It\u2019s small, fragile, and supremely easy to misplace and if you do, there are few solutions available. Yes, we\u2019re talking about passports.<\/p>\n
In the digital era, it seems practically archaic that one\u2019s ability to leave the country depends on a hardcopy document. <\/p>\n
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. <\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
It’s small, but very important. Photo \/ Unsplash<\/p>\n
It was 10pm on a Tuesday night, 22 hours before my family\u2019s flight to Vancouver, when my sister texted to say packing was taking longer than expected. <\/p>\n
Partly because of digging out winter gear but mainly because her husband\u2019s passport was not where he expected it to be.<\/p>\n
Over the last six months, we\u2019d booked flights and serviced skis, scheduled shuttle services, purchased ice hockey game tickets and even ordered customised family T-shirts. <\/p>\n
Yet, one thing you rarely do until a day, or hours before a trip, is hunt out your passport.<\/p>\n
Snuggled up in bed, I felt a strike of pity followed swiftly by relief that it wasn\u2019t my husband and I frantically tipping the house upside down, researching emergency passport costs and trying to contact the airline. <\/p>\n
However, the relief was short-lived after I realised, well, it had been a while since I\u2019d seen my own passport. \u201cI\u2019m just going to check\u2026\u201d 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. <\/p>\n
Tonight it wasn\u2019t 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?<\/p>\n
At just 30mm thick, it\u2019s the sort of thing that could quite literally hide anywhere. This is the infuriating thing about losing a passport; you often know it\u2019s in your house but you don\u2019t know where. It\u2019s not missing but you can\u2019t find it.<\/p>\n
Cue the frantic rummaging, the rustling and muttering, \u201cI know it must be here somewhere\u201d. <\/p>\n
If 12 hours go by without finding it? The holiday is essentially over or you\u2019re up for thousands of dollars of emergency documents and replacement flights; maths no one wants to do. <\/p>\n
Annoyingly I recalled seeing it somewhere \u2018unusual\u2019 but it seemed no amount of money (say, the cost of an international trip) could clarify the memory.<\/p>\n
The next day at work, my story prompted a chat among colleagues about the lengths people go to keep essential travel items safe. <\/p>\n
Stories tumbled out effortlessly \u2013 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 \u201cIf you get robbed, they\u2019re unlikely going to ask you to take off your shoes\u201d. Fair point). <\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Phones allow us to take photos, make payments, book hotels and much more while on holiday. Photo \/ Unsplash<\/p>\n
Many said they\u2019d love their phones to become holiday Swiss army knives, armed with passports, credit cards and more, granted the security was top-notch, they caveated. <\/p>\n
One doesn\u2019t need to be an expert to imagine the many limitations and complications of digitising passports. However, some countries have done it.<\/p>\n
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\u2019d likely continue to travel with my physical passport as a back-up, revealing a subtle wariness of digital solutions.<\/p>\n
Yes, I love using the airline app but often also get airline tickets at the kiosk. I\u2019ll save the hotel confirmation email but print it out, just in case. <\/p>\n
Analogue may be less efficient (and easier to lose) but it\u2019s 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\u2019t one Kiwis need to make, at least for now.<\/p>\n
Thankfully, this particular story ended happily. My passport was found in a paper bag on my desk, hidden right in front of me. <\/p>\n
My brother-in-law\u2019s passport was neatly slotted between birthday cards in a drawer. <\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s small, fragile, and supremely easy to misplace and if you do, there are few solutions available. Yes,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":220237,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[9331,836,54170,1863,138,1068,6309,307,22397,1888,13800,16773,305,9858,263,13457,5836,5978,14771,3025,111,139,69,56155,65159,10903,3227,1111,544,6182,427,4758,1961,3608,6923,197,1959,4512],"class_list":{"0":"post-220236","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-chance","9":"tag-836","10":"tag-april","11":"tag-back","12":"tag-business","13":"tag-catch","14":"tag-do","15":"tag-dont","16":"tag-favourite","17":"tag-first","18":"tag-giving","19":"tag-great","20":"tag-have","21":"tag-if","22":"tag-lifestyle","23":"tag-look","24":"tag-lost","25":"tag-might","26":"tag-missed","27":"tag-most","28":"tag-new-zealand","29":"tag-newzealand","30":"tag-nz","31":"tag-panic","32":"tag-passport","33":"tag-popular","34":"tag-published","35":"tag-reading","36":"tag-some","37":"tag-stories","38":"tag-story","39":"tag-taking","40":"tag-this","41":"tag-were","42":"tag-what","43":"tag-you","44":"tag-your","45":"tag-youve"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220236"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220236\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/220237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}