{"id":33078,"date":"2025-09-24T16:41:44","date_gmt":"2025-09-24T16:41:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/usa\/i-traveled-17-hours-to-indonesia-but-was-immediately-sent-home-because-id-made-a-simple-mistake-with-my-passport\/"},"modified":"2025-09-24T16:41:44","modified_gmt":"2025-09-24T16:41:44","slug":"i-traveled-17-hours-to-indonesia-but-was-immediately-sent-home-because-id-made-a-simple-mistake-with-my-passport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/usa\/i-traveled-17-hours-to-indonesia-but-was-immediately-sent-home-because-id-made-a-simple-mistake-with-my-passport\/","title":{"rendered":"I traveled 17 hours to Indonesia, but was immediately sent home because I&#8217;d made a simple mistake with my passport"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/68d1b0f757d362d375e8a4d7?format=jpeg\" alt=\"Claire stands on top of a mountain, with rolling, greenery-covered hills in the background.\"\/><figcaption>I traveled to Indonesia and had to fly back home because of a passport mistake I won&#039;t make again.<\/p>\n<p>Claire Gallam Volkman<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<ul>\n<li>I flew 17 hours to Indonesia, only to find out I&#039;d made a mistake with my passport.<\/li>\n<li>I wasn&#039;t allowed entry to the country because I didn&#039;t have at least two blank pages in my passport.<\/li>\n<li>Now, I always check entry requirements far in advance \u2014 and I have a larger, 52-page passport.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>After nearly 17 hours of air travel, I was groggy, jet-lagged, and excited to embark on a 10-day cruise through Asia for work.<\/p>\n<p>I was ready for a few days of relaxation at sea, sipping Champagne and enjoying caviar.<\/p>\n<p>So, I was quite surprised when, after landing, I was pulled aside at immigration in Indonesia and escorted away from the arrivals area to a small, windowless room.<\/p>\n<p>Turns out, I&#039;d made a simple (but important) mistake with my passport.<\/p>\n<h2>To gain entry to Indonesia, my passport needed to have at least 2 blank pages<\/h2>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/68d306c5183847aa39d75391?format=jpeg\" alt=\"A woman hands her US passport to another woman.\"\/><figcaption>I realized I&#039;d made a mistake with my passport.<\/p>\n<p>FG Trade\/Getty Images<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>After a few hours of anxiously waiting for answers, I learned that I&#039;d been stopped because my passport didn&#039;t have enough empty space.<\/p>\n<p>Like several countries, Indonesia requires at least two full blank pages in your passport for entry. However, as a frequent traveler who&#039;s been to over 70 countries, mine was filled with stamps and visas. <\/p>\n<p>Not a single blank page was left, which meant I didn&#039;t have enough space for another stamp and wouldn&#039;t be able to enter the country. Instead, I&#039;d have to head back home.<\/p>\n<p>With no travel budget to spare, I frantically called a friend who stayed up with me all night, helping me purchase an expensive last-minute, same-day ticket home.<\/p>\n<p>From there, I spent several more hours sitting on the floor of the airport terminal until I could board my 15-hour flight back to the US.<\/p>\n<h2>Now, I always check passport requirements before leaving the country<\/h2>\n<p>Though my story makes for fascinating dinner party fodder, I&#039;d rather not live through this experience again. After all, I missed my cruise and had to pay thousands to remedy my mistake.<\/p>\n<p>Nowadays, to avoid another incident like this, I always check a country&#039;s blank page requirements on the US State Department website long before heading to the airport.<\/p>\n<p>Had I done this research earlier, I could&#039;ve avoided the oh-so-stressful debacle I had in Bali.<\/p>\n<p>Plus, when I renewed my passport, I requested the larger, 52-page version (as opposed to the standard 26-page option). <\/p>\n<p>This small change provided me with peace of mind knowing I wouldn&#039;t have to scramble to find blank pages for a while. I&#039;m happy to report that now, my passport always has ample space for a stamp (or three).<\/p>\n<p>Fortunately, I made it back to Bali not just once, but three times since this experience. In fact, it&#039;s one of my favorite places to visit. I just make sure my pages are blank before I go.<\/p>\n<p>Read the original article on Business Insider<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I traveled to Indonesia and had to fly back home because of a passport mistake I won&#039;t make again. Claire Gallam Volkman I flew 17 hours to Indonesia, only to find out I&#039;d made a mistake with my passport. I wasn&#039;t allowed entry to the country because I didn&#039;t have at least two blank pages [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":33079,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-33078","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33078"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33078\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}