US Passports - info you might not know!

I'm sure most of you know what passports are, hell, most of you probably have passports.  But here a few things you might not know about that all important travel document...

(the old passport that'll be phased out by 2017)

• Passports are good for 10 years
• In 2007, the Department of State issued 18,382,798 passports
• American passports had green covers from 1941 until 1976
• It takes about 6 weeks to renew one
• It current cost $135 for a passport

(the new, since 2006, passport with
the cool computer chip)

Now they have passports cards instead of the book if you're going to just travel back and forth to Canada, Mexico and a few local other countries. (don't try to fly to Europe on one)  Your first passport card will cost $45 if you are an adult, $35 for the kids.  Since 2008 over 1,000,000 of these suckers have been printed off and sent.  At the moment you can't expedite the time of 1-3 months it'll take you to get one but whatever, they're still kinda cool.  To get the scoop go here: Official Passport Card.

So if you plan on going anywhere further than your own backyard these days you'll need a nice updated, not newer than 6 months (in some cases) and not about to expire passport.  Not to mention, they're kind of a cool travel memorabilia.

BONUS LINK:  US Passport Link