Gray Line Wanderings Travel Blog

Not so fast...

Your trip has been planned for months. You’re finally at the airport counter, placing your suitcase on the scale (48.4 lbs!), and the ticket attendant requests your boarding passes. “No problem, got them right here.” She grabs the passes, starts typing away on her computer, and then asks you for your passport. You reach into your purse and slap that little blue freedom booklet on the counter with a smile.

Please, for your sake, your spouse’s sake, your friend’s sake, and your sanity’s sake, be prepared. Find out what travel documents you will need to show as soon as you start planning your trip. Research whether you will need a passport, a travel visa, a birth certificate, a government-issued photo ID, or all of the above.

If you are traveling internationally from the US by air, land, or sea, a passport will be required. There are a few limited exceptions, but as with most things in life, it’s always better to be safe than sorry. First-time applicants can obtain a passport for around $135.00 US, and receive it in the mail in about 4-6 weeks. Expedited options are available as well for an additional fee.

One important rule to note is that passports must be valid for at least 6 months after the last date of travel. This means that if you are, for example, traveling in June and your passport expires in August, you will still need to get it renewed. If you have a passport, go dig it out right NOW and check the expiration date.  If it needs to be renewed, go ahead and get it over with. It’s a simple process and can be done for around $110.00 US. Plus, you’ll need every penny you’ve got come vacation time so get it out of the way now!

Don’t be that person that shows up at the airport and can’t board the plane because you don’t have the necessary documents! You’d hate for your friends and family to go without you.

This happened to a friend recently and right at the airport, not willing to leave the family member behind, they had to change their entire family trip to visit Puerto Rico instead of Cancun. It was an extremely stressful and expensive last minute change that could have been prevented with a little planning.

Please take a minute of your time and Click Here for more information on Passport and Visa requirements. You’ll be glad you did.

Share your Passport/Visa horror stories or tips with us in the comments. (click here to see Facebook comments if you can’t already)

If you’ll forgive me one brief Twilight Zone reference, for some people, the thought of flying is actually more terrifying than the monster on the wing.  If you ever need to leave your neighborhood and unless endless bus rides or cousin Eddie-style RV trips are on your fun list (you show me that list, I show you a liar), conquering that fear of flying is most likely in your best interest. Luckily, this non-medically-endorsed, completely unofficial, and in no way responsible for your decisions blogger has compiled a short list of tips for the un-terrified traveler:

1)   Make yourself comfortable. Often stress results from an unfamiliar situation. Lose all inhibition, forget the comfort of your neighbors, flight attendants and pilots, and do what you need to do, sister. Gnarly flannel nightgown? Sure. Massive body pillow for snuggling? Why not. Your new mantra: keeping it comfy keeps it sane.

2)   The more you know (thanks late 90’s NBC Saturday morning teen programming). Check out every book the library has on flight. Actually more realistically, read every article and blog post the internet has on flight. Once you’ve reached the end of the interwebs, you’ll know all the ins and outs of flight physics—and knowing exactly how you’re staying up might just help.

3)   Pharma-snooze-ticals. Again, massive disclaimer, neither myself, this blog, or any affiliates thereof hold any actual medical certifications, so you’re on your own with this one. But seriously, anti-anxiety and sleeping medications were divinely ordained for just such scenarios as white-knuckled trans-Atlantic flights. Get you some.

You’ve spent months preparing for your holiday on the tropical sands of some idyllic place. Your expectations are as high as Cheech and Chong and Harold and Kumar combined, and you’ve even trimmed your chest hair to look good on the beach. As you drive to the airport clad in your knock-off Armani sunglasses, everything seems in place. But then life kicks in and things start to go horribly wrong.

Plane Delays

Your holiday disaster starts with news that a random volcano in some faraway land is spitting up ash balls the size of a small country. Apart from the odd daredevil, pilots like to see where they are going – and this can be difficult when the sky has become a giant urn. At this stage you are still excited, so you sink into an uncomfortable airport chair and read, while waiting for your delayed flight.

