Travel can be chaotic, and if you’re not fully prepared, it can get even worse. Before your next international trip, the last thing you want is to discover that your passport is expired, damaged, missing or doesn’t meet your destination’s entry requirements.
Here are 12 passport tips that can help you avoid major travel headaches.
1. Check Your Passport’s Validity
Before booking an international trip, find your passport and make sure it’s valid. Many countries require your passport to be valid for at least six months beyond your arrival date. Even if you’re only visiting for a day, you could be denied boarding or entry if you don’t meet that requirement. If your passport is getting close to expiring, renew it now instead of paying expensive expedited fees later. Here’s how.
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2. Renew Early
Don’t wait until the last minute to renew your passport. While processing times have improved, they can still fluctuate depending on demand. I recommend renewing at least six months before any planned international travel, especially if your passport is close to expiring or running out of blank pages.
3. Find Out Whether You Need a Visa or Travel Authorization
I’ve had countless friends show up at the airport only to discover they needed a visa—or an electronic travel authorization they didn’t know about.
Requirements vary by country and can change at any time. Before every international trip, check the U.S. State Department’s country information page to see whether you need a visa, an electronic travel authorization (such as Canada’s eTA or the U.K.’s ETA), vaccinations or other entry documents. It’s also the best place to find embassy and consulate information if you run into trouble abroad.
4. Make Digital Copies
Before every international trip, take a photo of your passport’s identification page and save it securely on your phone and in the cloud. I also email a copy to myself and leave one with a trusted family member. If your passport is ever lost or stolen, having a copy can make replacing it at a U.S. embassy or consulate much easier.
5. Consider Getting a Second Passport
If you travel internationally often and frequently need visas, consider applying for a second U.S. passport. This allows you to send one passport away for visa processing while continuing to travel with the other. It’s especially useful for business travelers and anyone visiting countries with conflicting visa requirements.
6. Never Put Your Passport in Checked Luggage or Your Back Pocket
This is one of the biggest travel mistakes you can make. Always keep your passport with you in your carry-on or personal item—never in checked baggage. If your checked bag is delayed or lost, you could be stuck without your most important travel document. And please don’t carry your passport in your back pocket. It’s one of the easiest places for pickpockets to steal it or for it to accidentally fall out. Just ask my wife about the time she lost hers in Estonia.
7. Always Look Twice
Whenever you leave a taxi, rideshare, airplane, train or hotel room, make it a habit to look back one last time. I can’t tell you how many readers have left behind passports, wallets and phones in seatback pockets, hotel safes or the back seats of taxis. A quick double-check can save you hours—or even days—of frustration.
8. Keep It Safe
When you’re not crossing a border or checking into a hotel, you may not need to carry your passport everywhere you go. A reader once shared advice they received from the U.S. Embassy in Paris after having their passports stolen on the Metro: Keep your passport securely stored rather than carrying it around all day. Depending on your destination, that could mean using your hotel’s room safe, a portable travel safe, a secure money belt or a Scottevest jacket with 20+ pockets. Just be sure you always know exactly where it is.
9. Use Color-Coded Stickers for Family Travel
This tip comes from reader Karol H., a retired flight attendant. When traveling with a family, put a tiny colored sticker with each person’s initial on the back cover of their passport. It makes it much easier to hand out the correct passport while standing in immigration or customs lines instead of opening each one to check whose is whose. It’s a simple trick that can save a surprising amount of time.
10. Get Global Entry (or NEXUS)
10. Get Global Entry (or NEXUS)If you’ve been reading my newsletter for a while (sign up here), you know I’m a huge fan of Global Entry. It speeds up your arrival back into the United States, includes TSA PreCheck and now uses facial recognition at many airports, making the process even faster than before.
If you travel to Canada frequently, NEXUS is an even better value since it includes NEXUS benefits plus Global Entry and TSA PreCheck. Many premium travel credit cards will reimburse the application fee, making it an even better deal.
11. Use an Expediter When Necessary
If you need a passport quickly and don’t want to deal with the process yourself, a reputable passport expediter can often save you time and stress. I’ve used several over the years when deadlines were tight. Just be sure you’re working with a legitimate company that specializes in passport services.
12. Renew Online If You’re Eligible
One of the best improvements in recent years is online passport renewal. Many Americans can now renew their passports online through the U.S. State Department instead of mailing paperwork. Not everyone qualifies, but if you do, it’s usually the easiest way to renew.
