I’ve Traveled to Nearly 100 Countries, These Are My 7 Top Passport Tips
I’ve Traveled to Nearly 100 Countries, These Are My 7 Top Passport Tips
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https://www.fodors.com/news/photos/passport-and-visa-mistakes-to-avoid-before-international-travel
From passport expiration rules to visa and ETA requirements, a seasoned traveler shares essential tips to avoid denied boarding, entry issues, and travel delays.
Regardless of how intrepid a traveler you are, there’s always room for travel errors. I should know, even someone extremely well-traveled like myself (having been to all continents and to 98 countries and territories) can make a major travel faux pas.
Last year, I traveled to the United Kingdom and verified that a visa isn’t required for short-term visits. My airline didn’t prompt me to fill out any entry forms, so I thought the coast was clear for smooth sailing. But when I went to check into my flight to the U.K., I was denied check-in because I hadn’t received the ETA visa.
I hadn’t been to the U.K. for a decade, and most countries in the global north don’t require an ETA, so I hadn’t thought to check if it was required. I wasn’t allowed to check in my luggage until I submitted the application and payment. The ETA website said it could take up to three days, and I was seriously scolding myself, but fortunately, it was approved within the hour, and the crisis was averted. Luckily, I was allowed to check my suitcase and board the flight.
Here are all the visa and passport tips I’ve learned from many travel mistakes made in over a decade of full-time travel. Ensuring your travel documents are in order will help avoid travel disruptions, denials at border entry, and other travel woes.
PHOTO: KieferPix/Shutterstock
1 OF 7
Check Passport Expiration Dates
I’m a travel journalist who recently traveled to Greece for work. During my trip, one of the other travel journalists attending wasn’t allowed to board their flight because they had less than six months left on their passport before expiration. Many countries require passports to be valid for six months beyond the date of your return flight home.
Specific durations can vary from country to country. For instance, some countries only require three months’ validity in a passport. If your passport has a validity period that expires before your return date from the trip, the airline may deny boarding, or customs agents may refuse entry to the country.
“Read all possible details on the travel requirements. People often check travel requirements superficially, only to discover later that they overlooked the fine print. Their passports might not match the validity requirements, their “visa-free” travels were restricted to 30 or 90 days, or they lacked the necessary funds to show at the border,” Georgia Fowkes, a travel advisor for Altezza Travel, says.
U.S. adult passports are valid for 10 years and can be renewed online. Children under 16 must reapply for a new passport every five years and may not reapply online; the process must be completed in person with their parents. The best way to research the passport validity requirement of the country you’re traveling to is to check the official government website.
PHOTO: Larryhw/iStock
2 OF 7
Check for Passport Damage
Ensure your passport is in suitable condition. My U.S. passport will expire this year, and after using it for a decade, it’s pretty rough—the motif and lettering on the cover are barely legible.
Your passport may be considered invalid if it has torn pages, water damage, bites from pets, a missing cover, or other damage. I’m paranoid about keeping my passport in pristine shape, so I store it in a passport cover at all times. Although the crest has mostly worn off the front, I’ve been able to use it nearly monthly since 2016 without any issue.
3 OF 7
Make Sure You Have Enough Blank Pages
Countries are allowed to require two to four blank visa pages in your passport for visas that occupy an entire page, as well as entry and exit stamps. Some countries require two consecutive blank pages. I have only three pages left in my passport, which expires in April.
To avoid running out of blank visa pages, I plan to renew it before it expires. The U.S. no longer allows adding pages to existing passports, so even if you have several years of validity remaining, you’ll have to renew your passport. I have sticky notes on my blank pages begging that they not be stamped, which can sometimes be met with annoyance from customs agents.
4 OF 7
Check Visa Requirements by Destination
Many destinations require visas that may take days or weeks to obtain. Even eVisas, which are convenient and help avoid long visa-on-arrival lines at the airport, still need planning. Always verify the latest visa requirements for your destination to prevent complications. ItsEasy.com has a trustworthy database of visa requirements by country, allowing travelers to research the visa requirements of the destinations they intend to visit.
Digital authorizations, such as the U.K.’s Electronic Travel Authorization (ETA), are becoming increasingly popular. Australia also requires an ETA, and many countries now require a traveler declaration form, such as the Maldives and Chile. Online systems for visas are becoming widespread. “Re-check [visa requirements] roughly a month before your trip to make sure nothing has changed. Travel requirements for U.S. citizens are getting tighter and on short timelines, too,” Fowkes says. For instance, the EU Entry/Exit System became operational last year, and China is now offering visa-free entry to many nationalities.
