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Help! I lost my passport…

There’s probably no worse feeling than that of not finding your passport…when you’re in a foreign country.

You’ve looked everywhere. It’s nowhere to be found. It may be lost. It may be stolen. It’s just gone.

What do you do? Search everything one more time. I mean everything. Did it get wedged in your suitcase behind your shoes? Did it get covered up with the morning’s newspaper? Look everywhere.

Then, if it’s gone…

Contact the police in case it really was stolen. Contact your local embassy. If you’ve registered with STEP (see a previous post on this), you’ll know where the embassy is, the phone number, and other pertinent info. You’ll have to show up in person at the embassy to get an emergency passport to get home. Once at home, you’ll need to apply for a new passport.

When you’re at the embassy, you’ll need to show ID. If your wallet was stolen, take someone along who can vouch for you.

It would be a good idea to have a preparation kit of sorts with you in a different place than where you keep your passport. If you received two passport photos when yours was taken, put that in your ‘kit’. Include a copy of your US birth certificate…not the original. Include a copy of your passport and a copy of your flight itinerary and tickets. If your phone is password protected, you could keep a file with this information on it.

If you’ve registered with STEP…this process will be easier.