QOTD #60: Do you have a Passport?

Do you have a passport? yes

How often do you use it? As often as we can. Two trips to Canada last year, off to Italy this year.

Do you have any stories to share about passports? Ages and ages ago, I took my 5 and 6 yr old daughters to Canada with birth certificates. No problem geting into Canada; but leaving was awful. How do you prove your kids are yours? We spent a couple of hours at the Calgary Airport playing 250 questions. I finally dug out my old boarding passes. "I can't prove that they are mine; but I can prove that I brought them with me" seemed to work. They got their own passports a month later.

 

No, I don't. Never had a reason to have one

 

We now live a few hours from Canada, and we used to live just outside Buffalo where you could go out for dinner with friends in Ontario on any given night.
When we lived in Buffalo you didn't need a passport but having one made the crossings easier. I used to work with some Canadian citizens who became good friends. We would go for dinner in Fort Erie Ontario and be crossing back in a car with NY plates and a mix of US and Canadian citizens. The passport smoothed things.
Now you must have one.

 

Mine expired in 2010. I went to several places in Sweden and Denmark when I graduated from grad school the first time to visit friends. I'm going to get it renewed so when we move, we can cross that big northern border. I also need to get it so I can do the TSA Global access and precheck stuff.

 

I need to renew mine, since I got my first passport in January 2006.

The thing is that I had one of the last of the passports without RFID chips in them, and now I'm not sure if I will get the latest version that has a polycarbonate coating on it and laser etched pages.

For someone who had never left the country prior to 2006 (besides Southern Ontario in Canada), I did do a lot of travelling with my passport in the last 10 years. Maybe not as much as I would have liked, and not as much as I will do if Cruz wins the presidency, but way more than I expected.

 

I have had one since I was kid and travelled to France on a school trip. I didn't get to use it much between then and my next trip abroad (10 to 15 years later). These days, a passport is essential. As someone who lives abroad, it's one of my main forms of ID (the other is my work pass). I use my passport all the time. Singapore is a tiny country and domestic travel means driving 30 minutes or so to cross the island. Any other travel is international... even going to the neighbouring island of Batam, Indonesia to do some mountain biking, or across the causeway to Malaysia for lunch.

My current passport doesn't expire for a couple of years, but I am likely to run out of pages before it expires.

 

Yep. It is essential when you work for a company that only has offices in countries other than the one I'm in
Not used that regularly, but have been to Europe, North America and Asia (as well as Oz).

No funny passport stories.

 

Yeah, I have one, not that I've gotten to use it much lately. Not since Mrs. Levite and I took an Alaskan cruise that docked in Vancouver and I think one other Canadian port, and that was back in like 2011. Doubt we'll be travelling internationally much in the foreseeable future (until the kids get bigger), unless Trump wins and we move to Canada....

 

It's a necessity for me now since DaddySquirrel is Japanese. We went to Japan last April to visit his family and plan to possibly go again next year, but definitely in 2019. The Rugby World Cup will be held in Japan in 2019 with some of the matches being held in the city where he grew up. Some friends of mine might actually join us.

ToddlerSquirrel's little passport is sooooo cute. Getting her to hold still for the picture was difficult though. We'll have to renew hers in 5 years, but we should be good until 2020 at least.

 

The photos on kids passports is kinda useless - they grow so quickly as to be hardly recognisable, especially for baby/toddlers.

 

I have a passport. No stamps, though, so it looks like I haven't been anywhere. We took a cruise to Ensenada a few years ago, but they didn't stamp it when we left the ship. Since the passport was required, I had been looking forward to getting a stamp. My visits to Canada were all before the passport requirements, but I doubt I could get one driving across the border. (Maybe if I flew in? I want a danged stamp!)

 

Yes, but it expired in '02. I used it for two trips to the UK.

While I would like to be a world traveler, that would require a sizable jump disposable income and/or a job involving international travel. I don't see either happening any time soon.

 

I sure do. Have had once since around 8. Traveled extensively as a child, and used it to go to St. Kitts and Dominican Republic in the last year or so.

Looking forward to my next travel adventure!

 

I forgot to say that I have a bar passport too. Stamp for every beer you drank at this pub near where I lived in Ohio. (Also sponsors of my rugby team)

I got all the stanos for the beers listed except the one you can only get in KY. I could never make it down there for the bourbon ale....so sad.

 

I have a passport with a prominent X-out stamp from when we were detained and deported from Liverpool, England. It is a long, thirsty, hilarious story and I tell it well... when properly lubricated. I've had to repeat the tale, soberly, when crossing in and out of Canada since then. It's a pain in the ass at those times.

I'd love to make more use of my passport. Alas, life keeps getting in the way.

 

Nope same as @ralphie 250 no need for one. However it was on the local news that in order to just fly out of Oklahoma that we will need a passport as early as 2017. Something to do with our DLs not having enough personal info on them. Probably another thing my loser Gov Fallen screwed up. Put it on the growing list with the other fuck ups

 

Two. You can request to have duplicate tourist passports if you travel a lot.

I've filled up a regular one. Haven't maxed out the "extra pages" version yet.

Just same common sense tips:

Always carry your passport on your person, preferably in a garment that cannot be pickpocketed.

Always carry your passport (and credit cards) in a RFID case to prevent the chip from being lounge scanned.

Keep a photocopy of your passport's photo page in your luggage and scanned to your password protected phone / tablet.

 

I've scanned mine and my wife's, then sent them to myself as email. Nothing to lose and accessible anywhere.