There’s a travel essential King Charles will never need again when he travels abroad for overseas engagements or vacations.
- His Majesty is expected to undertake more overseas tours during his reign but it seems likely the one thing he won’t need with him is a passport.
- The late Queen Elizabeth never had a passport for a very good reason and King Charles could follow in her footsteps.
- This royal news comes as King Charles stepped up his fashion game with a snazzy tribute to Queen Camilla after she pulled out of engagement.
There are plenty of different go-tos that anyone wondering what to pack for a beach vacation, city break or adventure vacation might consider but there’s one thing that people across the world will all consider an absolute must for overseas trips. However, this is also something that King Charles might not need to factor into his packing going forwards. During his 64 years as Prince of Wales, he carried a passport but now he’s ascended the throne this is one travel essential King Charles will likely never need again.
According to the Royal Family website, unlike all other members of the immediate and extended Royal Family, the late Queen Elizabeth was never required to have a British passport. This was for the simple reason that they were issued in her name, making it “unnecessary” for her to have one.
The first page of British passports contained the phrase, “Her Britannic Majesty's Secretary of State requests and requires in the name of Her Majesty all those whom it may concern to allow the bearer to pass freely without let or hindrance and to afford the bearer such assistance and protection as may be necessary.”
It’s been confirmed that from summer 2023 new British passports will be officially issued in King Charles’ name instead, with this phrase amended to ‘His Britannic Majesty’ and ‘His Majesty’.
Although this phasing process won’t see everyone travel on the new passports yet, as King it would certainly make sense that King Charles would have the same privilege as Queen Elizabeth. With passports set to be issued in his own name, it’s likely that a British passport is one travel essential King Charles will never need again when he travels abroad.
The last time Queen Elizabeth went overseas before she passed away was in 2015, but King Charles has undertaken plenty of tours in recent years. In 2022 he visited Canada and Rwanda with Queen Consort Camilla and reports have even suggested King Charles could be planning the “biggest royal tour in history”.
He’s also not the only royal to have made multiple overseas trips for important engagements, with Princess Anne recently returning from New Zealand.
However, with King Charles’ coronation day drawing nearer, overseas visits by His Majesty and Queen Camilla might end up coming after this highly-anticipated and meticulously planned occasion.
Starting a few months after her own coronation in 1953, Queen Elizabeth embarked on her longest ever Commonwealth Tour which lasted until May 1954. She even addressed her travels in her 1953 Christmas broadcast.
“As I travel across the world today I am ever more deeply impressed with the achievement and the opportunity which the modern Commonwealth presents. Like New Zealand, from whose North Island I am speaking, every one of its nations can be justly proud of what it has built for itself on its own soil,” she declared.