5 OF 7
Get a Passport Card Instead of a REAL ID
REAL IDs are now required for travel within the United States, and many travelers are experiencing lengthy wait times for DMV appointments to update their Driver’s License or state ID to be REAL ID-compliant. It may be faster to get a U.S. passport card, which is $30 and is a REAL ID-compliant alternative to a REAL ID driver’s license or state ID.
U.S. citizens can use a passport card to re-enter the country by land or sea from Canada, Mexico, Bermuda, and some Caribbean countries. If you already have a passport book, you can apply for a passport card. I recently got one in tandem with renewing my passport. The passport card is valid for 10 years (for adults), compact enough to carry in your wallet, and doesn’t include your home address—adding an extra layer of privacy.
6 OF 7
Don't Trust Fake Passport Renewal and Visa Sites
Be cautious of misleading websites that claim to be official passport renewal services. Many of these sites overcharge, provide subpar customer service, or are outright scams. These phony websites often charge fees to fill out the forms you can access for free on the official government passport renewal sites. Scam sites also collect sensitive personal information, which can be a security risk.
“Check the official U.S. sources for requirements and stay away from blogs. Use the official government website of the destination country to check the requirements listed there,” Fowkes says.
7 OF 7
Keep Digital and Physical Copies of Your Travel Documents
Scan and email yourself a copy of your passport, visa, and travel itinerary, and keep a printed copy in your carry-on bag in case your documents are lost or stolen. I take a photo of my visa stamp upon arrival at a destination, as hotels often require a copy of it. With only three empty pages left in my passport, it’s quite a challenge to track down a specific visa. The U.S. Department of State advises making multiple copies of required documents to help replace originals in case of emergency.
The Shocking Tourist Scam Where Guides Allegedly Poisoned Guests for Insurance Money
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https://www.fodors.com/world/asia/nepal/experiences/news/the-shocking-tourist-scam-where-guides-allegedly-poisoned-guests-for-insurance-money
Nepalese authorities say Everest guides, helicopter companies, and hospitals ran a $20 million insurance scam—allegedly poisoning climbers to trigger costly helicopter evacuations.
Mount Everest guides are among a wide range of actors in Nepal’s mountaineering industry that have been accused of poisoning foreign climbers without their knowledge to collect insurance payouts for expensive evacuations from the world’s highest mountain.
Some 32 people have been charged, and 11 arrests have been made in the investigation by Nepal’s police service. Police uncovered evidence of a pervasive scam involving workers throughout the country’s mountaineering industry, with sherpas, company owners, helicopter pilots, and hospital administrators all accused of being part of the scam.
The scam affected over 4,700 international visitors between 2022 and 2025, with some 300 fake rescues accounting for nearly $20 million in rescue expenses charged to insurance companies—or in some cases directly to the climbers themselves.
Among the first to be arrested were six individuals from mountaineering tour companies and emergency rescue providers in late January. Police say the six had claimed insurance payouts for fake rescues of foreign tourists who they said had fallen ill on the mountain.
Also charged are operators and staff from three helicopter companies: Mountain Helicopters, Manang Air (since rebranded as Basecamp Helicopters), and Altitude Air. It has also charged physicians and administrators from Swacon International Hospital, Shreedhi International Hospital, and Era International Hospital. Several of those charged who were not arrested were said to have fled the country.
Nepal’s police investigators said the guides used a number of methods to force unnecessary and costly mountain rescue operations via helicopter. They say the guides laced climbers’ food with baking powder, which simulated stomach ailments that are commonly associated with altitude sickness. Other climbers were given medications that caused excess water in the digestive system to produce similar symptoms.
Once the visitors reported nausea, dizziness, or muscle aches as a result of the poisoning, they were advised by the mountaineering guides to evacuate via helicopter. Operators would also bill insurance companies for multiple helicopter flights, even in situations where multiple climbers were accommodated on a single flight. Working in concert with helicopter companies and hospital administrators, police say the ring created fake flight records and forged medical documents to support insurance claims. In some cases, the climbers were not even on helicopter flights and had not actually received care from the hospitals.
Guides also suggested faking illnesses directly to climbers who didn’t want to walk back (the round-trip trek to the Everest Base Camp takes two weeks). The climbers would say they were ill, and the guides would request emergency services to transport them down the mountain. In more severe cases, guides overstated the effects of mild cases of altitude sickness and recommended evacuation to trekkers who could easily have been treated with over-the-counter medication.
In some cases, investigators used CCTV footage from the hospitals named in the insurance claims to find that patients who were said to be receiving treatments in critical care units were instead drinking beer in the hospital cafeteria.
