It’s small, fragile, and supremely easy to misplace and if you do, there are few solutions available. Yes, we’re talking about passports.
In the digital era, it seems practically archaic that one’s ability to leave the country depends on a hardcopy document.
In an age of apps and email, one can easily wander around a city with only a phone and easily go shopping, order a cab, book into a hotel or tip the barista.
Even in the airport, your phone can hold an airline ticket or track your luggage. Yet, misplace your passport, and you can kiss your Europe summer holiday or Canadian ski trip goodbye.
It’s small, but very important. Photo / Unsplash
It was 10pm on a Tuesday night, 22 hours before my family’s flight to Vancouver, when my sister texted to say packing was taking longer than expected.
Partly because of digging out winter gear but mainly because her husband’s passport was not where he expected it to be.
Over the last six months, we’d booked flights and serviced skis, scheduled shuttle services, purchased ice hockey game tickets and even ordered customised family T-shirts.
Yet, one thing you rarely do until a day, or hours before a trip, is hunt out your passport.
Snuggled up in bed, I felt a strike of pity followed swiftly by relief that it wasn’t my husband and I frantically tipping the house upside down, researching emergency passport costs and trying to contact the airline.
However, the relief was short-lived after I realised, well, it had been a while since I’d seen my own passport. “I’m just going to check…” I trail off, flicking on the light and jumping out of bed to grab the travel wallet in my desk drawer, where my passport is. Or, was.
Tonight it wasn’t there, or the second drawer, or the drawer beneath that. Perhaps it was tucked between paper folders or in the side pocket of a backpack?
At just 30mm thick, it’s the sort of thing that could quite literally hide anywhere. This is the infuriating thing about losing a passport; you often know it’s in your house but you don’t know where. It’s not missing but you can’t find it.
Cue the frantic rummaging, the rustling and muttering, “I know it must be here somewhere”.
If 12 hours go by without finding it? The holiday is essentially over or you’re up for thousands of dollars of emergency documents and replacement flights; maths no one wants to do.
Annoyingly I recalled seeing it somewhere ‘unusual’ but it seemed no amount of money (say, the cost of an international trip) could clarify the memory.
The next day at work, my story prompted a chat among colleagues about the lengths people go to keep essential travel items safe.
Stories tumbled out effortlessly – credit cards hidden in shoes while in a foreign city, or Pins written on paper then hidden in shoes (after questioning the shoe theme I was told “If you get robbed, they’re unlikely going to ask you to take off your shoes”. Fair point).
Others slept with passports under pillows, refused to keep passports in hotel safes or carried photocopies of the document signed by Justices of the Peace.
Phones allow us to take photos, make payments, book hotels and much more while on holiday. Photo / Unsplash
Many said they’d love their phones to become holiday Swiss army knives, armed with passports, credit cards and more, granted the security was top-notch, they caveated.
One doesn’t need to be an expert to imagine the many limitations and complications of digitising passports. However, some countries have done it.
In 2023, Finland took a global first by launching a mobile app that stores and presents passport information, freeing Finns from carrying (or losing) their physical passport. Would I use it? Yes, but I’d likely continue to travel with my physical passport as a back-up, revealing a subtle wariness of digital solutions.
Yes, I love using the airline app but often also get airline tickets at the kiosk. I’ll save the hotel confirmation email but print it out, just in case.
Analogue may be less efficient (and easier to lose) but it’s solid and dependable compared to a phone that could lose battery or a server that could malfunction (as they did during the global IT outage). Regardless of my opinions, the decision of getting a digital passport isn’t one Kiwis need to make, at least for now.
Thankfully, this particular story ended happily. My passport was found in a paper bag on my desk, hidden right in front of me.
My brother-in-law’s passport was neatly slotted between birthday cards in a drawer.
The relief was physical as I spotted it, clutched it to my chest then placed it on my carry-on bag between printed sheets of hotel booking confirmations and charging cables.