As long as you’re an American citizen, you qualify for a US passport, which allows you to travel to almost any country in the world. But how many Americans have actually taken the government up on this offer?

According to social travel start-up Tripl, 115  million Americans currently have passports. That may sound like a lot, but it’s only about 37 percent of the population. To put that number into perspective, 155 million Americans, or 50 percent of the population, have an account on Facebook.

So, at least for now, more Americans are on Facebook than have a passport!

Why don’t more Americans have passports? There are probably a number of factors at play. For one thing, America is a big country, so there’s no shortage of potential vacation spots that don’t require one. For another, getting a US passport involves a significant up-front cost, especially if you have a family. There’s also the perception that the passport application process is cumbersome and time-consuming.

Still, looking at Tripl’s infographic, there are some tantalizing hints that perhaps the rise of social networking sites may eventually help increase the number of Americans that travel abroad. For instance, 96% of US college students are on Facebook. 52% of those students said that they had planned trips based on photos their friends posted on Facebook, and 45% said that Facebook had inspired them to visit a friend in another country.

If you need a US passport, keep in mind that it does generally take about 6 weeks for a passport application to be processed.  If you apply for expedited processing, you can cut that down to three weeks, but that still means you need to plan ahead.

If that’s not fast enough, you can make an appointment at a regional passport agency office. These offices issue emergency passports and are generally located in major cities; there are currently 24 of them in the US. A more convenient option is to use a private expediting company like RushMyPassport. We take your US passport application right to the Department of State for processing in as little as 24 hours!

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Are you planning an international trip? Good for you, but you’d better check your passport expiration date. An expired passport, or a passport that expires in the near future, can cause an unexpected change of plans – never a good thing when it comes to travel.

At RushMyPassport, we help travelers get expedited passport renewals every single day – in fact, one of the most common reasons people come to us is that they’ve forgotten to renew. This isn’t just an American problem, either. A survey from Sunshine.co.uk, a popular British travel agency, revealed that an expired passport had changed or affected travel plans for 8% of respondents, or almost 1 in 10.

I haven’t been able to find a similar study for the US, but this quote from Sunshine.co.uk founder Chris Brown is equally true on this side of the pond:

“Our customer service team often receive enquiries about passport regulations and it’s surprising how confused some people are on the matter. If you’re going on holiday, it’s important you do your homework and check that everything is in place to make your trip run smoothly. You’d be surprised how common it is for people to turn up at the airport, only to be told they cannot fly because they only have a few months left before their passport expires. Even if you are due to return to the UK before your passport expires, you often need a few months left on your passport to be able to travel in the first place.”

That last sentence is key, actually. Even if your passport is technically still valid, many countries won’t let you in if it expires in the next 6 months, or sometimes 3. This applies even if you plan to leave the country in question long before your passport expires.

Always check the rules in the country you’re traveling to. Then, if you need to renew, apply well in advance. If you apply with regular processing, you’ll end up waiting at least 6 weeks and maybe more. You can pay an additional $60 expedite fee to the Department of State, but you’ll still need to allow at least 3 weeks.

If you find yourself in a more urgent situation, don’t panic. You have two options: Make an appointment at one of the 22 regional passport agency offices currently serving the US, or use a private passport expediting company like RushMyPassport. We’ll rush your passport renewal application directly to the Department of State, for processing in as little as 24 hours.

Apply for your passport renewal today!

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