a second passport in a hurry

We probably shouldn't have waited until the month before we left to decide we should each get a second passport, but we did.  Based on a tip from The World Effect we thought it would be helpful when trying to get some of our African countries and Brazil visas while on the road. It would allow us to send off one passport and keeping one with us. We were also concerned that we were going to run out of pages in our current passport, it only has a few countries in it right now, but based on the fact that visas take up a page and most require you to have 2 blank pages we didn't want to take any chances of not being allowed into a country.  However like I said we were about a month away from leaving and didn't have one.  So after some research we found that we could apply in person at a Passport Agency and luckily there was one in Denver.

After making an appointment, proving we needed to apply for visas in the next 4 weeks and had a need for a second passport we were issued one. We went in on a Friday and were able to pick up our passports the next Wednesday.  The fee was the same as if we did an expedited passport service, $170 ($110 + $60 for the rush) however we had our passport in about 3 business days rather than the normal 2-3 weeks it takes to mail it in.

So now we are all set and just completed our India visa application using our new passports.

visa photos on the cheap

Between taking the time to get a visa (or passport) photo taken and paying the $3-$4 per photo (the usually come in sets of 2 for around $8) we decided to handle the task ourselves.
Here's the list of supplies:

1. digital camera (we used a D90 with an SB400 for better lighting)
2. tripod
3. white foam core board (had some from other photo projects)

After reading up on the guidelines on travel.state.gov and using epassportphoto.com's handy sizing and alignment tool we've got a set of 6 (it was 5, but I photoshopped the page to 6) passport photos each, and we just have to spend ~$.20 to print off some 4x6s at Walgreens. Net result: $.03 per photo, not bad considering we're going to need 2 for several of the visas we need.

australia: we're in!

After booking our plane tickets the next step was actually getting allowed into the country.  As an American, Australia allows you to submit an Electronic Travel Authority (ETA), it replaces a visa stamp by filling out an online form and of course a $20 AUS payment (per person).  We were both approved 'instantly' and should hopefully allow a smoother entry once we land.

Information for this process is was all through the US Department of State's website: http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/cis/cis_954.html.  While we were a little surprised the need to for the ETA of all the countries that require visas AU seems to be the easiest, about a 5 minute process each.