How to Fly Without an ID
Have you ever had to fly without an ID? You might even be stranded right now, wondering what you’re going to do in order to make it back home.
Lucky for you (and unlucky for me), I recently found myself in this situation and can guide you through what to do.
Hint: it’s gonna be okay!
Introduction
Whether you’ve lost your ID or had it stolen, sometimes you need to get on a plane without it.
You might be wondering if that’s even possible!
In this blog post, I’m going to walk you through how to get on a plane without an ID.
The Dilemma
At the end of September, I was en route to Ocean City, Maryland for a music festival with my close friend, Sarah. We were going to see The Lumineers, Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds, Alanis Morissette, and so many other amazing artists. We’d even gotten VIP wristbands, and we were pumped!
We stopped in Annapolis for lunch (beautiful city and worth a stop, BTW!) and were having a great time, and then we got the text.
The festival was canceled due to Hurricane Ian making its way up to East Coast.
“WTF are we going to do for five days in Maryland,” I immediately said aloud to Sarah.
After the initial shock wore off, we decided it made sense to just trudge forward and check out Ocean City since we were almost there, and our hotel was non-refundable.
Long story short, the next 5 days were a total shitshow, which I will write about in a different post. Most remarkably, my wallet disappeared one night as we ran from a restaurant to our hotel room in the brutal hurricane winds.
I looked everywhere. Ev-ery-where. I went back to the restaurant. I called the police. I turned my hotel room upside down. It was nowhere to be found.
Not only was that frustrating because my wallet had about $100 in cash and all my credit cards, but it also had my driver’s license.
How was I going to fly home?
I immediately started Googling, and I found answers all across the board. All signs pointed to me being able to fly, but it didn’t seem clear or easy as to what I could do.
The irony of this situation is that I am a professional travel planner, and I always prepare the people on my group trips for all the ways travel can go wrong, including losing a wallet. I had been in such a huge hurry to prepare for this trip that I hadn’t followed my own advice.
So now I get to share my experience with you on flying sans ID first-hand.
Get Documentation
If you lose your ID on the front-end of your trip, don’t panic. You have options! If you are still at home, the obvious thing to do is to grab your passport, or go to the DMV and get another ID (but that obviously takes time).
If it’s not possible to get a new ID before your trip, grab any documentation (mail, bills, other ID cards, etc.) that shows your name and address. Make sure you have hard copies and not screenshots in your phone. You will likely need them later.
If you’ve ever taken a photo of your ID (I always travel with a photo of my driver’s license, passport, vaccination card, etc in a folder in my phone), make sure you have that handy too, preferably printed out. It likely won’t work at the airport, but it might help with things like car rentals and hotel check-in.
Of course this is all if you realize you don’t have an ID before you leave home. If you’re already en route or needing to get home, those are situations that I’ll cover below.
Call Ahead
If you realize ahead of time that you’ve lost your government-issued ID, you can call all of the places you anticipate needing to use it to see what the process is to travel without one.
If you’re renting a car, they are going to want to see your ID at check-in. Same with a hotel. Call all of the businesses you have reservations with ahead of time to see if you can add another person to the reservation (if you’re traveling with other people) who can show their ID instead.
If you’re flying, call the airport you’re flying from in advance to ask what their specific procedure is. Sometimes you may be unable to reach them, and so be prepared to just show up early the day of your flight to talk to someone in person.
Arrive Early
If you don’t have your ID with you, then you’ll definitely want to arrive much earlier than you normally would for a flight.
And ideally, this would be after you had called in advance several days before, but I realize that isn’t always possible.
Airport security will typically have you arrive four hours in advance for a domestic flight, and you’ll need to be ready to present other forms of identification.
The more types of photo ID you have with you, the better.
I also recommend having printed photocopies of your passport and driver’s license at all times, so you can present them at a time like this if you lose the hard copy of your ID. But even that might not be enough, so make sure to have backup identification.
Have Other Forms of Identification Ready
So, what other forms of identification could you provide?
Ideally, as many with a photo of you as possible.
While none of these will replace a photo ID that will allow you to fly, you can present them to the TSA agent to show that you are who you claim to be.
If you don’t have a photo ID, you can use what we call secondary forms of identification.
