Well, I can’t believe this happened to me, a seasoned traveler, but it did! I am sharing this story to keep this from happening to you.
In July, I took a trip to Europe with a girlfriend to go on a river cruise in Portugal. However, I tacked on 3 days in advance of the cruise to scout out Valencia, Spain as a possible tour destination. I loved Valencia, but that is not the point of this story.
Before departing on this trip, I purchased a cross-body bag advertised as being basically pick-pocket proof and compact, yet would carry all your essentials, so I ordered it. The bag is shaped like a kidney bean with two vertical zippered pockets on the front of the bag and one larger zipped compartment at the top of the bag.
We were staying in an Airbnb which did not have a safe, so I decided to carry my passport with me in that bag. My mistake was to place my passport in one of the front zipped compartments. Apparently, sometime during our exploring, I failed to zip that compartment up (as I was in an out of those compartments), and my passport slipped out probably when I took the bag on an off and it was turned downward.
I Lost My Passport While Traveling - Here's what I did next.
I didn’t discover the missing passport until Friday morning when we were packed up and ready to catch an Uber to the airport in Valencia to fly to Portugal to catch our cruise on Saturday. I called the US Embassy and was informed that the closest US Embassy was in Madrid and that I would have to travel by train to get there. The worst part was the US Embassy is only open from 8am to 11am, Monday to Friday, which meant that there
was no way that I could go there before they closed on Friday and would have to wait until Monday morning at 8am to get to see them and start the process.
My girlfriend and I traveled by train together to Madrid on Friday afternoon and we got a hotel room for 4 nights. She departed on Saturday morning to fly to Portugal to catch the cruise (no reason her trip should be ruined) and I had to stay behind.
Fortunately, I had purchased “Cancel for Any Reason” travel insurance (which is what I highly recommend on my website) and decided to go ahead and cancel the cruise for myself, since I was unsure of what the process would entail when I finally did get to go to the Embassy. Like all insurance policies, the maximum refund amount when you do this is 75% of the value of the cruise, so you do lose 25%.
Over the weekend, while waiting to visit the Embassy, I researched what the process would entail and learned that there were two forms that had to be completed online and printed out hard copy. One was a lost passport form, and the other was a Passport Application form required to obtain an emergency passport. I also need to have a passport photo taken in advance. I was able to take care of those tasks over the weekend, so I was prepared.
On Monday morning, I lined up outside the US Embassy at 7:15am waiting for them to open at 8am. The good news is that, as a US citizen, you get to by-pass all the locals that are in line with appointments to get Visas. I was first in line.
Once you get called up and they review your forms and pay your fee ($165), you leave and come back the next morning to pick up your Emergency Passport, which is valid for one year (however, there are some countries that will not accept this limited passport, so make sure you are aware what countries you can’t travel to). I was able to travel back to the US on Tuesday and was glad that the ordeal was over.
So, what would I have done differently? Given the place I was staying had no way to secure my passport, I still would have opted to carry it with me, but I should have placed it in the larger compartment at the top and made sure to always keep the zippers closed.
Elite Adventures for Women specializes in unique and boutique guided tours exclusively for women, with a maximum of ten (10) travelers per trip. If you are not comfortable going it alone, why not consider joining one of the tours.
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