Travel documents

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• Get a passport or check validity of an old one — If you don’t have a passport, get one. If you have one, check how long before it expires. Your destination countries may require at least 6 months of remaining validity.
• Understand visa requirements for your destination countries — You may need one or more visas to enter destination countries. Even “friendly” countries like Australia require a visa. This is a complicated topic: see our Visas page.
• Get your other documents in order — There are other documents that may be mandatory, depending upon your travel situation. Still others are optional, but can help you to money.
• Back-up your travel documents — Make digital copies of everything and photocopies of a few. Store them in secure yet accessible places, both with you and back home.

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You might need visas for one or more of your destination countries. Visas are the most complex travel document because of variations in type, privileges, rules and requirements. You need to know whether you need a visa. If you need one, what are the precise rules and how do you obtain the visa.

Regardless of which documents you need or want, you have to get them all well before departure.

Passport: your mandatory travel document

A passport is a document issued by your national government, certifying your identity and citizenship to foreign governments. They are typically valid for 5 or 10 years. Your government owns the passport, too, and has the right to take it back from you to prevent you from traveling.

These days, it’s hard to travel across national borders without one, European countries of the Schengen Area being a notable exception. It is the right of immigration officials to demand identification from a foreign national wishing to enter their country and the only universally accepted identification is a passport.

Your government may prohibit travel to certain countries (such as Syria or Iraq at time of writing), but they should be quite clear about it, even to the point of stamping or printing the prohibition right in the passport.

If you’re eligible to hold two passports, one may be accepted “visa free” in many more countries than the other.

If you need to get a passport

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• Processes are usually simple — Consult your national passport office for procedures to obtain a passport.
• Supporting documents may take time — Especially for your first passport, you will have to supply original identity documents, such as your birth certificate or citizenship card. If you don’t have them or can’t find them, you’ll have to give yourself enough time to acquire or replace them. 
• Allow ample processing time — Passport offices suffer from heavy demand and bureaucratic slowness — your national passport office website may indicate approximate wait times.
• Rush passport issuance — In some countries, you can pay extra for the passport office to expedite your application in fewer days.
• Get more pages — Passports often come in 24 or 48 page versions, with a higher fee for 48 pages. Since passports are valid for at least 5 years and many countries consume an entire page for a visa, it’s usually a good idea to get the maximum number of pages in your passport.

If you look like your passport picture, you’re too ill to travel.  

— Anonymous

If you already have a passport

• How much validity left? — Check how much time is left on your passport. In some countries, when you show up at immigration, you must have 6 months left by the end of your allowable stay there. If you have defined dates for your trip, you can figure it out, but if your plans are indefinite, make sure you have plenty of time in case you encounter this situation later in your trip.
• How many blank pages left? — Count how many blankpages are still available in your passport. Visas commonly take an entire page. Some countries have large entry and exit stamps, so estimate just 4 per page. If you wont have enough pages, your passport office, embassy or high commission may be able to add official pages for a fee. Failing that, you may have to get a new passport somewhere on the road if you will not have enough pages for all your destination countries.
• Damage and wear — If your passport is bent and worn, it may still be okay, but if it’s going to have trouble getting swiped in a passport reader, get a new one. A damaged passport is an invitation to power-tripping immigration officials to give you a hard time.
• Memorize four details — It’s a good idea to memorize your passport number, place and date of issue and date of expiry. When you find yourself filling in forms, you won’t have to dig the passport out from your travel wallet. At least, keep these details written down in an accessible notebook until you memorize them.
• Don’t use a cover — If you have a cover on your passport, you’ll have to take it off every time it’s handled by an official. Covers don’t slide through machine readers. Besides, covers make the passport thicker when it’s stored in your travel wallet. If it needs protection, keep it in a ziplock bag.

Dual nationality & two passports

If you are a citizen of two (or more!) countries, you may have the right to hold a passport from each one. If your country is a member of the European Union, you can get an EU passport as well. They must be used carefully, though.

