Travel with a minor who is not your child

[GailS]

My husband and I will be taking our niece to Italy next summer - she will be 16 then. From what I've found online it seems we should have a notarized consent form with both her parents signatures as well as a document giving us authority to make medical decisions. Examples of forms seem to be like these:

https://www.ilrg.com/forms/auth-foreigntravel.html
https://www.ilrg.com/forms/auth-minormed.html
We are flying from Boston to Italy via Paris CDG. Does anyone have experience doing something similar and could share what to expect as we go through passport control in Paris and return from Italy? Is there anything else we should be aware of? Since I changed my name when I married and this is my brother's daughter we have different last names so it will be more obvious she is not our child.

 

[ellen]

I have traveled with my brother's kids all of their lives and having different last names was never an issue, what is important is having all of the right paperwork and identification that supports it.

It can be a long walk transitioning between terminals at CDG so my best advice is to head directly to passport control and then find your next gate before stopping to shop, eat, etc. unless you have a lot of time between flights. Better to know exactly where you need to be for the next flight and shop/eat near there.

 

[GailS]

Thanks Ellen! Are the forms I had links to sufficient? I am very familiar with CDG so don't worry about knowing where we are going or timing. Should we expect at passport control in CDG to need to show the notarized authorizations for us to travel with our niece? It would just be helpful to know if we should present the documentation along with our passports when we approach the passport control officer as a group of 3.

 

[ellen]

Those forms are way more detailed than anything I've had, we just had simple authorizations.

The only two times I was ever asked to see documentation authorizing me to travel with the kids was (1) when I picked them up from a flight I had not taken with them and (2) getting on a cruise ship. I've never been asked for anything at passport control in an airport, and we've taken those kids somewhere every year for the past 15 years.

 

[GailS]

Thanks! This puts my mind at ease a bit.