Travel tips for a safe and sane US

Submitted by ub on

If you are lucky enough to hold one, consider yourself to be traveling in style, even though you may not be sitting in first class. The following are are facts you may not known about your US Passport.

Fall is the best time to renew your passport. If you got a passport after age 16, it's valid for only 10 years, and that deadline may be sooner than you think: According to the State Department, "Some countries require that your passport be valid at least six months beyond the dates of your trip." The best time to renew your passport is early autumn -- that's when applications are at a low before Thanksgiving and holiday rushes, the State Department says. You'll likely get yours processed faster.

You can get a free XL passport with extra pages. A traditional U.S. passport comes with 28 pages, but you can request a 52-page one for free when you apply for your first passport or renew an old one. You can also add pages to an existing passport, but that will be an $82 fee.

There's a cheaper thing called a passport card. It's wallet-sized, it and costs $80 less than a regular adult passport. The catch? You can only use it to "re-enter the U.S. from land border-crossings and sea ports-of-entry in Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean and Bermuda." Short-haul travelers can rejoice! The rest of us, not so much.

If you got your passport after 2007, there's an electronic chip in it. That chip on the back stores the same personal info printed on your passport's photo page, plus a biometric identifier (aka a digital image of your face). If you have one of these "e-passports," agents can use facial recognition technology to confirm the passport is indeed yours.

You don't have to take your passport photo at the drugstore. The picture must be square, unaltered and on a white background, but you're allowed to take it at home. The rules do not stipulate that you stand in line for hours either.

You may get barred from boarding if your passport doesn't have enough blank pages.Some countries require that your passport has two to four blank visa/stamp pages, reads the State Department website. Some airlines will not allow you to board if this requirement in not met. Make sure you take time to review the requirements for your specific destination before you go.

US passports are one of the most powerful in the world. If you're from the U.S., your passport affords you free access to 172 other countries. Not many other global citizens can say the same.

Not All Passports Are Created Equal http://huff.to/1x4kG9B

http://travel.state.gov/content/passports/english.html
PASSPORTS
http://travel.state.gov/passport/passport_1738.html