Here’s a list of items that can be considered secondary identification:
Social security card
Birth certificate
Marriage certificate
School ID with photo
Work ID with photo
And if you’re thinking, well who the hell travels with those items, I get you–trust me. In my case, since I lost my wallet and all of the contents (including debit and credit cards), I was left searching my bag for anything with my name on it.
Other alternatives to the above could be:
A bill or piece of mail with your address on it
A printed reservation with your name
A prescription bottle
Again, it’s highly recommended that you call in advance since TSA always has the final say.
Arriving at the Airport
When I got to the airport 2 hours earlier than planned, sans ID, I immediately found the information desk to ask the woman what I should do. She didn’t know, and she directed me to security.
When I got to security, I found an agent and explained my situation. The woman pulled me aside and started asking me questions similar to above.
Do I have any other forms of ID? No.
Do I have any credit cards with my name one them? No.
Do I have any mail or bills with my name on them? No, who travels with that?!
I offered up all kinds of proof in my phone, including photos of my license and passport, and she said absolutely not–nothing electronic would be considered proof, which surprised me.
So I got creative. I found a copy of my Hertz car rental reservation that I’d luckily saved, and it had my name on it. I also pulled out a prescription bottle from my toiletry bag that had my name on it.
For this particular agent, this was enough.
All of my bank accounts, social media accounts with photographic proof, and photos of my identification were thrown out, and two random items in my luggage with a name on them were what sealed the deal for her–silly, I know.
Nonetheless, I was in! And she took me personally through security, going past all my comrades in TSA pre-check, making me feel like a true VIP flyer.
Going Through Security
That was until I hit actual security. At that point, I was treated like a potential terrorist, and I got ransacked by a TSA agent.
You know when you accidentally leave some water in your bag or have an aerosol that’s above 3.4 ounces, and they pull you over to inspect your bag?
That was me–times 10.
I stood there for 25 minutes, barefoot (because I’m pre-check, I don’t typically have to take my shoes off), watching him pull out all of my belongings in front of everyone in the Baltimore airport.
Every single item in my bags was examined, tested, and tossed aside, one by one. They paid extra attention to my laptop, phone, chargers, battery packs, and electronics, and each one was swiped and tested individually.
At some point I started interviewing the agent on what he was doing, because I was curious, bored, and slightly entertained all at the same time.
We’d become uncomfortably close as I watched him rifle through my undergarments.
“Can I ask what you’re looking for?” I questioned.
“Primarily explosive particles,” he answered.
I nodded as I watched him continue to go through my dirty laundry, mortified.
Finally, he was done, and I was in the clear. He helped me move my luggage over to the benches where you put all your shit back together after getting pillaged by TSA (you know the ones), and I quickly gathered all my belongings, along with my pride.
“I know better than this,” I said to myself. Followed by, “at least this will make for a good blog topic.”
And here we are.
How to Fly Internationally Without an ID
All of the advice above is relevant if you lose your ID domestically, while traveling within the United States.
But, what if you’re a U.S. citizen traveling abroad?
What happens if you lose your passport while traveling in another country?
If you lose your passport while abroad, you’ll want to go to the nearest U.S. embassy or consulate as soon as possible.
There’s really no time to waste in a situation like that because if you don’t have a passport to present while flying home, they likely won’t let you board the plane.
Read this article from the U.S. State Department for a more detailed outline of what you should do when you lose your passport abroad.
Conclusion
So to summarize, you always want to have backups of your photo identification with you.
Have hard photocopies of your driver’s license and passport on hand, and email them to yourself so you can bring them up once you’re asked. Keep a copy in your phone, and make sure you can get to them easily (I put them in an album with all my travel documents).
I also recommend pulling out at least one credit and debit card from your wallet and keeping it in the hotel safe or your luggage, just in case you lose your wallet too. In my case, I was fortunate to be traveling with someone else who could spot me for the rest of the trip, but not everyone is that lucky.
Call airport security at least a few days ahead of when you’ll be flying out to ensure an accommodation can be made for you not having your ID (whenever possible).
Of course, if possible, you can always look into rushing a new one.
And worst case, prepare to arm yourself with multiple forms of identification and to have all of the contents of your suitcase examined publicly at the airport.
For that reason, I now always recommend doing your dirty laundry before you go home in case it gets aired out (literally) for the world to see. 🙃
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