4 Travel Tips for Dual Citizens

Dual citizenship has significantly become common over recent years. Dual citizenship is a concept where a person is a legal citizen of more than one country. Conventionally, dual citizenship is acquired by birth, naturalization, or by marriage. 

Though dual citizenship has become more common, it is not in all countries. With dual citizenship, one can apply for passports from both countries of citizenship. However, having two passports has ended up causing a lot of confusion for their owners.

Dual citizenship offers numerous advantages, especially in regard to traveling perks. It is, however, difficult and tricky to get to enjoy the travel perks of dual citizenship without relevant knowledge on the matter.

If you want to gain dual citizenship but are unsure about the requirements of a specific country, you need to do your research; for example, if you want to learn more about Cambodian citizenship and how you can apply for it, click here.

Dual citizenship holders should enlighten themselves about the travel perks offered by dual citizenship. In this article, we highlight various travel tips for dual citizenship holders.

1. Flight Tickets

When booking a flight ticket, you are required to give the details of your passport. For people with two passports from different countries, this can be a source of confusion.

When booking flight tickets, you should analyze the travel perks offered by each passport. Due to intercountry relationships and regional communities, some passports give one visa-free entry into numerous countries. 

An example of this is when one has a passport from Saint Kitts and Nevis. The passport grants one visa-free travel to 154 countries globally. The countries include the members of the European Union

The perks offered by Saint Kitts and Nevis citizenship make the citizenship a lucrative travel deal. Frequent travelers to the EU can get Saint Kitts and Nevis citizenship by investment. The country offers the cheapest citizenship by investment. Citizenship by investment entails investing in a country, for example, through real estate, and being granted citizenship in return. 

Citizenship by investment offers much more than just citizenship. In Saint Kitts and Nevis, gaining citizenship by investing in the nation’s real estate also grants profits to the investor. If you’re looking for an easy EU citizenship by investment, this is it!

If you have passports from different countries, you should study the perks of each passport to your travel destination. After analyzing the perks, use the passport that offers more perks.

2. Airport Check-In and Check Out 

Before boarding the plane, one goes through the airport’s check-in procedures. It is important to keep in mind that the personnel who will take you through the procedures are not immigration personnel.

The main task of the attendants who take you through the check-in procedures is to validate your personal information, tickets, and passport. During the airport check-in procedure, one is required to produce the passport you used to book the ticket.

When you submit the passport used to book the ticket, you are clear to proceed. However, as a precautionary measure, you should have your other passport close. This will help answer any questions about your citizenship that the attendants may have.

When checking out of the airport after arriving at your travel destination, you should provide the passport used to book the flight ticket. This process helps ensure that your existence in the travel destination does not go against any laws.

However, a critical factor to keep in mind is that there are countries that require you to show your passport when traveling back. If, for instance, you travel from the United States of America to the United Kingdom using a Saint Kitts and Nevis passport, you will have to show your US passport when returning.

Before traveling, you should check the entry requirements of your country of origin to ensure you do not encounter any hardships.

3. Health Care Services

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When traveling, one’s health care should be a top priority. Dual citizenship grants one access to social services in the two countries alongside any other additional countries.

With dual citizenship, you should check whether either of your citizenship grants you access to public healthcare in your travel destination. Apart from a country’s citizenship granting you access to public healthcare, you can have some additional countries as part of the citizenship too.

An example of this is citizens of any EU nation can get treatment in the UK under the NHS. The NHS is the healthcare system in England, funded through public donations.

Getting the health care perks of your dual citizenship is vital. It helps ensure that you save money and do not have to pay for private medical insurance for travel.

4. Passport Name

One common concern that people with dual citizenship face is passports having different names. The most common cause of this issue is when one country writes your name using its native language. Upon translation of such a passport, the name on the passport might turn out to be slightly different.

Another common cause of this is marriage. In a case where one is a citizen of one country, then travels to another and gets married, they gain citizenship. If the person decides to change their name upon marriage, the passport from the second country will have a different name.

When traveling, having passports with different names can cause issues with airport clearance processes. Traveling with such passports can cause travel delays and additional charges. In some severe situations, having passports with different names can trigger a security check. The security check will derail your travel plans.

To avoid these inconveniences, it is advisable to visit the embassy of the country whose passport name you want to be changed.

The procedure to change names on passports can be lengthy or short, depending on the embassy’s protocols. Regardless of the time taken for the procedure, the advantages of having matching names on passports heavily outweigh the disadvantages. 

Conclusion

The advantages of dual citizenship regarding international travel are numerous. However, one can easily miss out on these advantages due to minor inconveniences arising from disregarding various laws and procedures.

It is, therefore, vital for one to be knowledgeable about dual citizenship advantages and the procedures of how to attain them. 

If you are not conversant with the perks that come with citizenship of any country, it is advisable to seek guidance from the relevant embassy. This will help streamline any doubts or fears you might have had regarding your travel with dual citizenship.

Vivek is a published author of Meidilight and a cofounder of Zestful Outreach Agency. He is passionate about helping webmaster to rank their keywords through good-quality website backlinks. In his spare time, he loves to swim and cycle. You can find him on Twitter and Linkedin.