• Know what your countries of citizenship expect of you — If you ever emigrated from a country or even if one of your parents is from another country, you may be considered a citizen of that country. Many countries do not acknowledge dual nationality. According to them, if you take a “foreign” citizenship, you must renounce your original citizenship. A few countries won’t even accept that and will still insist that you are a citizen and therefore subject to all the obligations of a citizen. When you arrive in your “country of origin,” you could suddenly find yourself facing a stack of overdue tax bills or even get pressed into serving compulsory military service. At the very least, immigration authorities of a country where you are a citizen may insist that you use that country’s passport.
• Use the same passport to enter and exit a country — If the immigration officer upon exit cannot see your entry stamp, you will have to produce your other passport. You may be refused exit if you cannot.
• If you’re a citizen of a “suspect” country — Unfair as it is, holders of passports from countries such as Israel, Nigeria and Pakistan may encounter difficulties entering countries where that citizenship is suspect. Justifications for such suspicions vary and shouldn’t affect you as an innocent traveler — but they can and do. Even a passport stamp from such a suspect country in an otherwise acceptable passport can impede your entry. Use your other passport. 

Lost or stolen passport

If you lose your passport, or if it is stolen, you require documentation for your own government if they are to replace the passport. It’s not enough to show up and the embassy and ask for a new one.

• Get a police report — Go to the local police station in the locality where your passport was lost or stolen. That can be quite a hassle in some countries, where the police are not helpful and may even expect payment to produce any paperwork. Some popular tourist locations have “tourist police” who are better equipped to handle lost passports claims. If you can’t get a copy of a police report, at least get the name and title of the officer you reported to, as well as the address and file number of your report to them.
• Print the copy of your passport ID pages — You will have stored this copy in your digital vault. Print out at least two copies, one for the police and one for your embassy or high commission.
• Contact your nearest embassy, high commission or consulate — Find out how to replace the passport. If you don’t have an embassy or high commission in that country, know which country is representing you. Your embassy or high commission may be quite strict about replacement of your passport, notably if you’re a budget traveler who’s running out of funds and especially if your passport is lost or stolen in your country-of-origin or a country where you have family ties.
• If you can’t get a new passport — If you can’t get a new passport, you may find yourself in difficulty when it comes time to leave. The worst case scenario is you’ll be issued temporary documents and have to go directly home.
• Provisional travel documents — Your embassy or high commission may not replace your passport and issue you with a provisional travel document or special “emergency” passport instead. These are not good for resuming your travels to multiple new countries, although members of the Commonwealth acknowledge emergency passports of other Commonwealth countries. They’re generally used to get you to a government representative who can replace your passport or to facilitate your return home.
• If you do get a new passport — Make fresh digital copies and store them in your vault. You may have to replace any visas you will still need that were in the lost passport. That may include a visa for the country you are already in.

How useful is your passport?

Not all passports are created equal. Your passport may allow visa-free entry to many countries or only a few. 

The measure of quality is the Henley & Partners Visa Restriction Index. The “Henley Index” ranks countries by how many countries will allow you to enter without a visa. In the 2014 list, top ranked passports (Finland, Germany, Sweden, US, UK) are good for 174 countries. At the other end, if you have an Afghanistan passport, you can enter only 28 countries without a visa.

Depending how well your passport rates on the Henley Index, we call it “Henley Friendly” or “Henley Unfriendly.” 

The worse your ranking on the Henley Index, the more your travel could be disrupted by your passport. You will have to go to extra effort and expense to get visas for many countries. Some countries may deny you entry, simply because of the passport you carry.

Visas

MANDATORY for many countries

Visas are travel documents stamped or stickered to your passport by a foreign government, stating that you are conditionally permitted to enter the country. They are not a guarantee of entry — immigration officials upon arrival can still decide, sometimes for seemingly arbitrary or unfair reasons, that you cannot enter.

Over time more countries are welcoming visitors and loosening visa restrictions, although this is closely tied to the passport you hold. Woe to you if you come from a country notorious for economic migrants or — worse! — if your country has a reputation for unleashing international terrorists. 

Travelers carrying passports of rich countries don’t need visas for many countries or can get them at the airport or border upon arrival. This is not a universal practice — Australia and New Zealand, for instance, require visas from everyone except each other’s citizens. Travelers from many middle and most poor countries need visas for many countries.

Do you need a visa for any of your destination countries?

If you need a visa, what kind of visa? What supporting documents and fees are required to get it? There are many variables to manage, so we have separate web page covering all the details about visas.

