Easy for MOST people… but anyone who has ever had a name change, ever, for any reason, MIGHT have trouble (yes, that does include most married women). While I was getting mine sorted out I ran into several other people who had trouble - divorcees, adoptees, and one young man who’s family, for whatever reasons, had referred to him all his life by a name different than what appeared on his birth certificate meaning ALL his records aside from his birth certificate where in one name … but not the name for his RealID. And once you start the process you can’t back out and get a normal ID.
As I said - for MOST people this is trivial. For some people, however, it is not. Be sure you have all your documents before you start (or you might wind up without a valid ID until you get it sorted out). All changes of name since your birth, including adoption, marriage(s), divorce(s), or just “I want to change my name for X reason”. You will need every single one.
In addition, people without a middle name, or people with more than one middle name, or with hyphenated names, may also have trouble.
I got a RealID license in California a couple months ago. I wasn’t hard, I guess, but it was time consuming. I went to the DMV office whose website said there was currently a 10 minute wait. They don’t tell you that the wait time starts after you stand in the 45 minute line to check in and get a number.
I’m on my third US Tourist (Blue) Passport (the others expired) and also had a ‘Brown’ passport when I worked for the US Government (had to turn it back in when I retired). When I was overseas working during Gulf War II (in the UAE), the embassy was prepared to offer us ‘Black’ or Diplomatic passports, but never got one of those.
The REAL ID Act is a federal security-theater law, to make it harder for law-abiding people to get drivers licenses and ID cards so they’ll be comforted by the feeling that perhaps a terrorist was also inconvenienced. If you have a non-compliant ID, eventually maybe one day you won’t be allowed to use it to get on a plane, or to enter a federal building (not that most people go to federal buildings much). The current threat is that this changeover will occur in 2020 (after being postponed about a dozen times before). If you don’t have one or can’t get one, you have to use a passport (or other, rarer forms of ID) to fly.
U.S. Citizen, living in the Schengen area. Yep, I got a valid passport. And my residence permit, which I have to show if anyone wants to see my passport, as my passport does not contain a Schengen area entry stamp. Americans can only stay in the Schengen area for 90 days until they have a valid residence permit for the area.
I have been asked for my residence permit in the U.S. (the airline doesn’t like it when you say you don’t have a return to U.S. flight booked), U.K. (not Schengen, so they shouldn’t care) and any time I have to show my passport traveling within the Schengen area. Often they don’t even ask to see a passport.
My passport’s valid until August 2022. Global Entry is valid until my birthday in 2021, but I don’t actually have a card, which is only needed for crossing the border with an auto.
Residence permit is good until 2023. So I have something to do in 2021, 2022 and 2023. Glad I only have one passport. My friend has two passports, plus an ID card for the European country and her residence permit. Something’s always needing attention.
ETA
There are some states that don’t like to accept a U.S. passport for buying age-restricted items because their rules state that they can only accept their own states’ driver license. Rather annoying.
Try being a non-US citizen, and try to buy alcohol in such a place. My Canadian passport (which the US government, at US customs, agreed is good enough to be allowed into the US), is somehow not good enough in some American states.
I do not have one, and my visceral feeling about them is that they are an accessory of the super-wealthy who have the means to travel internationally on a whim. Yes, I do recognize that this is a viewpoint more suited to the 1920s than to the twenty-first century, but there ya go. Visceral feelings don’t have to make sense.
That said, I have a PSA to offer: I work for the USPS, servicing the machinery that sorts the mail. It would not be fair to characterize the way that the machinery treats parcels as equivalent to “handling it with kid gloves.” It would also not be fair to characterize it as being egregiously rough. Suffice it to say that the machinery is no respecter of persons (“persons” in this instance being a metaphor for mailpieces which the sender thinks of as inherently precious and inviolable). Too many times I have had occasion to climb up into the processing system and retrieve PORTIONS of a packet of documents that have become scattered due to having burst open because they were inadequately sealed. Too often, these incidents have involved passport applications and renewals. While we do have a staff dedicated to recovering and if necessary, repackaging busted parcels, the possibility always exists that a document packet will permanently lose some pages. To be candid, I feel worse when it happens to a citizenship application than to passport-related docs, but it NEVER feels good. PLEASE folks, remember to SECURELY seal your document envelopes.
I’ll say your viewpoint is bizarre. It sounds like something out of a 1920s movie with men in tuxedos and women in evening gowns aboard a steamship to Europe. Hell, college kids need a passport to party in Cancun or across the Canadian border.
I got my first passport in 1974, for a trip to Australia and New Zealand. I’m now on my sixth passport. The first two were for five years; in the 1980s they changed the validity to 10 years. Even so, I always get a passport with extra pages so I don’t fill it up. In the past 12 months I’ve traveled internationally 8 times, and taken 29 flights.
I also have a passport card, which is only good for land borders. I got it mainly so I would have ID with my date of birth on it so I could buy beer at those places that insist on 100% ID check to buy alcohol no matter how ancient you look.
I also just got my permanent Panama residence card. I used to have a diplomatic visa and a different kind of ID, but I recently had to change.
I’ve always had a passport, as a military brat. It’s currently expired, since I’m too poor to travel nowadays. I need to get a fresh one before the real ID requirement kicks in, because I sometimes get flown out to visit the grandchild.
The issue with Real ID has nothing to do with California. To get a Real ID license you need proof of citizenship, like a passport, proof of your Social Security Number, like your original card, and two proofs of residence like a utility bill or property tax bill.
My new license came when I was on a trip, and my old picture one expired in the middle of it (I had a paper temp license) so I used my passport this time, and it worked fine.
My second passport expired in March, and I’ve just not bothered to renew it yet. It’s something I really need to do, having a foreign wife. For Canada, my Michigan Drivers (sic) License is good enough.
