Our old passports expired in April, so on January 19th we sent in our applications for new ones. Surprisingly enough Andy received his new one Wednesday, two weeks and a day later. Mine came yesterday, two weeks and two days later. We told them we had no immediate plans for travel, so we expected it would take months to get the new ones. Quelle surprise.
Our passports are good for ten years. Do you have one? If it’s from another country, how long is it good for?
February 5, 2016
I don’t have a passport. My husband does for work, and he tells me I should get one. I know I really should — Just in case I ever get the chance to check something off that bucket list of mine!
We don’t plan to travel out of the country, but think it’s a good idea to have it for identification purposes. For instance, New Mexico has been giving driver’s licenses to illegal aliens so there was some controversy as to whether the licenses would be valid identification for train or plane transportation even within the U.S. A passport would bypass problems like that.
i have one from when i went to london that year.
never have renewed it though.
and YES i’m surprised you got them so quickly too!
As I mentioned above, we like having ours for identification purposes if need be. Once every ten years isn’t that much of a nuisance. A lot easier than getting our driver’s license renewed every year now that we’re over 75.
I’ve let mine lapse because my spine prevents long airplane trips. However, you’ve encouraged me that I should just renew the darn thing, just in case.
Hopefully we will never need it, but it’s comforting to know we have it. Andy refuses to travel by plane, so we have no intentions of going on a long trip. At the moment taking the train to see Kaitlin and Torben every two years is more than enough for us. Bless the internet!
I don’t have a passport.
But it would probably be a good thing to have… just in case.
Although, right now with the world as it is, I’d be scared to go anywhere.
As I said above, we have ours for identification. We have no intention of going out of the country.
Australian passports now last for 10 years, it used to be 5.
Ten years makes more sense.
I got a little excited for you when I saw the pic of the passports. Thought you were planning a trip. Oh well, maybe someday soon!
We have enough adventure here at home now. We did travel a lot when we were younger.
Our passport length just changed as well, to 10 years. I don’t have a current one in my new name [name not really new now], that was the only thing I had to pay for – but I should get one…in case!
Looking around the NZ site, it may not be high on my list – I would need to certainly justify that “booklet” with more than say one trip outside our borders!
I still have my mothers one when I travelled on it as a child, a couple of other p/ports including the one with lots of interesting entry stamps for places that either have changed or don’t exist anymore…
I just looked a little deeper, seems that when the 10 year type came in the fees were substantially raised for the same sized number of pages! Before this you had to renew every 5 years, I guess they think their revenue will go down with less p/ports being issued over the lifetime of one person – who travels a lot!
I feel more secure knowing I have a valid ID even if sometime I can’t pass my yearly eye test for a driver’s license. Presumably I could get some other form of ID, but now I’m set for ten years.
anything with an official photo on – seems to be a valid ID here. That is why I get my drivers licence renewed each time, even without a car. When I get my supercard [known as the goldcard] I can have my mugshot on it – and I will do that…because at some point I may not have the drivers licence.
How often do you have to renew your license? Until this year mine was good for 8 years, which was great. Now it’s every year because I’m over 75. That makes sense, but it’s a nuisance.