I’ve never been outside of the country, so I never had the need for a passport. You even need a passport to get from the U.S. to Canada. With a limited amount of time before the trip to Paris, this is how I got my passport.
To get a passport, you need to have your original birth certificate with a raised stamp. If you don’t have your original birth certificate, you’ll need to go to the county in which you were born and have them reprint it for a nominal fee. You can also have them send it to you by mail if you live far away from your birthplace. There are applicable fees depending on how fast you need your passport. You need to have two separate checks to pay the two different departments. This is what I took with me to the local post office:
• My original birth certificate
• A check made out to the post office for the $25 execution fee
• A check made out to The Department of State for $212.72 to expedite the process
To protect my passport from people wanting to "borrow" it, I bought a passport protector. I could wear it inconspicuously underneath my shirt hung at my side. I looked at many different under-shirt passport holders, and I went with this one because it was cheap, lightweight and well-hidden.
After three weeks worth of waiting, and ten minutes at the post office, I finally got my passport!
