That time off is so badly needed, but nothing could possibly be worst than making travel plans and not realizing that a American passport application to Cancun is needed until it is too late. People are getting all kinds of bad information about this right now and not being prepared can be the difference in having a great trip or getting to the airport and being forced to turn right back around.

Since Cancun is not a part of the United States, one can safely assume that they would need a U S passport to travel there. However, while this will usually be the case, there can be exceptions. It is perfectly understandable how some people are very confused by the whole process because these laws were not even in place about a year ago.

Everything changed in regards to travel in June of 2009. The United States went from requiring nothing more than a driver’s license or birth certificate to cross back in from border countries to requiring passport documentation. This is a significant change and one that many people are still not fully aware of.

Anyone traveling to Cancun will most definitely need a passport. Since the new passport laws cover sea travel, logic dictates that anyone on a cruise to Cancun would also need a passport. However, there is one exception in the sea travel clause.

The one loophole in the new passport laws are related to trips categorized as “closed loop” voyages. This is a cruise ship trip that starts in a US port and ends up in a US port. Because the traveler is not technically leaving the ship, meaning one-way travel, they can get away with only having a driver’s license on their trip. However, there are restrictions involved in the actual destinations of these cruises.

Approved countries that this rule applies to are such destinations as Bermuda, Canada and the Virgin Islands. To be safe, it is always recommended that you check with the State Department or your travel agent as they will both be up to date on the rules regarding the cruise ship itinerary destinations. A quick phone call can give some piece of mind.

All of these changes were made because of Homeland Security. It is no secret that border security was pretty lax, especially on the Canadian and Mexican borders. People were literally coming and going as they pleased. In order to secure the borders, these new passport laws were put in place to make it more difficult for people to get across the border into the United States.

Anyone traveling to Cancun from the United States will almost certainly need to fill out a USA passport application. The only time a U S passport to Cancun is not necessary is when a person is traveling to Cancun in a closed loop cruise.

Tags: American passport application, new passport application, passport application, Traffic Analysis, U.S. passport application, United States passport application, USA passport application

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 20th, 2010 at 1:39 pm and is filed under Traffic Analysis. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.