During the past few years I have taken a lot of international trips, and this has caused my passport to fill up with stamps pretty quickly. I do not have any blank pages left, yet my passport is good for another four years! How serious of a problem is this? Do I have to get a new passport? Is it possible to have extra pages put into my current passport?
Also, I am currently living abroad in Japan. If I need to get a new passport or extra pages, can I easily do this at the U.S. embassy? Does anyone have any idea how long I will have to wait? I have never dealt with the embassy before.
Finally, is it my imagination, or do U.S. passports have fewer pages than passports from a lot of other countries?
Just happened to me a few months back ;), it’s not a problem. It is possible to add extra pages to your passport, but in my case, I usually get a new passport from our embassy and they attach it to my old one.
As for the number of pages that US passports have, I can’t really say because I don’t have a US passport.
My passport was issued in 1994 and is good for 10 years. I’ve had to get new pages added twice. The first time they put in an accordian-style foldout of 10 pages (5 double-sided), which was a real pain since immigration officials could never find right page for my visa. The second time they put in a new “booklet” of sixteen pages, the same as the regular pages, in the front of the “visas” section, which is much more convenient. I should be able to make it through to next year now.