Pursuing a passport

Part I of II

Okay, I want to join the ranks of the world travelers. That means I’ll need a passport. Even if (in a fit of Olympic fever) I decide to drive 7 hours north into Canada, I’ll require one of those little books that prove I am an American.

Step 1 – Start with Google.
I began my quest with a web search. That brought up a lot of sites, including that of the US State Department. However, I knew I wanted to turn my application in at a post office, so I chose the United States Postal Service site. Turns out both will lead you to the same virtual landing spot.

Step 2 –My tax dollars in action.
From there I clicked on the Passport Application Form link which leads to the Passport Application Wizard.

With the Wizard you can determine which form you need, complete that form and print it. And yes it really was that easy. You’ll have to input a fair amount of information but it’s all the usual stuff like, your social security number, date of birth, city of birth and emergency contacts. If there’s something you don’t have (and it isn’t marked as a required field) I suggest you move on. You can always fill this in later once the form has been printed.

Step 3 – Now what?
After finishing the application I printed it out and went back to the Wizard page. Scroll down and you’ll find a locator. I tracked down a post office near me that handled passports. It’s perfect. The location isn’t far from my home, they are open on Saturdays and they will take my photo on site. If your location doesn’t do photos, don’t worry it’s not hard to find a place that will and the USPS site includes a guide to photo quality.

Now that I have my completed application in hand, I’ll be leaving the digital world and bringing it to my local post office. I can only hope that it goes as smoothly as Part I. This feels ominously simple for a government run operation.

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posted by John Geysen

Collette Vacations

Tags: Passports, Travel Tips

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