Similar scams were first reported in 2018, which prompted a wide-reaching government investigation and promises of reforms and oversight for mountaineering companies on Everest, which draws a significant number of visitors to the country each year. The chief of Nepal’s police investigative service, Manoj Kumar, told the Kathmandu Post that the scams had been able to regroup and continue because of “lax punitive action” from the Nepalese government.
,Travel insurance companies, which had reviewed the possibility of suspending coverage for trips to Nepal after the 2018 report, will almost certainly take a closer look at removing the country from their insurance plans. If they continue covering trips to Nepal, it could be at significantly increased premiums.
Mount Everest accounts for a significant portion of Nepal’s tourism industry, with up to 40,000 visitors making the trek to the Everest Base Camp each year, most during the peak trekking and climbing season of April and May. As many as 800 will successfully summit the 29,000-foot mountain. The mountain has grown increasingly polluted because of the number of visitors, and Nepalese authorities have begun requiring trekkers to haul out trash as a condition for their visit permits.
Kumar doesn’t mince words when asked how the scam could have come back to life, even after a lengthy investigative report by a local newspaper and government promises to crack down on the scammers, which the Post referred to as “not a few rogue actors, but a structured, commission-based network”. “When there is no action against crime, it flourishes,” said Kumar. “The insurance scam too flourished as a result.”
Vietnam continues evolution as a destination for global travelers
Experts point to improving infrastructure
People walk on Ba Keo Beach on March 20, 2026, in Phu Quoc Vietnam. Vietnam recorded its strongest tourism year on record in 2025, welcoming 21.17 million international visitors, which is the highest number of international visitors ever recorded in Vietnam. Vietnam's tourism authority has set a target of 25 million international visitors in 2026. (Getty Images)
https://www.costar.com/article/652324170/vietnam-continues-evolution-as-a-destination-for-global-travelers?
While Vietnam has been on the short list of countries outperforming in terms of hotel metrics recently, there were some questions about whether that strong performance was just off a low base or if it'd be continually sustainable in the way countries such as India and Japan have been in recent years.
But Jesper Palmqvist, STR's area director for Asia-Pacific, believes Vietnam is slated to be one of the top performers in the region for an extended period.
Speaking on the latest episode of the CoStar News Hotels podcast, Palmqvist noted that the infrastructure and foreign investment will buoy Vietnam's hotel market going forward.
"The amount of money that is available to fix things up in terms of roads and airports and and that infrastructure is quite extraordinary," he said. "And with that, we've had this massive pipeline of hotels and retail and other things, as well. So it [will be] really interesting to see when you build all that up."
The island of Phú Quốc, in particular, has long-term potential to shine as one of the major tourism destinations across Asia-Pacific, Palmqvist said. Just a few years ago, none of the infrastructure or hotel supply existed to support that.
As noted, a lot of the recent growth has come off a low base, and it is still to be determined just how desirable it will be compared to other major destinations in the Asia-Pacific region.
"The main thing is 'Can you compete with the big boys?'" he said. "Can you compete with Phuket?"
For now, though, Phú Quốc has seen better hotel performance to start 2026 than Phuket, which Palmqvist called "an extraordinary breaking point" for the market.
Across the Asia-Pacific region, the effects of conflict in the Middle East are still largely to be determined, but it's clear that some markets, including India, see a higher degree of Middle East traveler demand than others.
He noted Thailand, Malaysia, and Vietnam have "very low, single-digit dependency" on Middle East travelers.
For more from STR's Jesper Palmqvist, listen to the podcast episode embedded above.
At 250, sustaining America’s competitive edge
https://www.mckinsey.com/mgi/our-research/at-250-sustaining-americas-competitive-edge
By
America’s history of reinvention holds compelling lessons as the nation confronts a future of immense if uncertain opportunity
Chapter 3.
The foundations of US competitiveness
While the nature of US competitiveness has shifted over time, a pair of distinctive foundations has remained constant—natural abundance, and a culture of creativity, innovation, ambition, and individual achievement; in a word, entrepreneurialism. These foundations provided the United States with unique advantages at pivotal moments in history. They also encouraged the development of strong institutions and infrastructure, which in turn have reinforced the foundations over time. That reinforcement can make it difficult to untangle cause and effect; indeed, each has shaped the other. What matters is that the United States has undoubtedly benefited from its twin foundations.
