Avoid Disaster In A Foreign Airport By Checking For One Thing At The Back Of Your Passport

Every traveler's worst nightmare is forgetting their passport and then getting turned away at the gate. Just having your passport with you sometimes isn't enough, though. Every year, international travelers make one crucial mistake. To make your passport usable, you need to have empty pages at the back. 

For travelers who don't fly frequently enough to fill up this space with stamps (or those who don't get passport stamps at the airport), you probably don't have to worry. However, if you fly internationally multiple times a year or are nearing your passport's expiration date, your passport may be fuller than you think. To gain entry into many foreign countries — at least those that haven't entirely turned the process over to e-gates — you will need to have at least two blank pages at the back of your passport. If no room is left for a new stamp, you may be forced to fly back to the U.S. It's one of many rules that adds a little asterisk onto having an up-to-date passport and one to keep in mind the next time you fly.

Now, this isn't the universal standard. Some countries require two, some only one, and some require three or more empty pages ready. You can view how many pages you'll need at your destination here. It's not as cut and dry as regional differences, either. Even within the European Union, where your passport may not even get checked by an officer when traveling between borders, the nations are about equally split on requiring one versus two free pages. Be sure to check both your passport and the requirements of the countries you'll be visiting a few months before your trip. You will need to allow sufficient time to obtain a new passport, which can take between two and six weeks.

Okay, so you've checked your passport, and you're running low on pages. What can you do? If you're a U.S. citizen, the best course of action will be to get a new passport, because unfortunately, you cannot add new pages to a current U.S. passport. So even if your passport isn't set to expire for a while, ordering a new one is your only option. You can typically get this process expedited for a fee if you can't wait the full two to six weeks. And for your next passport, you can opt for a version with more pages to avoid running into this problem. On your passport application, look for an option that says "larger book." 

Empty pages are, for most travelers, the least of their worries. In many places, passport stamps are becoming a thing of the past, and these countries are discontinuing them soon. If you're traveling through the European Union, for instance, you're unlikely to interact with a person. Instead, you'll be going through e-gates. Another crucial passport mistake that can cause you to miss a flight: many travelers don't realize that the expiration date on their passport is not exactly a hard cutoff date. Some countries require that you have a certain number of months (often six) between your date of travel and the passport's expiration date. So be sure to double-check the specific requirements of the country you're visiting while you're counting those blank pages.