Fiasco?

By now, we've heard about LL's travel fiasco this past week. Who knew that a US passport effectively expires for some countries as many as six (6) months earlier than it does for the US?

MSNBC has an article ("When your valid passport isn't really valid")with a partial list of countries that do this sort of thing.

It’s true: Some countries require that your U.S. passport be valid not only for the duration of your visit, but also for three to six months after your entry or return from their country. This means you have to check your passport expiration date carefully. For example, if your passport expires on March 1, 2007, and you want to travel this coming November, you may need to renew your passport before you go.

Here is a list of some countries that have special passport expiration rules.

*Brazil, Ecuador (including the Galapagos Islands), Indonesia, Israel, Malaysia, Paraguay, Romania, Singapore: six months.

*Cambodia, Denmark (including Greenland), Fiji, Switzerland: three months (Denmark applies its three-month rule to your stay in any of 15 European countries).

There are many others. Some countries count their expiration windows from date of entry into their country, others from scheduled departure, so be sure to ask. For further information about special passport expiration rules, check the U. S. Department of State’s listing of foreign entry requirements. Other good sources of information are your airline, your travel agent, and the host country’s embassy or consulate.

The link that the article provided to a listing of "foreign entry requirements" was no longer operative, but it linked to the Country Specific Information over at State.