The United States is a large and diverse country. There is plenty to see and do. Many people live their entire lives without leaving its borders. In fact, a large percentage of Americans don’t travel internationally. A conservative estimate seems to be that 75% of Americans don’t own a passport.

So for those Americans and any others who are unclear on this, let’s get really basic. What exactly is a passport? To quote the United States Department of State, “A passport is a document issued by a country to a citizen of that country, allowing that person to travel abroad and re-enter the home country.”

Every country in the world issues their own passport. Citizens of all countries need passports to travel out of their country, into another country, and back into their own country. There are some exceptions, but that needs to be addressed in another article.

The format of a passport is generally a small booklet about 3 inches by 5 inches. At the front of the passport there are the official identification pages that contain your name and your officially affixed photo. This page also contains the information on your birth date, where you were born, when and where the document was issued, when it expires, and your passport number. The pages that follow are empty to be used for exit and entry stamps. Those empty pages are also used for formal visas if they are required.

You must sign your passport when you receive it for it to be valid. In the United States, passports are valid for ten years for adults, five years for children 15 years of age and younger.

When you leave the United States, there is no government document control station. Your passport (and visas) will be checked for validity by the airline you are traveling with. When entering a new country, the Immigration Officer will check your documents. They may stamp it with the date of your entry. In most countries you are allowed to visit for a limited period of time (generally 30 days) without officially applying for an extended visit, so this stamp marks the start of your visit. When you leave that country, an Immigration Officer will check that date at your departure and stamp you out. For most travelers, these stamps are great memories of their travels.

Maybe you knew most of this, but it is just good to understand everything when you are planning your first big international trip. Now that you know what a passport is, you can move on to getting one and planning your itinerary!

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This entry was posted on Sunday, July 19th, 2009 at 4:32 pm and is filed under Adventure Travel, Travel Basics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.