I’ve traveled quite a bit, but I am not an expert to give plenty of advice for travelers. I am more of a spontaneous traveler and enjoy flexibility more than a tight schedule.
I’ve now learned that there is an obvious and simple advice that I could definitely give to any frequent traveler, which could save them a lot of trouble. This was something that I haven’t done myself but was just somehow lucky to get through the trouble even without it…
Solving my problem involved two hours at the central police station of Podgorica, the capital of Montenegro, and some awkward, not so lengthy, Google Translator conversations, but at the end of the day it all worked out.
If there are two things that are usually my mind that I would be keen on avoiding while traveling, they would be having any type of encounter with local authorities (specially where the language barrier is high) or losing my wallet/documents. Probably getting food sick would be the third one, but I’ve come to terms to with the fact that it might happen in some countries.
I’ve had money or credit cards stolen before, but I never carry everything together or with me at the same time, so it has never been a big issue.
On my last trip, things got real after I lost my passport. I did a quick 3-day trip to Montenegro and while riding on a bus from the capital Podgorica to the beach town of Kotor, I received a few calls from an unknown Montenegrin number. I haven’t given my number to anyone and I would have to pay for taking the calls, so I just ignored them. After the third call I got an SMS saying to please call back, someone had found my passport. This is definitely within the category of things you’re always wishing not to happen to you while traveling and curiously enough, I have actually never meet someone that had that situation.
I was surprised that by then I hadn’t even realized I had lost my passport and thought I probably somehow forgot it at the hotel. Once I called back, it was actually my hotel, but they told me that someone had found the passport at the bus station and that it was now at the police station. I was surprised that the hotel called me and not the police, so I was a bit impressed, thinking that the actual system between the police and hotels was extremely fast. Specially since the hotel called me on my German number, when I had the American number listed as contact information on my American passport (or at least so I thought). I was curious to see if I would have any trouble checking in at the new hotel without the passport, but they didn’t even ask for my name and it was a cash transaction. Thought it was a bit weird but clearly didn’t complain.
I asked the guy from the hotel if it was advisable for me to come back that same day and get it sorted out, considering that I was planning to only spend the night on that beach town and come back next day directly to take my flight back to Germany. He said it was a quick procedure and ok to come back next day with a buffer of 1 or 2 hours. I don’t particularly trust on anything involving any government being fast, regardless of the procedure or country.
I came back to Podgorica next day, with 5 hours or “more than enough” time to get things sorted out. The guy at the lobby of the hotel gave me instructions on how to get to the police station and I walked there. Once I arrived there, mm the building itself wasn’t particularly inviting. Not that I have much experience with police stations, but it just somehow started to look like things would be a bit more complicated than what the optimistic guy from the hotel had described.
There was one security guard and a bunch of closed-door offices, so not windows or info line. Security guard didn’t speak English and my two words of Russian were not much of help. This is where Google Translate comes in, but my “worldwide” internet by T-Mobile failed me for the first time, being too slow to even load a website in all Montenegro.
Finally, a younger person walked by and I asked for some help translating the situation and the security guard started making calls with his smartphone and asking people around. Funny enough, after asking for my name, he kept mentioning Mexico and Spain on his phone conversations, and whenever I said the lost passport was American, he would laugh. With my name, I don’t blame him, but it didn’t seem appropriate while searching for an American passport.
Then he just asked to wait… After waiting for maybe 10 or 15 mins, I go back and ask if there was any update and he said he was waiting for call back. After another 10 min, I go back and ask again, and he suggests coming back tomorrow. I tried to explain that I was due to leave the country in a few hours but he wasn’t able to understand and simultaneously to thinking on the trouble of getting to stay another night, book another flight, let my colleagues at work know, etc., I asked him to use his computer for translating a few messages.
With Google Translator, he was able to understand and replied that it would be tough because he couldn’t get a hold on of the commander. The guy made a few more calls and said again to wait. After waiting for about another hour, commander showed up, made me sign a paper and I got my passport back. Fast and easy. They didn’t ask for any other ID or something.
Once I got the passport back, it was even still in its leather case and I realized that I had the invoice from the hotel and my boarding pass still next to the passport. I then also realized I actually didn’t have any contact information written on my passport and that I only had that filled in my other passport…
So, I am not particularly sure if the person who called the hotel was the lady who found the passport or the police, given that it was extremely fast after I had left the bus station. And I somehow have the feeling that regardless of that, the process wouldn’t have been so fast if the bill from the hotel was not there and I didn’t have any contact information on my passport.
Probably they would’ve contacted the hotel sooner or later, since anyways the info is somewhere on their systems, but I have the feeling it would’ve taken a bit more. Probably even I was lucky that this was a small country. I could easily see this taking a few days of processing and paperwork anywhere in Germany or the US.
First thing I did was writing my contact information on the passport with a pencil to be able to change if necessary. I will also in the future try to carry a card of the hotel in my passport while traveling.
I think I was fairly lucky with the whole situation and somehow felt that it was statistically meant to happen at some point with that much traveling.
I wonder how many people actually fill those contact info pages
I would guess rather a small %.
If anyone asked me for an advice for their next trip, I would definitely suggest filling the contact information with a number people can actually reach you during that trip (ideally WhatsApp since that seems to be the standard and people would probably not make an expensive call to let you know if they found your stuff). I also added a little page to my case with my email, in case that’s easier to contact.