Favored by nature
In 1767, Benjamin Franklin wrote: “America, an immense Territory, favoured by Nature with all Advantages of Climate, Soil, great navigable Rivers and Lakes, &c. must become a great Country, populous and mighty.” He was prescient. Over time, the country’s natural abundance and geographic positioning have provided plentiful energy and mineral resources, vast stretches of arable land, and access to internal and international trade routes. The depth and diversity of these resources set the United States apart.
The importance of various natural resources evolved across time. In the first historical chapter, arable land and navigable waterways were essential for agriculture and the transportation of products across the country. An expanding frontier brought forth increasing access to minerals, energy, and land. In Europe, such expansion and ensuing infrastructure development typically required compensating landowners, which did not always occur in the United States. In the second chapter, fossil fuels such as coal and oil, along with minerals such as iron ore, powered industry and provided raw materials. In the third chapter, as science and technology took off, mineral access was a source of strategic advantage; deposits of copper, bauxite (aluminum-containing ore), and uranium supported electrification, aerospace, and nuclear power. In the fourth chapter, the United States was more connected than ever before through global trade, but even then, domestic minerals still provided an advantage. The internet backbone depended on fiber optics and its components (copper, gold, and aluminum) and plentiful energy.
Reliable and affordable energy has been an enduring source of strategic advantage for the United States. Access to plentiful energy has lowered input costs for businesses, improving productivity, enabling scale, and improving household well-being. At independence, Americans consumed twice as much energy per person as Britons, given abundant firewood. As discussed, ready access to coal ignited the American industrial revolution of the second chapter. In the third chapter, the United States became a net energy importer as its energy consumption began to outpace domestic production. The resulting exposure to the oil crises of the 1970s led to energy squeezes, contributing to a slump in productivity. The country regained energy independence in the fourth chapter through the shale revolution, which began in the mid-2000s. In 2019, energy imports dropped below exports for the first time in half a century. This ultimately helped shield the United States from major energy price fluctuations brought about by Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Today, 64 percent of US crude oil production and 79 percent of dry natural gas production are from shale and tight formations.
Geography has also mattered. Relative geographic isolation meant the United States saw minimal damage during the World Wars. Natural deep harbors and warm-water ports on two oceans provided access to plentiful trade routes throughout history. Relatively friendly relations with neighbors also provided a layer of security. Periods of conflict within Europe also motivated the United States to develop its own industry; the Napoleonic Wars, for example, helped launch early US manufacturing.
America’s ‘can-do’ spirit
From its inception to this day, the United States has had an entrepreneurial culture that has served as an ongoing foundation for competitiveness. By some accounts, entrepreneurs and inventors have been “cultural heroes” throughout US history. Entrepreneurship in America —often supported by wealth earned from its resources—has meant a willingness to take risks, an embrace of new ideas and people, and a drive for economic progress., As Alexis de Tocqueville wrote in 1840: “America is a land of wonders, in which everything is in constant motion and every change seems an improvement. No natural boundary seems to be set to the efforts of man; and in his eyes what is not yet done is only what he has not yet attempted to do.”,
The culture of entrepreneurship stems at least in part from the absence of Europe’s entrenched societal structures and systems; the United States was able to start fresh. Perceived openness and economic opportunity have attracted many of the world’s best minds throughout the country’s history. In the second chapter, for example, immigrants brought new ideas and had an outsize impact on innovation; migrants from this era were more than 1.5 times likelier to file a patent than their US-born peers. Andrew Carnegie, an immigrant from Scotland, famously started a steel empire that became the world’s largest corporation. This phenomenon has endured. In 2024, 46 percent of Fortune 500 firms had at least one founder who was a first- or second-generation immigrant, according to a recent study.
From steamboats in the first chapter to smartphones in the fourth, the United States has been a leader in invention. Americans came up with or collaborated on the vast majority of the most important inventions of the past 250 years. The nature of invention changed over time, as did who funded it. In the first chapter, self-taught tinkerers and artisans such as Eli Whitney led the charge. In the second, the industrial research lab took center stage, providing capital to inventors such as Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla. In the third, collaborations between government, universities, and businesses mobilized teams such as a group at Bell Labs led by William Shockley, John Bardeen, and Walter Brattain, co-inventors of the first transistor. During this chapter, funding for R&D primarily came from government, with strong incentives rooted in Cold War–era geopolitical competition. In the fourth, business once again played a larger role in funding R&D. Knowledge ecosystems, including universities and venture capital–backed start-ups, became the centers of invention, with figures such as Steve Jobs envisioning products and ways of interacting with technology such as smartphones, backed by teams that turned those ideas into reality.
