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Home Retirement/Living

Quicker, Easier, Cheaper, Safer

Kathleen Peddicord by Kathleen Peddicord
Jun 10, 2009
in Retirement/Living
0
A lady on a beach under the sun knows that "retire overseas" is shorthand for the opportunity on the table.
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Quicker, Easier, Cheaper, Safer

“Vicki and I faced a problem,” writes intrepid Correspondent Paul Terhorst. “Our U.S. passports were due to expire in a year. Where should we renew?

“Many countries require passports to be valid for six months, sometimes a full year, before they’ll issue you a visa. The U.S. passport agency recommends renewal about nine months ahead of expiration.

“So we needed new passports. However, our travel schedule presented a timing problem. Vicki and I are wrapping up a one-year stay in Chiang Mai, Thailand. We’ve scheduled a trip to the U.S. for later this year, and we could renew there then. But the passport website says it takes up to six weeks for regular service, up to three weeks for expedited service. We plan to spend only a little more than a month in the States, and then travel to Argentina. We would only barely have enough time for the renewal process. We’d have to wait for the passports before buying tickets to Argentina, adding uncertainty and probably a higher cost (for last-minute tickets).

“Solution: We renewed our passports at the U.S. consulate here in Chiang Mai. Even though we’re non-residents in this country, and even though we were just over a year from expiration, the consulate renewed for us, no sweat. Overseas renewal turned out to be quicker, easier, cheaper, and safer.

“Quicker. The consulate said we’d have our new passports within two weeks. In fact, we got mine in five working days and Vicki’s a few days later–much faster than delivery times in the U.S., according to the website.

“Easier. We booked an appointment at the consulate online, walked over, handed them the paperwork, and paid the fee in cash. They accept both Thai baht and dollars. We avoided waiting in line at the post office, and we avoided having to deal with (and pay for) a delivery service.

“Cheaper. We paid only the US$75 passport fee. In the U.S., we’d have had to have paid the US$75 fee, an expediting charge of US$60, and the cost of special delivery.

“Safer. The consulate sent the passports to Washington, D.C., in the diplomatic pouch. If the new passports had disappeared, it would have been their problem, not ours. We kept our old passports until the new ones arrived.

“The new passports say we renewed at the ‘United States Department of State,’ with no mention of Thailand.

“We requested and received passports with extra pages.

“After receiving the new passports, we went to Thai Immigration to inquire about transferring our Thai exit-date stamp to our new passport. No problem. All we have to do is to present both the new and expired passports when we leave the country.

“Conclusion: Whether you live in the U.S. or abroad, next time consider renewing your U.S. passport at a convenient overseas consulate. It’s quicker, easier, cheaper, safer.

“As soon as we received the new passports, I took pictures of the title pages and had the pictures developed in a 3×5 format. I cut the pictures in half, glued the back onto the front, and had the resulting ‘IDs’ laminated in plastic.

“This gives us copies of our passports–which is a really good idea–and convenient IDs. If we lose them, we can just make another set. The process only costs about a dollar apiece.”

Kathleen Peddicord

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Kathleen Peddicord

Kathleen Peddicord

Kathleen Peddicord has covered the live, retire, and do business overseas beat for more than 30 years and is considered the world's foremost authority on these subjects. She has traveled to more than 75 countries, invested in real estate in 21, established businesses in 7, renovated historic properties in 6, and educated her children in 4.

Kathleen has moved children, staff, enterprises, household goods, and pets across three continents, from the East Coast of the United States to Waterford, Ireland... then to Paris, France... next to Panama City, where she has based her Live and Invest Overseas business. Most recently, Kathleen and her husband Lief Simon are dividing their time between Panama and Paris.

Kathleen was a partner with Agora Publishing’s International Living group for 23 years. In that capacity, she opened her first office overseas, in Waterford, Ireland, where she managed a staff of up to 30 employees for more than 10 years. Kathleen also opened, staffed, and operated International Living publishing and real estate marketing offices in Panama City, Panama; Granada, Nicaragua; Roatan, Honduras; San Miguel de Allende, Mexico; Quito, Ecuador; and Paris, France.

Kathleen moved on from her role with Agora in 2007 and launched her Live and Invest Overseas group in 2008. In the years since, she has built Live and Invest Overseas into a successful, recognized, and respected multi-million-dollar business that employs a staff of 35 in Panama City and dozens of writers and other resources around the world.

Kathleen has been quoted by The New York Times, Money magazine, MSNBC, Yahoo Finance, the AARP, and beyond. She has appeared often on radio and television (including Bloomberg and CNBC) and speaks regularly on topics to do with living, retiring, investing, and doing business around the world.

In addition to her own daily e-letter, the Overseas Opportunity Letter, with a circulation of more than 300,000 readers, Kathleen writes regularly for U.S. News & World Report and Forbes.

Her newest book, "How to Retire Overseas: Everything You Need to Know to Live Well (for Less) Abroad," published by Penguin Random House, is the culmination of decades of personal experience living and investing around the world.

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