Tag: passport Posts

Canadians who just show up in Thailand are usually given a 30 day tourist visa without any hassles, or so I’m told. But given how I’m heading there for two months, I require a visa that is valid for a longer than normal duration. Generally people in my scenario can simply do a visa run, where basically you exit the country and return a short while later. In Buenos Aires most people would simply head over to Uruguay for the day and obtain a new 90 day visa upon return. But truthfully, I didn’t really want to have to worry about that while in Thailand, so I decided to get it all done beforehand. In most major cities visas can be acquired at each country’s respective consolate. So I went down to the Thai Consulate in Vancouver the other day and started the process. To apply for a visa to […]

One of the hard parts of traveling around is deciding what to bring with you and what to leave behind. That’s relevant before your adventures, and it’s also relevant while you’re traveling. Despite Buenos Aires having a relatively high petty crime rate, I spent my first week and a half here walking around with my wallet in my back pocket and basically every piece of ID and financial card in there as well. It wasn’t until I lost my bank card a few days later that I started to really think about the stupidity of carrying everything I have on my person at all times. So, I’ve made a few changes, and here are the results. My Wallet I’ve basically taken everything of importance out of my wallet and stuck it in the apartment safe. That includes my British Columbia ID, my credit cards, health cards, and the majority of […]

Yesterday morning I woke up to a call from Passport Canada that basically let me know that they didn’t really have a solution to my problem. From their perspective all I had to do was to drive down to Vancouver, show some ID, and pick up my passport. The main obstacle was that Canada Post was saying that they would refuse to release it to me within a government issued ID that has my old address on it. Despite all that, I figured it was worth a shot anyways, so I packed up some documents that had my old address on them (including a copy of my 2009 tax return, and some T4 slips), and headed into the city. Despite Canada Post’s warnings that they wouldn’t release it to me, I managed to walk away with my passport after just a few minutes. In fact, picking it up was pretty […]

So, I made a mistake. I can’t really understand how I possibly made it, but it seems clear it was definitely my mistake. When filling out my passport application about a month ago, I accidentally put my mailing address as my old address in Vancouver. Perhaps I thought it read “Previous Address” or something like that, but after looking through what I sent them, I definitely put my Vancouver address into the “Mailing Address” portion of my passport. Which would explain how it was mailed on the 8th of October and also why I still don’t have it. I thought I could simply drive into Vancouver and pick it up from the post office, but Canada Post assured me that they would not be able to release it to be without a government issued ID which had my old Vancouver address on it. Since I no longer have any ID […]

So, this weekend I decided to leave the city life behind and join my dad and Cathy for a few days in the wilderness down south.? The destination was a little place along the ocean called Fort Casey, near Deception Pass, Washington.? I had a great time, consuming an ample amount of alcoholic beverages, and sitting by the fire. Unfortunately, the one major downside to travelling to the United States is having to go through customs on both sides.? No matter how many times I cross, or how many stamps I have in my passport, I always get grilled pretty hard.? It’s gotten worse now that I have a decent car.? ? The way down wasn’t that bad, although the border guy asked me “do you have anything in the car?”, which I had no idea how to respond to.? “Uhh, yeah, I have stuff in the car.”? ? The […]