If you’re not American, congratulations! None of this applies to you, so you can safely skip this Travel Alert.

If you are still reading, we assume you’re a U.S. citizen. In which case we want to remind you of the new Homeland Security law coming into force as of January 23, 2007. That’s the day the U.S. government is requiring all U.S. citizens (repeat: all citizens) to present a valid passport in order to travel between Canada, Mexico, Central & South America, the Caribbean and Bermuda. It’s called the Under the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI) and nobody in the travel industry is very happy about it.

The one big exception is if you’re traveling via cruise ship (as opposed to by air). Cruise ship passengers are allowed to embark and disembark freely, as long as they have two valid forms of ID (a birth certificate and a driver’s license are sufficient).

The other big exception is if you’re traveling to / from a U.S. territory that is not included in the WHTI program. In other words, you will not need a passport to travel between Guam, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Swains Island, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.

In all other cases you’ll need to present a valid U.S. passport at the border. Say ‘adios’ to hopping across the border in San Diego for a game of Jai-alai in Tijuana. Say goodbye to impromptu cross-border visits to our Canadian brethren up north. And say farewell to those last-minute trips in your private jet to Aruba. No passport, no shoes, no service.

-Scott McNeely

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 12th, 2006 at 5:45 pm and is filed under Caribbean, Destinations, News & Alerts, S. & Central America, USA, Canada, Mexico. 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.

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