Rain

Having spent 48 hours with your carry-on luggage tied to your leg, you arrive at your holiday destination to the worst rainstorm in 4 centuries. You suddenly wish that you had spent your clothing budget on an umbrella, but all you have is an Abercrombie and Fitch t-shirt that starts to leak color as soon as the rain hits it. On the bright side, at least the rain conceals the tears that are already starting to stream down your cheeks.

Being Robbed

Just when you thought things couldn’t get any worse, they do. While you are trying to flag down a taxi, you feel a tug on your arm. You snap around to see a random person running off with your luggage. You consider running after him, but instead, you simply wave good-bye to Levi, Hugo and Calvin. And the damn rain continues unabated.

Dodgy Police

You approach the front desk and tell the on-duty police-office that you are a victim – a victim of flight delays, bad weather and crime. The police officer laughs at your drenched appearance and jokes with his friends in his native tongue. He eventually asks you to fill out a crime-report affidavit, but you never hear from him again.

Food Poisoning

All this misfortune can create quite an appetite, so you decide to indulge in the offerings of a local street-food vendor. What you don’t realize is that the shop-owner hasn’t cleaned his cooking utensils since the founding of the OCD Awareness Movement back in 1962. You wolf down the meal and venture to your hotel for an afternoon nap. Sometime during this nap, you are woken by a twisting gut. You rush to the bathroom, where you spend the rest of your evening in kneeling devotion to the porcelain god.

After a holiday that made Dante’s Inferno seem like a Disney movie, you return home to share your stories with your friends. When retelling the travel tale, you somehow neglect to mention the horror, which has now been replaced by happy memories of beaches and boat trips.

I guess that’s the thing about traveling – no matter how bad the trip, it’s always better than staying home!

Aren't you happy this isn't your dad?

We’ve tried pointing and laughing. We’ve tried outright mocking. There have even been some instances of physical abuse. But, nothing – not even begging – has successfully dissuaded travelers from wearing fanny packs when they are on the holiday prowl. I write this piece from the philanthropic urges within my human spirit. I don’t know what else to say, except that I want a better world – a world where Bambi runs free, where Xbox is a national sport, and mostly, where we don’t have to look at fanny packs when on vacation. I appeal to your reasoning faculties, and urge you to please put down your fanny pack!

It’s all in the name

For a long time, I could not understand how society had allowed the word fanny to be used as an adjective for describing a satchel. Growing up in South Africa we called fanny packs moon-bags. The word fanny had quite a different meaning and it was considered less than appropriate to point out that a grown man had a fanny (pack). It wasn’t until much later (today) that I discovered the American definition of the word – and I am delighted to inform you that it has nothing to do with the erogenous zones of any creature. Semantics aside, I think we can all agree that wearing something that features the word fanny would not be considered cool in any country – except, perhaps, Japan.

Becoming a target

If you are a reasonable person, then I can presume that you wouldn’t purposefully engage in activities that are dangerous. I can also presume that you understand the importance of exercising caution when visiting a different country. This brings into question the prudence of wearing an item that literally renders you a target in the travel wilderness. Do you know why chameleons successfully survive in the wild? No, it’s not because they can change color – It’s because they don’t wear fanny packs.

If you don’t need it on a normal day, you don’t need it on holiday

There are endless mysteries in the universe: Stonehenge, the pyramids, the Bermuda Triangle and the always-pressing question of what Charlie Sheen’s girlfriend did in the cupboard for a whole weekend. But of all these mysteries, none is more perplexing than the contents of a fanny pack. What is it that the fanny-pack-clad traveler finds necessary to carry around when on holiday? I am confident that their passports are at the hotel, and a Fanny pack isn’t large enough for a Glock. So, what is it that gives the fanny pack its awkward bulge?

If you have any idea what travelers carry in their fanny packs, please let me know. The mystery is interfering with my ability to work, and I would really appreciate someone putting an end to this torture!

Leave your interesting and creative responses below…