Passport rules get more confusing

Rob Lovitt Travel writer • E-mail

If you’re planning a Caribbean cruise or Mexican vacation this winter, you may be able to take one thing off your to-do list. Thanks to a last-minute change in impending federal regulations, you may not need to get a passport after all.

Then again, you might. According to the new regs, some travelers will, indeed, need a passport come January, while others won’t for up to another two years. Stranger yet, whether you will or won’t has less to do with where you’re going than how you intend to get there.

Confused? Trust me, as a guy who just helped his 15-year-old daughter apply for her first passport, I know the feeling.

The story so far
Historically, U.S. citizens have only needed a birth certificate and driver’s license to travel to Mexico and most Caribbean countries. But in April 2005, the federal government announced new, stricter requirements as part of its efforts to strengthen border security.

In a nutshell, the new rules stated that all travelers — including home-bound U.S. citizens — would need a passport to enter the U.S. from the aforementioned destinations, starting in January 2007. (Going away, it seems, isn’t the issue; it’s getting back in.)

Not surprisingly, the travel industry was none too pleased. There would be chaos, they claimed, as people scrambled to comply in time, or worse, canceled their trips due to the added expense. On October 4, their prayers were answered (well, some, anyway) when the president signed off on a partial deadline extension.

Barring additional changes, it breaks down like this: If you’re planning on visiting Mexico or the Caribbean and traveling by air, you will need a passport to get back into the U.S. beginning January 23. If you’re traveling by land or sea, however, you can go without until at least 2008. In other words, if you’re cruising to Cozumel, bon voyage; if you’re flying to Barbados without a passport, you may experience a few bumps on the flight back home.

Just do it
Personally, I think everybody who travels outside the country should have a passport. (Approximately 27 percent of Americans currently have one.) And, I’m sorry, but I don’t buy the arguments about the cost or inconvenience.

Currently, a new U.S. passport costs $97 for adults, $82 for children 15 and younger (photos not included). Let’s call it $100 even, which applied to, say, a three- or four-night cruise — the scenario the cruise industry likes to cite — is like tacking on a premium of 25 percent or more.

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