Before starting the process, check the State Department’s website to make sure you’re eligible.
Final Thoughts
Your passport is the single most important document you’ll carry when traveling internationally. Spending just a few minutes checking the expiration date, making digital backups and storing it securely can save you hours of stress—not to mention expensive last-minute fees or even a ruined vacation.
Do you have a passport tip I missed? Let me know in the comments.
Editor’s note (Updated July 2026): We’ve updated this guide with the latest passport rules and travel tips. Some older comments below refer to a previous version of this article.
Love your website. Lot’s of great info. Hard to imagine anybody who travels a lot internationally doesn’t read it regularly. And still, I experienced a surprise on my last border crossing. New passport, new rigging. I got a new RFID neck-wallet for my passport. (No metal, no rings or rivets, all fabric.) Turns out, RFID blocking wallets pass through the luggage security x-ray but show up as a metal anomaly when passing thru the body scan. I had already removed my belt, keys, coins, watch, glasses, cock ring (just kidding) and was still being flagged when I passed through the body scan. There was nothing else to disclose. Except the passport around my neck. Showing my passport wallet the agent waved me through. Not the kind of thing you want to experience is a congested security check. Later, while sitting in the airport awaiting my flight I googled to discover RFID material is a problem for than body scan. Did you know this? Have you written about it? Should I have known about it? TIA
Thanks for sharing! I didn’t know but I always recommend people put their passport in their carryon when going through security.
In late November 2024, my husband and I renewed our passports online. We read all the instructions and watched the instructional videos. The forms were easy to fill out. From the date of submission to when we received our passports in the mail was only 10 days. Quick!
Hi Johnny. Gee, I love your site and help.
I had just wanted to reply to your comment about making a color copy….
so, just a little anecdote…I had done that… and guess what! I got to security, to check through, and we discovered that I had left my passport in my scanner- at home!,! 😲😓.
Well, our ride service that dropped us off had of course left, and we didn’t have our car there. The ending to this story is unbelievable! Incredibly, we lucked out with a nice and kind and experienced and not-power-obsessed agent, who calmly looked at my scannner printout, my driver license photo id, my husband’s credentials, and a few other things, and wonder if wonders, he kindly sent us through! Amazing. And I wanted so much to send in a commendation for him, and did ( being very discreet, not mentioning specifically, didn’t want to get him in trouble, just commending him). He was that kind of “angel” that had his priorities and understanding so great.
And now, before anyone criticizes him here, it actually WAS some years ago, before things tightened up even more- for obvious reasons. But thanks to him, we made our flight, and our connection flight, and didn’t lose our hotel reservation money or anything. – Have you ever met a cool person like that, who was devoid of ego power, acted calmly and friendly, and just saw things for what they were, and didn’t go overboard or overreact? We were fortunate.
So— just wanted to add: if you do make that copy of your passport, Make sure you take your original out of the scanner. 😖
The comments on this page start with 2015…wouldn’t it be more helpful to start with the most recent comments?
How do I find a legit Expeditor?
My Passport expired over 10 years ago, so am I correct just ordering a New one?
Good info, thank you. Questions.
1. How may I obtain a 2nd passport?
2. How do I find/learn about an “Expeditor”?
3. I am currently living out of the US, in Mexico. Is there a method I can renew my passport when I am out of the country?
Thank you kindly,
As a passport agent, I can tell you that there are only certain circumstances when you can have more than one valid passport, one being a pilot or flight attendant.
Some countries issue a six month visitor’s visa. They will not issue the visa if the passport expires during that six month period.
Always look twice when departing a seat! I developed this habit and do it at movie theaters, doctor’s office, at church, etc. It is a good routine that prevents leaving something of value behind – especially while traveling.
Before checking out of a hotel room, I throw back the sheets to check the foot of the bed, then remake the bed (sort of) to make sure nothing gets left behind. Once, it saved me from leaving my phone on the bed and under a sheet of an unmade bed.
I’ve put a sticker on the back of our passports with our email addresses and mobile phone numbers. That way if we lose our passports in the most likely place – the airport – someone finding it can reach out to us.
I like that you suggest finding out if you need a new passport before planning any trips for the year. My wife and I are planning a Europe tour for the summer, so I have been looking into what we need to get ready. I will keep this in mind and make sure we have US passports on hand for the trip.