5 Things You Didn't Know About Your Passport

1.Fall is the best time to renew your passport
If you obtained your passport after age 16, it's valid for only 10 years, and that deadline may be sooner than you think: According to the State Department, "Some countries require that your passport be valid at least six months beyond the dates of your trip." The best time to renew your passport is early autumn -- that's when applications are at a low before Thanksgiving and holiday rushes, the State Department says. You'll likely get yours processed faster.

2.You can get an XL passport with extra pages -- for free
A traditional U.S. passport comes with 28 pages, but you can request a 52-page one for free when you apply for your first passport or renew an old one. You can also add pages to an existing passport, but that will be an $82 fee.

3.There's a cheaper thing called a passport card
It's wallet-sized, it and costs $80 less than a regular adult passport. The catch? You can only use it to "re-enter the U.S. from land border-crossings and sea ports-of-entry in Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean and Bermuda." Short-haul travelers can rejoice! The rest of us, not so much.

4.Your passport is one of the most powerful in the world
If you're from the U.S., your passport affords you free access to 172 other countries. Not many other global citizens can say the same.

5.If you got your passport after 2007, there's an electronic chip in it
That chip on the back stores the same personal info printed on your passport's photo page, plus a biometric identifier (aka a digital image of your face). If you have one of these "e-passports," agents can use facial recognition technology to confirm the passport is indeed yours.