Just did the same for my kid.  I can’t get off from work to do this on a weekday so weekends were the only option for me to go in person with my wife at a passport acceptance office.  I had several choices (mostly post offices) that can do this on a Saturday.  A lot of municipal offices that perform passport acceptance aren’t open on Saturdays, and post offices are often panned for the way they treat people coming in for passports.  I found an unlikely place on the passport acceptance location list that was open on Saturday, close to home, and wasn’t a post office.  I even read a few reviews about their passport service.  So if I could recommend a place, it’s the UC Berkeley Recreational Sports Facility.  They will perform passport acceptance at their membership window.  I used to spend some time there as a student and went there for a few events.

http://calbears.berkeley.edu/insidepage.aspx?uid=6b303f6b-773d-46c7-bdba-732736f49785

There was one person ahead of us in line filling out a blank form.  We filled ours ahead of time using the State Dept’s online entry system that also produces a machine readable matrix code.  They’ll be able to look up the exact information in their databases via the code rather than rely on someone to read potentially messy handwriting.  It was a breeze since we came with everything ready, including his birth certificate, our parental photo IDs (and photocopies of the front and back in accordance with State Dept requirements), and the check made out to the Dept of State.

I’m looking forward to my kid getting an official photo ID.  I’m thinking most kids that age don’t have their own IDs.

I am American living overseas in Oceania. I got my replacement passport in 17 days only from the State Department. So the hassle is not too bad as you speak.  It’s a form to fill out, a new photo, and some money for an item that’s valid for 10 years.  

I think that most Americans spend too much money on crap to afford to take trips overseas.  Eg. why does a person need a big oversized SUV that gets 10 MPG?  

I work a full time job here as most Americans do in the USA.  I just minimise my costs, and plan to travel. Not everyone who travels on overseas flights is rich. In fact, most people like me scrounge around for airfare and accommodation deals…

May I suggest visiting Nepal for an amazing cultural experience?
cheers,
Bryan

I will mention one perk of a passport or passport card is that my home address is NOT on a passport. Thus, I can show it to whomever requires I present an ID and be more confident that no rogue airport personnel will burglarize my home later; a strategy that is much like using a business card or address on your luggage tag. Rubberbanding the loose pages together generally keeps a nosy TSA document checker from thumbing through it because they are “bored”.

I like to travel. I do so as much as I can, which isn’t all that much given money and vacation time constraints. I’ve never been outside the U.S. for a variety of reasons. When I was growing up, my parents didn’t have the money to take overseas vacations. I chose not to study abroad in college partly for financial reasons. And now, my vacation time is split between recurring trips to the same destinations (that I really enjoy and do not want to sacrifice) and exploring some of the hundreds of places in the U.S. that I’ve never been to but want desperately to visit. I haven’t really had a burning desire to go overseas, and I don’t consider it my civic duty to vacation somewhere that isn’t on my high-priority list just to satisfy those who think I must be ignorant if I’ve never been abroad.

When you consider that a large percentage of the American population cannot afford to take a real vacation *at all* (even to a destination within driving distance), it’s even more insensitive to accuse those who don’t hold passports of being jingoistic “ugly Americans” who sneer at foreign countries.

There’s a heck of a lot to see right here in the U.S. I’m *not* saying that makes our country better than any other, but it does mean that I have a large number of trips that I’d really love to take that don’t involve leaving the country. As such, I don’t have a passport and don’t intend to do much overseas travel (my wife and I do plan to visit Europe in 2013 thanks to a generous benefit my employer offers…she’s more excited about it than I am, but I’m sure it will be fun).

Unlike Phil, I don’t consider my personal preferences to be better than the preferences of someone who feels differently about where they’d like to travel.

I moved to California with the kids and it was easier.

You really don’t want to be at the Post Office the day we come in to do this.

Actually, the passport requirements for people traveling by cruise ship to Canada, Mexico, Bermuda or most of the Caribbean will NOT be changing that drastically under the just finalized Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative. You can still get by with a state ID and a birth certificate. I am well aware of the misconception that passports will be needed for all border crossings soon, but it simply is not true in the case of sea travel.

A sneak preview of my WHTI article explaining it all is here: http://www.cruisemates.com/articles/feature/passport08.cfm

Actually, quite surprising, but the WHTI actually says:

When traveling entirely within the Western Hemisphere on a cruise ship, and when the U.S. citizen boards the cruise ship at a port or place within the United States and returns on the return voyage of the same cruise ship to the same United States port or place from where he or she originally departed. That U.S. citizen may present a government-issued photo identification document in combination with either an original or a copy of his or her birth certificate, a Consular Report of Birth Abroad issued by the Department, or a Certificate of Naturalization issued by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services before entering the United States; if the U.S. citizen is under the age of 16, he or she may present either an original or a copy of his or her birth certificate, a Consular Report of Birth Abroad issued by the Department, or a Certificate of Naturalization issued by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services;

http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2008/pdf/E8-6725.pdf

While the cost of a passport isn’t all that bad considering that they’re good for 10 years, for adults, I’m not sure I buy that it actually costs the government anything near $100.

Though this piece focuses on passports, Americans need to know something about visas they get from other countries. A tourist visa is *not* automatic entry into the issuing country — it gives the traveler the right to show up at a port of entry, where ion officer will decide whether or not to all the person to formally enter the country.

Sometimes there’s incorrect information. For instance, a foreigner can come to Thailand for up to 30 days without a visa, though your passport is stamped both upon entry and exit.

However, some years ago I was returning from a visit to Texas, and I hadn’t obtained a visa since I knew I could enter under the 30-day program. At the airport in Los Angeles, the check-in cleark told me I couldn’t board unless I had a visa for Thailand. I showed him my passport, which had numerous instances of stamps showing I had entered and exited without a visa. He called a supervisor over, who said the same thing. He was puzzled by my passport, and looked up the information he said the airline had received from Thai immigration. Then he invited me to scroll down the screen to see if I could find any mention of the 30-day program. And there wasn’t any. But I got lucky. He told me the cheapest onward fare, saying as far as he was concerned, I wouldn’t be staying in Bangkok. Of course, when I arrived, I was pstamped in, and returned my onward ticket to the airline’s local office to get a refund.

Also, some countries require you to have a specified number of blank pages in your passport.

5 passport photos: $45.
5 passports: $500.
Total: $545

I’d like to know what type vacation a family of five can take for $545?

For the more upscale Caribbean islands (such as Cayman), they didn’t suffer much in the winter, as most of their adult travellers were passport holders.

However, now it comes to the summer and family travel season, a lot of those families have realised “heck, now my kids need passports too”, and by the time they worked it out the backlog at the passport offices had got so bad that they’ll end up vacationing in the USA this year.