U.S. citizens are required to have a passport for visiting any destination outside of the United States. This now will include Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean, whether visited by sea or by air.
If you are planning to travel outside of the Western Hemisphere by air, you are required to have a passport. Additionally, by June 1, 2009, a passport (or other accepted document) will be required for U.S. citizens who travel by air, sea and land to and from the Caribbean, Bermuda, Central and South America, Canada and Mexico. (At present, a passport is not required for Canada or the Caribbean, for example, if getting there by car or cruise ship.)
If you currently have a passport, keep in mind your passport needs to be valid for at least six months beyond your return date to the U.S.
Passports are issued for adults for a period of ten years (and for five years for children). We recommend not waiting till the last minute to order your passport(s), as processing times have increased considerably to keep up with the backlog of new applications.
We also note spot checks have been made for persons visiting Canada who may have with a DUI (driving under the influence) on their record, and that there have been incidences of such persons being delayed and/or denied entry into Canada.
For more information on the passport initiative and how it may affect you, please visit the State Department's consular website travel.state.gov or the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's web site www.dhs.gov.
For more information about applying for a passport, U.S. citizens may visit travel.state.gov or call the National Passport Infomration Center toll free at 1-877-4USA-PPT or TDD/TYY: 1-888-874-7793. You can also use our preferred agency, A Briggs, to process or renew a passport, add additional pages to a passport, get a second passport, or apply for a visa (all details are available on the website.)
Foreign nationals (non U.S. citizens) should contact their respective governments to obtain passports and for advice on what documents are required for traveling from and returning to the United States.
