2019 is the year for travel
honey! So many of my friends and family are gearing up to hop on planes and
broaden their knowledge of the world. My girls and I are even putting our
passports to work and traveling further than any of us have ever traveled
before. With all of the commuting I decided to help out my rookie travelers and
give some pointers to my veteran travelers as well. This post will help you
navigate your way to obtaining a passport, as well as alerting you all of which
countries require additional visa and fees to visit
~What do I need to Fly~
When traveling, the 1st
thing you want to get situated is your documentation. To even be considered to
board an airplane you need proof of ID. In the United States a Driver’s License,
State Issued ID, Passport or Passport card are all acceptable forms. There are
also a few more acceptable forms that can be found here https://www.tsa.gov/travel/security-screening/identification
. Be sure to check your local wait times for these ID’s. Some of these
ID’s you can retrieve the same day while others, like your passport can take
weeks. My passport came about 3 weeks after I ordered it, however it is
suggested that you order it 2-3 months in advance of your trip.
So what are the prices for
these identification cards, you asked? The prices for an ID to travel will
range anywhere between $20 (State ID)-$135.00 (Passport Book). Many people in
the U.S. start their traveling journey by going to Mexico, Canada, or the
Caribbean. If this is where you are heading this year, you have
the option to purchase a Passport Card. The passport card is much cheaper than the
book, and it is all that is required to travel to those destinations.
For US citizens any place internationally; outside of the 3 places listed above
will require a Passport Book and possibly a visa.
~Story Time~
My first trip with my
current passport was for a trip to the Dominican Republic. I
remember being welcomed off the plane to a steel drum band in the airport with
dancers and tourist in awe of their lovely welcome. That was short lived
because right after the welcome there was another line for us to wait in.
I noticed we were getting
our passports stamped, which I was thrilled about because it is a goal of mine
to have multiple passport books full of stamps from all the places I have traveled.
I then saw they were collecting money from the patrons in front of me. This
annoyed me, I thought to myself, I literally just spent over a grand to get
here and now you want to charge us more just to get into the country. I
mentioned to my then boyfriend, what if I did not bring any extra money; would
they still let us in? I mean no one told us that there was a toll to get off
the airplane and into the airport. I quickly got over it because I knew there
were pools and cabanas waiting for us on the other side and paid the $20 USD to
get into the country. Another thing that annoyed me was they stamped 2 pages of
my passport! I literally just go the passport and I did not want them stamping
pages all willy nilly. I planned on collecting stamps and since I had only been
there once I only wanted 1 stamp.
I later found out that the Dominican Republic
requires 2- blank pages of your Passport Book to enter the country.
This is why my Book was stamped twice. Side note I have no clue why this is.
Also they have a law where they charge a $20 Departure Tax. This tax is usually
included in your airfare. If this charge was included we did not know because
we were not aware in general of the charge, so we got played that time. The
Dominican Republic’s Departure Tax is pennies on the dollar compared to other
countries like Fiji, who has a tax of $125.00. To see a complete list of fees
for different countries check out this link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Departure_tax
This post has the potential to be extremely
long, so I will be doing post throughout the year with other tips and tricks
for us to use! In the meantime tag @the_socialiteheiress in your travel pics, I
would love to see where you all are traveling to this year!
