What documents do I need before I travel abroad?

Almost every document disaster at an airport is a foreseeable one: a passport with a few weeks too little validity, a travel authorisation nobody knew existed, a name on a booking that does not match the passport. None of those are discovered at the gate by bad luck. They are discovered at the gate because nobody checked when there was still time to fix them, and the fix — a renewal, an application, a name change with the airline — always takes weeks rather than hours.

Safety

What you'll need

• Every traveller's passport
• Booking confirmations
• Travel insurance policy documents (optional)
• Driving licence and vehicle documents if driving (optional)

Step by step

1. Check every passport, not just yours.Expiry date, and that the name and spelling match the booking exactly. Children's passports run out sooner than adults' and are the ones most often forgotten. A middle name on the booking that is not on the passport, or the other way round, is worth a phone call to the airline before it becomes an argument at check-in.
2. Check how much validity that specific country requires.Some countries want a period of remaining validity beyond your return date, and some count from the date the passport was issued rather than its expiry. This differs by country and it changes. Look it up on the UK foreign travel advice page for the destination rather than assuming the rule you used last time still applies.
3. Find out whether you need a visa or a travel authorisation.These are different things — a visa is applied for in advance and often involves an appointment, an authorisation is usually an online form with a fee. New authorisation schemes have been introduced by several destinations in recent years. Check the destination's official government site, not a lookalike agency site charging a markup.
4. Sort travel insurance at the point of booking.Not before you travel. Cancellation cover runs from the moment you buy it, which is a large part of what you are paying for. Declare every medical condition and every medication for every traveller — undeclared conditions are the most common reason a claim is refused.
5. Add the driving documents if a car is involved.Driving licence, and whatever else that country requires of a UK driver. Requirements vary by country and by whether the car is yours or hired. Check the current position rather than relying on what was true before.
6. Collect the health paperwork.Any healthcare card that applies for that destination, prescriptions or a doctor's letter for medication, and a note of the generic names of your medicines rather than only the brand names. Vaccination requirements for some destinations need weeks of lead time.
7. Gather the bookings into one place.Flights, accommodation, transfers, car hire, insurance policy number and its 24-hour emergency line. One offline folder on the phone plus one printed sheet. Airport wifi fails exactly when you need to show something.
8. Photograph everything and store it properly.Passport photo page, visa, insurance certificate, driving licence, tickets. Store them in a password manager or encrypted cloud storage — not in the phone's photo gallery, where a stolen unlocked phone hands over your identity documents with everything else.
9. Leave a copy with someone at home.A relative or friend with the document copies and a rough itinerary. If both phone and wallet go at once, that is the route back to getting things reissued.
10. Re-run the check a month before you go.Requirements change between booking and travelling, and a month is enough time to renew a passport or apply for an authorisation. A fortnight usually is not.

Tips

• Book flights in exactly the name on the passport, including middle names if the airline asks for them. Changing a name on a ticket afterwards is often expensive and sometimes impossible.
• Keep one printed sheet with the essentials — insurance number and emergency line, accommodation address, the airline's number. A phone with a dead battery is a common failure point.
• If a passport is close to expiry it is nearly always cheaper to renew it early than to discover the problem late. Unused validity is usually carried over.

Common mistakes

• Assuming a passport is fine because it has not expired — Several countries require months of remaining validity beyond your return date, and some count from the issue date. An in-date passport can still get you turned away at the gate.
• Checking requirements only when booking — Entry rules change. The check that matters is the one done a few weeks out, when there is still time to act on what it finds.
• Using a search result rather than the official site to apply for an authorisation — Agency sites charge a substantial markup for filling in the same form, and some are outright scams. Go to the destination government's own domain.

Questions people ask