<p>My daughter traveled through India when she was 18. She met some people there that she traveled with.
I think Europe sounds amazing, but I hope that their trains are less crowded and safer than India.</p>
<p>" US citizens need passports replaced all the time while abroad. How could an embassy not know how to “handle a situation such as this” when they probably do it daily? "</p>
<p>My husband had to deal with both US and American Embassies. Because ALL of his ID was stolen, he was in a very bad situation. The hours of operation for the Embassy in Denmark were very, very limited. He was robbed on a Thursday , after going thru the Danish Police Dept , went to the embassy to find it closed. There was a Danish holiday, which meant it was shut down for the weekend. He had to wait until the following Tuesday. There was an emergency contact , which was nothing more than a security guard and could do NOTHING for him. When he went back at the time he was instructs to, they refused to let him in the door….because he , I kid you not…had no ID. </p>
<p>I literally spent the first day of his trip on the phone for a solid 6 hours to various government agencies , being told conflicting information as to who can handle this. The only one who had any idea how to go about getting replacement ID was a young woman at the State Department. I was even told by one representative from the state dept that he would have to get to the embassy in London to get his green card…keep in mind, he was in Scandinavia and there was no way for him to book a flight without a passport.</p>
<p>It was incredibly difficult and stressful situation and shocking at how inept multiple government agencies were at handling this .
Even when he came back home with his special travel " foil " , No one at the Customs and Immigration dept at EWR Airport recognized his travel documents and it took a long time after the flight landed to get him cleared to re-enter.
The only ones who actually helped were his credit card company ( they went above and beyond ) and ATT&T , our cell phone company</p>
<p>That is SOOOO different from my experience in this situation in Paris.</p>
<p>DH and D1 just left Denmark for Norway. Glad they didn’t find themselves in this situation.</p>
<p>Um…aren’t the employees in the embassy department of state employees? </p>
<p>Hours of operation are dicey. That is the case everywhere. It doesn’t mean that the embassy personnel don’t know how to handle replacement of documents.</p>
<p>When our kids traveled abroad, they scanned their important documents and emailed them to themselves. Having a copy of these things, we were told, would facilitate replacement if necessary.</p>
<p>^^^^Yes, making a copy of one’s passport and other important documents is a must and is always on “to do” lists of travel web sites which give information and advice.</p>
<p>Luckily, I was able to obtain a copy of his green card ( that was on file at a bank we deal with ) and his brother had a copy of his passport because we had traveled together the previous year and he needed our passports to book a flight.
There were several government agencies that I needed t touch base with from Homeland Security , State Dept and one agent just kept passing me off to the next , with wrong information from several of them. There are several divisions within the state department and the physical embassies , and not all of them are employed by our government either. There are non-Americans serving in the embassies as well.</p>
<p>I am thankful neither of my kids asked to do this. After college? ok, but after high school? NO WAY!</p>