York Passport Agency. I stumbled onto this service a few years ago before traveling to the Caribbean. I had a confirmed reservation for Sunday and realized on Thursday that my passport had expired. I rushed to their office that afternoon and picked up my passport the very next day. At times they are truly lifesavers.
As of January 1, 2016, the Agency that issues passports no longer permits the addition of passport pages, so I urge those interested to do so within the next few days. I missed out on the opportunity due to two things. I needed my passport quite a few times over the past few weeks to send it out for six weeks and the means didn't justify the ends to have it expedited as the cost of expedition outweigh the cost to add pages to my passport. Therefore I see myself applying for a whole new one possible before the end of 2016.
For those of us that treasure the collection of stamps in our passports which was the main reason we added pages in the first place, it seems like our bragging rights have come to an end, however, you can apply for the 52-page option on your new passport, whenever you arrive at that time.
" The world is a book and those who do not travel, read only one page" St. Augustine
Editors Note: Opinions expressed here are the author's alone, not those of any parties mentioned. None of the entities mentioned has reviewed, approved or endorsed the content listed in this post.
