Luckily, I was able to cancel that appointment: In the midst of all those hours on hold, I emailed the office of my congressman ( find yours here if you're unsure who it is) someone responded within the next hour or two, asked for a few documents, and reached out to the State Department on my behalf. I said yes immediately, planning to take a train the following week, a few days before my trip. But then, by some stroke of luck, I was on the phone the following day-with a kind, patient employee-when an appointment popped up in Washington, D.C. I called back the next day, and widened my scope of willingness to travel, only to be told the only available slots before my trip were in Honolulu, El Paso, and San Juan, Puerto Rico, all out of the distance and cost I was willing to pay to make it on this trip. The first person I spoke to told me there were no appointments in the tri-state area. This is again where patience and persistence are key-the wait times are long, and appointments are few and far between. Sometimes you'll hear an option to have someone call you back when it's your turn in line, other times you'll just have to sit and wait, getting your fill of classical music as you do so.įive business days before travel, if your passport has not moved to the “approved/printed” status, as mine hadn't, you can call to begin the search for an in-person appointment. If you too applied online, know that the first person you reach will have to transfer you to another department, but that wait time was much shorter each time I called (a few minutes compared to a few hours). To get through, I had to dial seven times-the first six times, I either got a busy tone or a message that the phone number was out of order. Two weeks ahead of travel (14 days, including the day of travel, I learned), I called the help line so they could flag my upcoming travel, as instructed on the website.
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