Open doors to the world

Know what visas you need and how best to get them.

visas

Travel insurance confirmation e-mail

MANDATORY

Chances are you will buy your travel insurance online and be sent a confirmation e-mail with your policy number and contact details on it. Keep one copy of the print-out safe in your travel wallet and a second one in your luggage. 

Find out whether your insurer has local contacts in your destination countries and keep that info handy, too.

You should keep a digital copy of the entire policy on your digital device and in cloud storage, so that you can remind yourself of exactly what’s covered and how to make a claim.

Do you need travel insurance?

Almost certainly medical and maybe emergency evacuation. Other coverage? Maybe not.

insurance

International Driving Permit

MANDATORY, if you want to drive in many countries, OPTIONAL for fewer countries.

Of course, you need a driver’s license if you plan to drive at one or more of your destination countries. That includes riding a motorbike.

Driver’s licenses are also handy as ready identification to surrender as security against such things as museum audio guides. Otherwise, you may have nothing suitable except your passport and it’s not a great idea to use it so casually.

Your driver’s license from home may or may not be acceptable. Most countries (and car rental agencies) accept driver’s licenses from rich countries, but don’t assume that yours will do. Even if your license is accepted, a notarized translation might be required to go with it.

It’s easy and inexpensive (typically $15-$20 and two passport photos) to get an International Driving Permit (IDP).

• They are recognized in 174 countries (at last count). Note that the IDP is not valid by itself — your home license must be presented with it.
• You can obtain an IDP only at home, since the IDP essentially states that your home jurisdiction believes you know how to drive. 
• The IDP is valid for one year. If you’re still on the road and need one, you can apply from abroad as long as your home license still has 6 months of validity left.

Yet, the IDP is not recognized everywhere. Brazil, Uruguay and Trindad & Tobago will insist on an Inter-American Driving Permit. In China, if you’re brave enough to drive there, you need to get a Chinese license.

Here’s a list of what countries accept the IDP or only the IADP. Keep in mind that it may not be up to date. Your only sure-fire way of knowing requirements is to check on the Embassy website of your destination country. Certainly, this applies for any country not on the list, such as China.

Finally, be certain that your driver’s license applies to the type of vehicle you want to use. It’s all too common for travelers to rent motorbikes when their license does not cover motorbikes. Cops in tourist traps know this. Worse, if an accident occurs,  your medical and liability insurance will likely be invalid.

International Certificate of Vaccination

STRONGLY RECOMMENDED, if you will be passing through a “yellow fever” country.

This is a standard yellow-covered booklet, approved by the World Health Organization, to record the type and date of your vaccinations, including the vaccinating clinic or doctor.

If you are traveling from a country with a known yellow fever problem, the country you are traveling to may insist that you have been immunized against yellow fever. You may be offered an instant (and expensive) yellow fever shot on the spot, threatened with quarantine (which is usually fishing for a bribe) or refused entry altogether.

No other disease has such scrutiny for vaccination. (Ebola, SARs and other serious outbreaks of communicable diseases have not had vaccines available.)

Check whether any of your destinations are “yellow fever countries.”

So, if none of your destination countries has been designated as a source of yellow fever, you do not need to travel with this booklet. Since the booklets are almost impossible to replace if lost or damaged, that’s a good thing. If you have one, you can leave it at home.

What about vaccinations?

Know what you need for your destinations

vaccinations

Prescriptions for drugs

MANDATORY, if you will travel with restricted drugs.

If you are carrying prescription drugs or will need to renew a prescription, carry the prescriptions with you. Originals may be required, but at least they’re not impossible to replace if lost.

Customs officials may want to see prescriptions for restricted drugs (those subject to abuse) or for any anonymous pills you are carrying.

Find out more on health preparations for travel, including prescriptions.

Custody papers for minor children

MANDATORY, if traveling with a child under 16.

If you are traveling with a minor child (any child not yet 16), immigration officers may question your authority to cross a border with the child. This is to prevent flight from lawful custody (usually abduction by one parent) and human trafficking.

While immigration officials are less likely to ask for proof of custody if the child is traveling with two adults who seem to be parents, they can ask anytime. One adult, especially a male, traveling with a minor child is much more likely to be asked.

Although some countries allow a minor child to be added to one parent’s passport, it’s best if the child has his or her own passport.

