Getting Ready

The Bush administration has seen fit to have all persons entering the United States to have a passport in their possession. The citizens of this country are included. So very soon when you leave this country even if a passport is not required to enter the place you are going you will have to have one to come back to the USA. This of course means you must get a passport before you leave the country.

This is the first and most important step on your journey if you have never had a passport before. Getting the required documents may add a significant amount of time to the process so start as early as you can. I would not make any plan reservations or plans to leave the country until you have the passport in your hand. This process could take you six months or more from start to finish. Each family member will need a passport.

Obtaining a passport is really no big deal. It just takes time to get one and you have to jump through some hoops. Instead of outlining everything you need to do hear I will just direct you to a couple of appropriate websites. (http://travel.state.gov/passport/fri/pubs/pubs_854.html and http://www.usps.com/passport/) One or both of these sites should get you appropriate forms and instructions on what to do, again it just takes time and $100. You may have to send away for documents that are required like birth certificates (your birth state's vital records should be consulted, search on the web). You will also need a couple of pieces of picture ID when you turn in your application. The pictures can be taken with any digital camera you have and printed on glossy paper in your ink jet printer, use a 16up setting in the photo print setup.