When you go on a road trip from one state to another, you won’t need to bring a passport. After all, you’re just traveling within the country.
If you are crossing an international border using your car or flying to a different country, such as Japan and Cyprus, you’ll need to carry a passport with you. If you’re a frequent international flyer, you’ll want to keep your passport safe and undamaged. The last thing you want to happen when you’re in the middle of an overseas vacation is a dilapidated or lost passport.
You can better take care of your passport by investing in a quality passport cover.
Why Do I Need to Protect My Passport?
If you’re traveling internationally, you’ll almost always need a passport to clear border security and immigration. When you’re required to present identification by a law enforcement officer or a business establishment overseas, you could present your passport.
Failure to protect your passport can spell a lot of headaches for travelers. The border control agent, for instance, could deny you entry into a country if your passport is unreadable or unrecognizable.
If you damage your passport while you’re in another country, you won’t be able to board the plane back home. Some countries may also detain you for attempting to travel with a damaged passport. Border control officers want to make sure that passports aren’t forged or tampered with — and damage is a sometimes sign that a travel document isn’t legit.
When you lose or damage your passport, you’ll need to head to the nearest embassy and apply for a new passport. This may take a considerable amount of time and money — two things that will further ruin your trip.
Given the major inconvenience of these scenarios, you’ll need to purchase a passport cover to protect your travel document.
Do People Use Passport Covers?
Some don’t use passport wallets, as they don’t see them as an essential piece of travel gear. Having a passport holder, however, offers many perks.
Here are some of them:
Protects Your Passport from Tearing and Liquid
A blotch or a tear in a passport means game over for your travel plans, as you won’t be able to go abroad. Buying a sturdy, waterproof passport cover safeguards your passport from liquids. It also protects your travel document from normal wear and tear.
Keeps You Organized
Some passport holders feature card pockets that allow you to store more stuff. You could use that extra space to store other important documents important for travel (more on this in the next section).
Helps You Easily Identify Your Passport
You’ll find looking for your passport in your bag easier when you put your travel document in a passport wallet. If you have a leather passport holder with a unique design or a striking color, for instance, this should be enough to catch your eye and save you time in taking your travel document out of your carry-on bag.
A colorful passport cover will also help you provide an accurate description of what your travel document looks like when you lose it and have people helping you look for it.
Safeguards Your Digital Information
Many passports issued by other countries include an RFID chip in them. Some passport holders on the market come with RFID blockers to prevent personal and sensitive information from getting into the wrong hands.
What Should I Keep in a Passport Cover?
If your passport cover comes with extra pockets or spaces, you’ll want to take advantage of them by storing other important stuff that you can’t afford to lose. Think of it as a second wallet.
A few of the items that you can store in your passport holder apart from your passport are the following:
Travel Credit Card
This piece of plastic helps you earn airline miles or points as you spend. If you’re going to use this often, consider storing it along with your passport wallet.
A Copy of Your Travel Itinerary
Although you can technically store your trip itinerary on your mobile phone, this could be a problem when your device runs out of juice or becomes damaged. When you store a copy of your itinerary in your passport holder, you can bust it out and show it to whomever you need if you’re asking for help.
Money
Cash is still king in many countries. Some overseas vendors and business establishments accept only the local currency. If this is the case, you’ll want to exchange your dollars for the country’s official currency and store that money in your passport wallet.
E-Visa Printout
Some nations require other countries to secure a travel visa in advance.
Countries, such as Turkey and Australia, issue e-visas that you need to print out and present to the border control agent. You’ll need to store a printout of your e-visa in your passport. This way, you can present your passport and e-visa to immigration easily and at the same time.
How Do You Clean a Passport Cover?
Viruses, such as COVID-19, can survive on water-resistant and non-porous surfaces, such as plastic. You, therefore, need to clean the surface of your passport cover regularly. A good way to do this is to use a disinfectant wipe that contains more than 60 percent alcohol.
Just make sure that you don’t damage your passport during the cleaning process. This means not smudging or damaging airport security stickers that you’ll need to present later in your travels.
A passport is a valuable document that you can’t afford to lose before and during your trip. As a traveler, you need to protect it by getting a quality passport cover.