If news out of the US State Department is any indicator, the desire to travel is continuing unabated.

Washington CNN  — US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Thursday the State Department is facing an “unprecedented demand” for passports, and has increased staffing and resources to deal with it.

Blinken said the current wait time for a regular passport is “about ten to thirteen weeks, and for an expedited passport about seven to nine weeks.”

The State Department is “getting 500,000 applications a week for passports,” which is 30 to 40% more applicants this year than last year, Blinken told a House Appropriations subcommittee budget hearing.

He noted that the department had launched a pilot online renewal platform so Americans who already have a passport can renew online, but it has “now halted it to make sure that we can fine tune it and improve it before we roll it out in a bigger way.”

“We expect that 65% of renewal customers for passports will be able to do so online once this program is fully up and running,” Blinken said.

“I think it’s really important that we be as clear and transparent as possible with people who are looking for passports to know what they can expect,” he said.

On visas, Blinken said delays have begun to improve. The priority is the categories “for students, for temporary workers, for business travelers, maritime crews,” he said, noting, “we’ve tried to make sure that they are served and we are at pre-pandemic levels or better in those categories.”

On NBC news today, they said the reason is the State Department laid a lot of people off during the pandemic due to low demand. Very forward-thinking. 

I cant quite make up my mind if this is a good thing or not - on one hand more Americans getting a passport and travelling and experiencing the rest of the world is probably a good thing, but on the down side that means more Americans travelling and being all around the rest of the world too 😞    So torn as to which I prefer less !

7 hours ago, NIrishGuy said:

I cant quite make up my mind if this is a good thing or not - on one hand more Americans getting a passport and travelling and experiencing the rest of the world is probably a good thing, but on the down side that means more Americans travelling and being all around the rest of the world too 😞    So torn as to which I prefer less !

So glad you don't feel the need to perpetuate any stereotypes regarding Americans. So do you travel with UK or Irish/EU passport, or both?

8 hours ago, NIrishGuy said:

 but on the down side that means more Americans travelling and being all around the rest of the world too   

Why ? What's wrong with American dollar ?

19 hours ago, unicorn said:

On NBC news today, they said the reason is the State Department laid a lot of people off during the pandemic due to low demand. Very forward-thinking. 

More than any other reason, I think it's due to increased travel.  I renewed my US passport last year and it took just a week, from start to finish.

4 hours ago, Mavica said:

More than any other reason, I think it's due to increased travel.  I renewed my US passport last year and it took just a week, from start to finish.

Well, travel has simply returned to normal. Unless NBC News is lying, the State Department cut their workforce by half. That's going to hurt. Of course, aren't passport fees supposed to be going to pay for these salaries?

19 hours ago, unicorn said:

So glad you don't feel the need to perpetuate any stereotypes regarding Americans. So do you travel with UK or Irish/EU passport, or both?

Play nice. Fingers tend to get rashly lopped off by one or the other hand for the sake of a dug-in point, not that one such outcome is necessarily a bad thing to amputate content but, you know: do no harm and all. 

4 hours ago, Riobard said:

Play nice. Fingers tend to get rashly lopped off by one or the other hand for the sake of a dug-in point, not that one such outcome is necessarily a bad thing to amputate content but, you know: do no harm and all. 

Dude. Re-read NIrishGuy's post. It presented an offensive stereotype of American tourists, which he bemoaned with his post. Most Americans don't appreciate these stereotypes any more than he'd appreciate stereotypes of the Irish--of being whiskey or beer-guzzling drunks, for example. 

33 minutes ago, unicorn said:

Dude. Re-read NIrishGuy's post. It presented an offensive stereotype of American tourists, which he bemoaned with his post. Most Americans don't appreciate these stereotypes any more than he'd appreciate stereotypes of the Irish--of being whiskey or beer-guzzling drunks, for example. 

Now then, he unfairly implied a stereotype, but that was so generalized as to leave the reader projecting any possibility of derogatory yet fallacious meaning onto it. Your response was understandable, the alcoholic specificity a reasonable illustration. My post referenced a recent but very circumscribed zeitgeist of Irish temperament that painted an unflattering, yet not representative, portrait of some members of that nationality. The commentator would get it, along with spoiler alert risk, unless he’s living under a rock (not the Blarney Stone). I didn’t expect it might come off as so oblique.