Originally Posted by
T/BE20/G
I accompanied a friend of mine who did this in September - he had fallen below the required validity for our late September trip to Oktoberfest and Prague. You can make an appointment at any of the passport agency offices by calling 877-487-2778. We made the appointment only 2 days before, though you can even make it same day if there's availability. They do ask for evidence of travel in the next 2 weeks, then we just dropped off the completed application and came back in about 3 hours to pick up the new passport... simple as could be! I don't know why anybody who has convenient access to a passport office would renew by mail - the expedite fee is the same as in person, but in person you have the security of having the passport back right away - no waiting for days.
The offices are available in the following cities:
Boston
Chicago
Aurora, CO
Norwalk, CT
Honolulu
Houston
LA
Miami
New Orleans
New York
Philadelphia
San Francisco
Seattle
DC
You really have a lot of choices!
travel.state.gov
You left out Denver! I got mine done four weeks ahead of my scheduled travel because I had trips to China and Vietnam, which both require visas. Called on Monday (Labor Day!) on the automated line. Showed up Tuesday at 12:30 and picked up my passport the following morning at 09:30. Could have had it the same day, but no need as I was still waiting for the China invitation letter to include with my visa applications. Expedite fee was $60 all in.
Forgot to mention, when the agent saw my passport he asked how many pages I wanted (the old one had six sets of extra pages in it). Told him as many as he could fit and he made sure there were four sets in it to begin with. Probably won't need additional pages for at least 3-5 years depending on the continued extent of my Asia travel.