7 Travel Tip Tuesday: Passport Photo Revolution

Recently I wrote about the ridiculousness of visa fees, but what really gets my goat is what is hands down the biggest racket in international travel: passport photos. I'm sorry, two measly photos for $6.99?! I didn't realize that washed-out, inevitably unflattering pictures of myself in front of a pull-down white screen taken by a high school age CVS cashier were such a valuable commodity. My wedding photos didn't cost that much per picture. But even so, CVS's prices are a steal in comparison to $7.99 at Walgreens and up.
So when we were preparing for our round the world trip, we were pretty horrified by how much it would cost to get all the pictures we needed. Many countries require multiple photos with their applications (darn those visas again!), so we needed a good number before we even got on our first flight plus a healthy stock for border crossings along the way.

Enter ePassportPhoto.com. This awesome site gives you instructions for taking a compliant picture, has you upload it, and then formats six photos into a 4x6 frame ready to print--for free! You can then use Shutterfly, Snapfish, or even good old CVS to make the prints for as little as 10 cents each.

Added bonus: you can take as many photos at home as you want til you get one where you don't look like a zombie.

*Flickr photo by benoit.deckmyn