Adventure is a State of Mind
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Watch Out for the Hidden Small Print
Did you ever have a teacher hand out a test and say, “Make sure to read through everything before you start answering questions”? And at the end of the test was written, “Don’t answer any questions. Just write your name on the front and hand it in.”
I was one of those annoyingly over-achieving, too-compliant-with-authority kids who did what the teacher asked and handed in the test three minutes later, while the less compliant kids looked up in confusion as to how some of us could already be done with the test.
It was a nasty trick, but also a good lesson in listening and following directions.
Well, the US government is currently presenting a similarly tricky lesson to anyone hoping for an efficient renewal of their passport.
If you didn’t already know, the US State Department now allows for online renewals of passports. You have to meet certain requirements, of course, including:
- The passport must be due to expire in less than one year or is no more than five years past its expiration date.
- You must be at least 25 years old.
- You are not changing any personal information, such as your name.
- You are located in a US state or territory when you renew it.
- Your passport is not lost, damaged, or stolen.
- You’re not traveling outside of the country for six weeks.
The first people I know personally to renew online are our friends, Tom and Kristy. They said the process went seamlessly and they were able to do all of it, including the dreaded passport photo, from the comfort of their living room couch. And then after they had both entered all of their information, including credit card number, and simultaneously hit the button to complete the process (it sounds kind of romantic doing it together, doesn’t it?), the website told them their current passport was no longer valid and they would receive their new passport in four weeks.
Wuuuuuh? (I think what they actually said may have begun with the letter “F.”)
Knowing you’ve just invalidated your passport can be a bit worrisome even if you don’t have immediate plans for it. If you have tickets to fly to the Cayman Islands in six weeks, like Tom and Kristy did, that invalidation is downright distressing!
After hearing this story from Tom, the overachieving and too-compliant-with-authority part of me (yes, unfortunately I still carry her around in my brain) smugly thought Tom and Kristy must have overlooked the first, and most important, part of the directions – I assumed there was a large, bright, flashing notice on the very first page of the website warning renewers that their passport would be invalidated as part of the process.
I immediately went to the website. (As overachieving and too-compliant-with-authority individuals tend to smugly do.) There was a large, bright warning not to use unauthorized sites to renew your passport and a link to the official passport renewal website. (The same website you end up on if you use the button “Start Your Application” right above the warning sign. Seems kind of redundant, but what do I know.)
Still no warning. Not even some small print whispering, “Hey, if you have any upcoming trips in the near future, you might want to delay this process.”
Still looking for a highly visible warning, I began the renewal process, and there was a box to enter upcoming dates of travel. Entering a date one day longer than six weeks finally brought up a warning that the date would be before the new passport arrived, but again, there was no warning that the current passport was going to be invalidated.
After digging around on the website, I finally found a drop down menu titled, “Get what you need before you start.” Buried within it was a single sentence stating, “We will cancel the passport you are renewing after you submit your application. You cannot use it for international travel.”
In a world in which companies are legally required to warn us about the most implausible problems – surely you’ve noticed some of them, such as don’t pick up a chainsaw by the wrong end or try to remove stuck food from a blender while it is running – it seems that letting people know they won’t be able to use the passport they’re holding in their hands until the new one arrives would be an important warning.
Many of us have had passports long enough to have mailed one in to renew, and obviously we couldn’t use a passport that wasn’t in our possession. But I don’t think it’s an obvious conclusion that renewing online, while still keeping your passport until the new one arrives, means the one you have will automatically be invalidated.
It seems like the government is also trying to test every applicant as to whether they read every word of every drop down menu before they begin the application process. It’s a lot like the teacher who hid the “just write your name on the front and hand it in” directions at the end of the test. Yes, those who catch it can feel smug, but those who didn’t realize what was going to happen until it is too late are going to experience a lot of unnecessary anxiety. We’ve all had the experience of mail deliveries that are days or even weeks later than the projected arrival, and the State Department’s statement that the passport will arrive in four to six weeks might be cutting it a little too close if your next travel adventure is in six weeks.
As Brave Wise Travelers, we know that creating a margin of safety is important whenever possible. Tom and Kristy were doing the right thing by renewing their passport early. They know that some countries require as much as six months of remaining validity on a passport to be allowed entry. They were trying to do the right thing… and ended up experiencing unnecessary anxiety before their trip. That anxious energy could have been better spent figuring out what to pack.
I think there are several lessons from this story. First, make sure to read all of the fine print (and drop down menus) when dealing with the federal government. Second, one of the biggest values in having a community like Brave Wise Traveler is in sharing information so that we all can benefit from each others’ mistakes. And finally, if a part of your brain still houses a smug, over-achieving, too-compliant-with-authority child from your past, work really hard to keep that part of you under control because she tends to be really, really annoying.
Happy (and safely-documented) travels,
Sandi
Author
