Foreign Travel with Children

[NewDCLGuy]

I've traveled a lot, but never overseas with children. Quick question..

When going though passport control in an airport, do the kids (8, 9, 14) go by themselves or with a parent?

 

[abdmom]

The whole family goes together.

 

[walden]

You can go through passport control most places as a family group, with one parent holding all the family passports. Just approach the desk as one group.

 

[Katy Belle]

Somewhere we went they wanted the kids by themselves....russia i believe. Most of the places will lrt your whole family go together.

 

[sandramaac]

However, do remember that they will have to go through security by themselves. So, as parents when they were young my dh would go first, then the kids and then by myself last. And with the security procedures these days, I am not sure what to expect on my upcoming international trips.

 

[NMAmy]

Yep, the whole group goes together.

It seems like I get questioned much more when I travel alone.

 

[crashbb]

Somewhere we went they wanted the kids by themselves....russia i believe. Most of the places will lrt your whole family go together.

I want to say that Poland made us go through separately as well (this would have been before the fall of the Iron Curtain though). I was only about 7 or so, so I may be remembering wrongly. I know on more recent trips, families went through together.

 

[Bonnie151]

Yeah, most places will let you go through immigration as a family, which is brilliant for DH when he travels to the US with the children & me. Despite only holding a UK passport, he gets to go through the US citizen line with us Yanks.

 

[golfgal]

I want to say that Poland made us go through separately as well (this would have been before the fall of the Iron Curtain though). I was only about 7 or so, so I may be remembering wrongly. I know on more recent trips, families went through together.

I went to Hungary with my high school orchestra as part of a European tour, long before the fall of the Iron Curtain. The border crossing there was quite an eye opener for a bunch of upper middle class kids from the suburbs. When we first pulled up the tour guide had collected all of our passports because they said they would just check them as a group, well, then they decided they wanted everyone to stay on the bus but to check our passports individually so they passed them all back. Then the guards with the BIG machine guns came on the bus and started checking individuals and their passports. They got about half way done and decided, nope, everyone off the bus and we are going through the station individually. We all heard into the station, then they decided they would check the passports as a group...This went on for 3 HOURS.

We are pretty sure what was really happening was that the border guards were negotiating with the tour guide for the bribe to let us in.

 

[UKdisneytwinmummy]

We have all gone through passport control together, I hand all 4 passports over and we often get comments as our twin daughters are identical, most of the passport officials try to guess which is which (most get it right!) As others have said it's security when you have to go through individually. I try to go first then the girls then Dh.

 

[Katy Belle]

In some middle eastern countries they have 2lines for security, men and women. So my sons had to go with their dad. I traveled alone with them a few times and they had to go on their own....always made me nervous!

 

[teskak]

The other thing to add is if there is a missing child alert out at the time. We were in Malaysia and DD6 got special attention.

Nothing to scare her but the customs officers did ensure she turned her head to face them and also that she responded to the name on the passport at a time she might not have been expecting it - just in case we were trying to smuggle the missing child out of the country.

The funniest was when DD was at the end of her passport - they are valid for 5 years and she got her first one at 6 months old, so of course a baby photo does not resemble the little girl in front of them.