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Report 1177: Where's Your Passport? How Not To Start A Trip To Umbria

By Russell Wayne from Connecticut, Fall 2006

Trip Description: An overview of Russell's eight days traveling through Umbria in late September 2006, with the help of a TomTom naviagation system.

Destinations: Countries - Italy; Regions/Cities - Lazio, Marche, Tuscany, Umbria

Categories: Hotels/B&Bs; Shopping; Sightseeing; Independent Travel; 2 People

Page 1 of 20: September 22: Disaster Averted

Do you have any idea where your passport is?

That’s not the kind of question you want to be asking when it’s two hours before you need to leave for the airport, but that was indeed the issue of the moment. All of our plans had been in place for months. Everything to be packed was neatly laid out, ready to be put in our bags. It was late morning when we went down our checklist, sure that the passports were waiting quietly in our Current Passports file, only to discover that one of the two had vanished. The missing passport had last been used three months before. Since then, it had been resting on the counter in various parts of our kitchen. Several times we agreed that we needed to put it back into its file, but the thought was never followed by action.

We learned of the disappearance at about 10:30 in the morning and spent the next two hours in a desperation hunt. Thinking that the passport might have been misfiled, we scrutinized each of the surrounding files, but to no avail. Then we went from pile to pile on the countertops. Again, no luck.

As the noon hour came upon us, we wondered what Plan B might be. Call the passport office and request expedited service? One go now and the other follow? Reschedule for several weeks later? Or just forget about it and wait until next spring?

Forget about getting an expedited passport or, for that matter, even getting through to the passport office on Friday morning. Although we are hardly experts on the subject, the reality is that, at best, the replacement passport would have arrived just about the time we were scheduled to come home. Rescheduling was possible, but such a change would have brought with it substantial added fees, colder weather, and cancellation of certain plans that could only be done at the times already decided. Wait until next year? Don’t even think about it, but as morning turned into afternoon we got perilously close to having no other option.

While in the midst of this disaster, with bags yet to be packed, we noticed a dark blue object that was well hidden below one of the desk piles. It was the missing passport, which somehow had gotten mixed up rather than resting comfortably in its appointed home.

The next hour and a half was bedlam, but a very happy one considering the fact that we had come within minutes of canceling everything. And we were out the door almost exactly when we had planned: 2:00 p.m. for a 7:35 p.m. departure.

We used to allow 90 minutes for the trip from Connecticut to JFK airport, but more recently the time has stretched to two hours and longer. So this time, we figured on three hours, assuming that barring a catastrophe, we’d arrive early enough to avoid any last-minute rush.