Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast with me, Simon Corder, trying to keep you up to date on the always very rapidly changing world of travel.

And today I want to talk about the issue about which I am getting more contacts on social media and so on than any other and that is

passports so many people as the school holidays in England and Wales approach are telling me

we applied 8 10 12 weeks ago we still haven't got a passport what are we going to do so I just

wanted to as I hope, help

everybody who is worried about passports and let them know what I think the situation is and the

steps that you can take. First thing is, if you don't mind while you're listening to this,

go and check your passport expiry dates now. If you don't mind while you're listening to this, go and check your passport expiry dates now.

If you are planning to do any travel in the near future, please, because that way you will at least be alert to any possible problem.

And I'm still hearing many people who you'd say, oh no, just to notice yesterday my

passport's running out. I'm travelling tomorrow. I can't get an appointment today. So you don't

want to be in that position. Have a look at your passport. Now, if you are going to, for example,

the United States, one of the Caribbean islands.

You are able to use your passport up to and including its expiry date.

Now, I don't actually recommend that you stay in, let's say, Mexico,

right up until the day of your passport expiring,

because then, tediouslyiously when you come to

check in the check in people might say hang on your passport expires today but you're not going

to get to the UK till tomorrow so give it a day's leeway if you possibly can but that is all

you need for lots of destinations.

Some destinations, like the UAE, like Turkey, there is a six-month rule.

Sometimes it applies from the day you arrive, sometimes from the day you plan to leave.

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