Stumpylegs

Hello all - got my ITA today, after much excitement, jumping round, a couple of tears and the realisation that I'm not yet in ( I knew that, but every step closer feels like a huge victory right now!!)

I've settled down to providing the required information - one thing i hadn't banked on was my 10 year travel history!!!

How important is it that this is spot on, i believe in that time i have taken in excess of 20 foreign trips. The last couple of years are easy due to google timelines.

Past 2017 i would be very hazy on dates past the correct month, but know numbers, destinations and durations for 5 or so years i have been with my partner (and we've never left the country more than twice a year)

Once i get to 2012,2011,2010,2009 I genuinely can't remember much - i was young, single and well paid, as a result i often did 1/2 summer trips and 2 occasionally 3 winter trips - as a result whilst i could possibly list where i have been and get summer destinations in the correct order for the year, winter I couldn't tell you which year i went to each country, how many times i went to that country or what part of the season it was??

Do i take a wild guess at them and get them roughly right(I'd do some more research and see if i could narrow them down more than now)? do i omit the trips? or do i need to get exact dates for each trip(I wouldn't know where to start)??

scilly

Do you have old passports, with stamps in them that could help your memory?

Did you take photos or slides?

beckiwoo

Stumpylegs

Thanks both for your replies, unfortunately i got a new passport in 2012, and apart from a couple of trips (which i can remember) with stamps a lot have been within the EU (no stamps)

2013 - 2017 i think between my partners social media (i don't really do social media that much) our emails etc i can piece together most stuff and luckily as this was typically only 1 summer and 1 winter holiday a year it becomes easier to remember.

its the main bulk of the holidays, 2009-2012 where i am completely lost, they were a complete and utter mix of trips booked in travel agents, booked on old email addresses, booked by friends when we went as a group - that is just a large mess and has the major problem of inaccuracies as i see it. the higher frequency of trips means I really can't remember the order of trips ( i can recall within reason eveywhere i have visited, just have no idea of the order/dates)

I've never been one for keeping boarding passes/tickets etc.

bairn7

I had the same issue.

Firstly, make sure you include every stamped trip in your passport.
Then go through emails (eg search the name of airlines you know you've used, try a general search for 'hotel', 'itinerary', 'booking')
Check your history on expedia, or other booking websites.
Scroll through your facebook etc photograph uploads.

Then in your letter of explanation, include a paragraph stating that your history has been compiled by checking through email, social media, etc and therefore "I am as certain as I can be that the travel history provided is correct and complete".

Worked for me - it was a very time consuming process though! (I had 30+ trips in all)

Stumpylegs

Thanks - thats exactly what i have done - with a pack of post it notes and an office wall - got it down to 5/6 confusing trips that were pre archived emails and lacking passport stamps - i knew exactly where i had been just couldn't remember what order/time of year/week

With a brief recollection of who i was seeing/dating at the time of my single trips and the order they fell in coupled with phone calls to friends/major facebook stalking I think i have cracked it, luckily for the majority of ski trips i knew the day of the week i travelled as changeover days in europe are generally always saturday in france, sunday in andorra etc - and generally one or more of us had put something on facebook about going on holiday/coming back from holiday/uploaded some pics so could get the week from that - and it even turns out once upon a time i was more into social media than i thought!!

gaz_c2c

I had a similar issue when I applied for Permanent Residence in 2017. As I worked with the British Army between 2007 and 2015 I travelled a lot with work (including 3 years being stationed in Germany and all of the backwards and forwards travel with the UK that that entailed, and 2 years in Northern Ireland where I would often go for day trips to the Republic of Ireland n my car). I explained in my Letter of Explantation that as an EU national I did not receive stamps or in many cases there are no internal european borders during my stints there and "have done my best to present as accurate a picture as possible of my travel history". I did use a combination of emails, social media and memory to piece together my travel history but I'm sure it had some holes in it in spite of my best efforts.

Anyway with the letter of explanation included I never had any issues with this from IRCC. Do your best, be as honest as you can, and I think you should be fine

theotherlebowski

check your email for booking confirmations and any boarding passes/itineries. that's how I tracked my travel dates...

tomcobb16