The entrepreneurial spirit of the United States was not limited to tech visionaries. It was also embedded in the American people and business community, who have long had the appetite (and means) to adopt and scale new technologies, including those invented elsewhere, such as the automobile, first developed in Germany in 1885. Over time, inventions such as railroads, telephones, and personal computers were adopted more quickly in the United States than elsewhere. The effects on the economy and the fabric of life were manifold: better connections, greater economies of scale, and faster transportation, communication, and learning. While these examples are historical, the same can be said of some more recent technologies; for example, the United States has been at the forefront of scaling cloud computing services.
Americans have adopted generative AI even faster than earlier transformative technologies. That said, however, other countries have been faster; a recent ranking puts the United States in 24th place for adoption rates, behind many other G7 economies. As discussed, Chinese companies are embedding AI at a rapid clip. This raises the crucial questions of whether the United States can maintain this foundation of competitiveness, and, if lost, what reclaiming it might take.
Institutions and infrastructure reinforce the foundations
Over the past 250 years, institutions have embodied and supported the country’s entrepreneurial culture, and infrastructure has helped the United States harness the power of its natural resources. A virtuous cycle animates both. Entrepreneurial culture encouraged the development of new forms of governance, and the resulting institutions in turn encouraged higher ambitions and risk-taking. Resource discovery demanded infrastructure investment, while better infrastructure enabled and encouraged more resource discovery.
American institutions have, throughout history, incorporated the nation’s ideals, especially its entrepreneurial culture. To an unusual degree among modern economies, they have supported and strengthened the spirit of taking risks, protecting intellectual property, and promoting markets and individual freedom. The US Constitution is the oldest in the world, having survived a Civil War, the Great Depression, and two World Wars. This stability has been balanced with regulatory adaptability amid economic expansion, shifting geopolitical circumstances, and technological advancements. Federalism, which supports policy experimentation at the state and local levels, has been critical in the development and refinement of institutions. As just one example, in the realm of corporate law, several states moved early to codify limited liability and enact general incorporation laws, starting with New York in 1811. The approach ultimately spread and has been central to the development of modern corporations. Institutions such as comparatively generous bankruptcy laws have also encouraged entrepreneurship and risk-taking.
The American educational system, another critical and evolving institution, has produced a well-educated, dynamic labor force, instilling an ethos of constant improvement in the entrepreneurial foundation. The expansion of public education, especially in the early 20th century, created a workforce with a baseline of general knowledge. By the end of the second historical chapter, the United States had one of the highest rates of education in the world. Importantly, American education emphasized problem solving and flexibility over specialization, creating a more adaptable workforce and lowering switching costs for workers. Developments in tertiary education, such as the Morrill Land-Grant Act in the first historical chapter and the GI Bill in the third, also expanded knowledge and skills development in technical fields. Lower regulation in labor markets than seen elsewhere complemented an educated and adaptable workforce to lift competitiveness.
The US financial system, meanwhile, emerged as both a product and an enabler of the American entrepreneurial culture. Beginning in the early years of the republic, the United States developed deep capital markets and innovative financial institutions. Beyond positioning the country as a global financial leader as early as the 1830s, early finance provided funding for major infrastructure projects, including canals and railroads, as well as industry. Over time, financial institutions made it easier for firms to form, scale, and fail without permanently deterring future experimentation.
Infrastructure has also contributed to America’s competitiveness. Infrastructure moved minerals, energy resources, water, and agricultural goods to ports or places of consumption and adapted over time as the country’s context and needs shifted. Americans built their earliest railroads to transport coal to factories, specialized piers to ship iron ore across the Great Lakes, and vast aqueducts to divert water to arid mining claims. Then, too, natural resources were integral to infrastructure construction, especially minerals such as copper for electrical equipment and iron ore for steel in bridges, buildings, and pipes, among numerous other fixtures. US infrastructure today supports the second-largest domestic freight system in the world, including the longest freight railroad network and the second-longest highway system. Today, institutions and infrastructure alone do not make the United States unique; plenty of other countries have high-quality infrastructure and pro-market institutions. But they have supported US competitiveness in a uniquely American way over the course of the past quarter-millennium.
Plentiful natural resources and favorable geography provided both easy connection to markets and security, allowing for rapid advances in industry, science, and technology. But natural resources alone were not enough; harnessing them, in evolving and often innovative ways, has made the difference. The nation’s entrepreneurial spirit was similarly codified and strengthened by strong property rights and pro-market institutions and was further nurtured over time through educational and financial systems. In the next section, we discuss how, in the chapter to come, the United States can build on the foundations that have served it so well throughout its history.
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