If only one parent is traveling, you will need at least one of these documents:

• Parental consent affidavit — If the child is traveling without both parents, you need a parental consent affidavit from the non-traveling parent (the other parent listed on the passport or birth certificate). Contact details and identification for the non-traveling parent may also be required.
• Custody document — A parental consent affidavit won’t be needed if you have sole custody of the child, but you may have to prove sole custody. Joint custody is not sufficient.
• Court order — Custody is often disputatious. If the non-traveling parent refuses a parental consent affidavit, you may have to seek a court order granting permission for the child to travel.
• Death certificate — If the other parent is deceased, you may have to provide evidence of it. 
• Exception — Many immigration services will accept your custody of the child when you are the only parent named on the child’s passport. (In most countries, the second parent must be named in the passport application.)

Be sure you have clear, notarized copies of the documents. (Originals are way too valuable and should stay securely at home.)

International Student Exchange ID card

OPTIONAL

Student’s can get discounts on transport and admission to attractions, mostly in rich countries. A student is anyone over 12 years of age who was enrolled in studies during the year of travel or the prior year.

You don’t even have to be a student. Faculty of educational institutions and persons younger than 26 can get their own versions of the card.

Check here for more information or to apply.

Hostelling International membership card

OPTIONAL

Hosteling International (HI) is the largest network of hostels worldwide. Member hostels are often well-located and usually compete for the best value-for-money accommodation with local guesthouses and budget hotels.

While still favored by young travelers, there are no age barriers. And it’s not always a noisy dormitory either — many hostels have private rooms.

While most hostels don’t require that you be a member, hostels in some countries do. Besides, an inexpensive membership will quickly earn its cost back with the 10% member discount.

See here for more about hostels in general and here to check on whether membership is required in your destination countries and to apply online. 

Other memberships

OPTIONAL

There are many memberships that have reciprocal arrangements with members in other countries. It may be possible to get privileges or discounts with your memberships.

Check with your member organization to see if any such arrangements are in place. You might be surprised.

On a more casual level, you may be able to contact members in a destination country who would be pleased to help you out.

Back-up your travel documents

Worst case scenario: you and heading to your lodge in a new city when you encounter a very professional mugger. He takes not only your wallet, your digital device and your luggage, but knows about money belts and gets that, too. Just for good measure, he clobbers you. So now you have no documents, no money, no gear and need medical attention. What do you do?

After you’ve got out of there and found help, you need to get information to deal with your emergency. You have to make calls and send e-mails. If you have all your important information and copies of key documents, you should be back to traveling in a fairly short time. Except, maybe, for that bump on your head.

Very few travelers have such a serious incident, but lost passports, compromised credit cards and claims on travel insurance do happen. Be prepared. Be thorough.

• Make digital copies of all your critical documents — If you lose the originals, copies will help you restore or replace them.
• Make photocopies of several key documents — It’s better to hand over copies rather than originals to third parties such as cops.
• List all important contacts — In case of emergency, you need key contacts handy.
• Decide how and where to store them — Backups need to be both secure and accessible. Duplicate backups are even better.
• Create a single password to access your digital backups — Use a master password phrase to access the list of your other passwords.

List what you need to back up or store

Everyone knows you should have a passport copy, but you should have backups of much more. And it’s not just documents. You need backups of critical contact information, too.

Documents

Some are optional, depending upon your circumstances.

• Passport ID pages
• Passport pages with visas
• National ID card / Social Security / Social Insurance
• Credit card 1 (front and back on all cards)
• Credit card 2
• Debit card 1
• Debit card 2
• Travel insurance confirmation e-mail print-out — This contains your policy number and contact information to show medical facilities when seeking treatment and contact for seeking approvals and making claims.
• International Certificate of Vaccination — Required for some countries, especially for yellow fever.
• Passport photos — Get the digital file from the photographer, if possible. This will allow you to reprint valid photos.
• Driver’s license / International Driving Permit — Both are required to make a complete license in most countries.
• Receipts for any prepaid services — Printed airline tickets, rail passes, lodging confirmations, prepayments for planned experiences. Backup in case of any issues with vendors.
• Drug prescription(s) — For both customs officials and to refill the prescription en route.
• Medical file on pre-existing conditions — Partly to back up carrying restricted drugs, but also to help a doctor to understand your medical history, condition and treatment.
• Optical prescription — Save yourself finding and paying for an optometrist.
• Custody papers for minor child / children — If only one parent is traveling, you need these.
• Bank statement pdf — In case you’re asked by immigration to show evidence that you can support your travel.
• License keys and account information for paid software and services — If you have paid software on your digital device or subscribe to a paid service and the device is lost or damaged, you’ll need to install the software on a new device and re-establish your service accounts.
• Manuals for your digital devices — With the increasing capability of digital devices comes increasing complexity of operation. Keep the manuals handy, even for “simple” devices like a digital watch.
• Date-stamped photos of items of your gear, with receipts — Documentation for insurance claims.

