“Is Your Passport Secretly Sabotaging Your Summer Getaway? Find Out Why One Blank Page Could Ruin Everything!”
As October rolls in and the leaves begin to change, many folks might find themselves questioning whether it’s the right time to seize that elusive half-term getaway. With Christmas lights soon to adorn our streets, should we really be thinking about travel? I mean, who needs a tan when you can sip hot cocoa instead, right? Yet, if you’re planning to venture abroad — no matter the season — it’s vital to navigate the complexities of travel prep, starting with, you guessed it, your passport! Imagine investing your hard-earned cash into a getaway, only to discover your passport has expired or, heaven forbid, there’s not even a blank page left for those charming destination stamps. So, whether you’re eyeing up the beaches of Turkey or the bustling Christmas markets in Europe, understanding the nuances of passport validity could save you from an expensive misadventure. Want to ensure your holiday doesn’t turn into a catastrophic travel blunder? Let’s dive in! LEARN MORE
It may not be the most popular time in the calendar to go on holiday, but the October half term is coming up and after that there’s all the Christmas festivities which you might enjoy sampling.
Wherever you plan to travel, it’s worth making sure that you’ve prepared for anything, you don’t want to pour a small fortune into holiday spending and then get tripped up at the last minute.
With that in mind, you’ll want to be sure that for any trips abroad your passport has plenty of time left on it.
You need to make sure it’s still in date as it can be an absolute nightmare if you fall foul of this.
A Brit who managed to get her family out to Turkey for a holiday even though her son’s passport was expired got a nasty shock when she learned this as they arrived abroad.
What happens when there’s no more space in your passport for stamps? It’s time to get a new one. (Getty Stock Photo)
If there’s a mistake that doesn’t get spotted the first time, you can be sure it’ll eventually be seen – and it could prove very costly.
Even if it is still in date you should also check to make sure it’s valid for long enough as a lot of popular destinations follow the rule that a passport needs to be good for three months beyond the date of travel.
If you’ve got all that covered then there’s STILL something else you need to be sure about, and that’s the ‘blank page’ rule which frequent flyers will be most prone to falling foul of.
Your passport will have all your pertinent ID information and whatnot, but it also has a bunch of blank pages just waiting to be stamped by all the places you’ll go to while it’s valid.
If you run out of pages to stamp, then that’s a problem as you may not be allowed to travel – ideally you’d want at least two blank pages left to make a journey.
If you’re always travelling to other countries you could try getting a jumbo passport. (Peter Titmuss/Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
However, by the end of the year, the rules for getting in and out of EU countries is changing.
They’re not in place yet but once the new system goes live instead of a passport stamp you’ll provide a fingerprint sample and have a photo of your face taken.
It’s supposed to help ensure that non-EU visitors, which means Brits now that Brexit has happened, don’t overstay their welcome and linger beyond the 90/180 rule.
That says that visitors to the EU can stay for up to 90 days within a given period of 180 days, but not a day longer.
If you’re worried about constantly running out of stamping space in your passport, then when you go in to get it renewed, you can get a jumbo passport.
The standard size passport for Brits has 34 pages and costs £88.50 for adults, but for £100.50, you can get a chonky one with 54 pages, according to the UK government.