Critical information

Telephone numbers and e-mail addresses.

• Consular services — List of your embassies, consulates or high commissions for the countries you plan to visit. The list should include foreign embassies that may represent your country if you do not have an embassy in your destination country. You need the street address, local consular services telephone number and the 24/7 emergency contact number.
• Debit card / credit card contacts — Record the 24/7 toll free or collect call telephone numbers, in case you need to unfreeze or cancel a card.
• Bank transfer information — Account and routing numbers for your main bank account and the account attached to your debit card. This is so that you can manage payments in and out of the bank, possibly including wire payments or foreign remittances.
• Trusted agent + — Keep the best phone number (usually a cell) for your trusted agent. You should have numbers for close family and friends, too.
• Your doctor — In case you need a local doctor to consult your doctor about your case. E-mail will do most of the time, but telephone is needed for emergencies, especially if you are managing an ongoing serious condition.
• Important passwords — Maybe you won’t forget the passwords for your bank, but how about your VPN, travel apps and other important sites and apps.

Information format

Digital

• Scans — Before you leave home, scan all the documents that can be scanned.
• Photos — Some items (clothing and gear mainly) can’t be scanned. Scanners are hard to come by while traveling, so maybe you can’t scan new documents. Photos are second-best, but will do as long as they’re well lit and legible.

Hard copy

• Passport copy — Make a passport copy and consider getting it notarized. A photocopy may suffice when government officials or hotel staff try to hold on to your passport. If your trip is longer, get a couple of spare copies.
• Debit & credit cards — DO NOT photocopy these. Should photocopies go missing, they’re almost as useful to thieves as the real cards. Instead, make and print your own list of card numbers, verification codes and international contact telephone numbers. One trick is to change the order of the numbers, such as putting the last four in reverse order. (Don’t forget what you’ve done!) That way, if your cards and even your digital device go missing, you still have a safe record to use for canceling the cards.
• Travel insurance confirmation email — Carry at least two copies of the one page print-out.
• Driver’s license & International Driving Permit — Cops in some countries may try to confiscate your license. Don’t pull out your original… give ‘em a photocopy instead.
• Drug prescriptions — A photocopy may be accepted for prescription renewal, although you may have to show the original.

Storage medium

Do not rely solely on your digital device, which may go missing or get damaged.

Cloud copies

• E-mail to self — You can e-mail attachments of the digital files to yourself. For extra security, you should password protect the attachments and even create a separate e-mail account apart from the one(s) you use for regular correspondence. Consider a web-mail account, such as G-mail or Yahoo. They’re free and, should your regular digital device be lost or damaged, your mail can be readily accessed from any internet-enabled computer.
• Cloud storage services — This is preferred, since it’s easier to organize your documents in than using e-mail attachments. There are many free and password protected online storage services. We use Dropbox. Click on the logo to sign-up.

Hardware

These are dependent upon whether your device accepts them.

• USB stick — You may choose to have a password protected USB drive with you, although it, too, could go missing or get damaged. So, if you have a USB stick, you should still keep copies in the cloud or in e-mail attachments.
• SD card — You can get low to very high capacity SD cards, but make sure that the size and capacity of the card matches your device. Not all SD cards are created equal — some of them are unreliable and may fail. If you’re storing vital information on it, use a high-quality card. Make sure that any sensitive information on the card is encrypted.

Remember to use a “safe” digital device to recover your information. Do not access your cloud backup or e-mail from a public computer, since it may have key loggers or other spyware on it. Some USB sticks come with 256bit encryption and a resident browser that are secure on public computers.

The same security warning goes for public WiFi, especially in busy places like airports and stations. Use your VPN.