Visa Aquisition

Date: 2012.01.11 | Category: Travel | Tags: travel,Visa    

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This post is an excerpt from the upcoming book The Long-Term Traveler’s Guide by Jeremy Jones.

The Long-Term Traveler’s Guide is launching in the first quarter of 2012 and is the definitive planning resource for all those looking to cut loose from the standard path and head out to see the world for weeks, months, or years on end.  Whether you want to eat gelato in Italy, ride an elephant in Thailand, climb the Great Wall of China, go scuba diving in the Great Barrier Reef, or do it all, planning and saving for the adventure is unlike any other form of travel.

Visa Acquisition

Assuming that having a passport will let you into any country just by showing up is great in theory, but is unfortunately not how the world operates. While you may never be turned away from entering a country that you intend to spend a great deal of money in, many countries will make you go through extra hoops to obtain permission in the form of an entry stamp known as a visa.

The visa process has different levels of criteria for the application process depending on the country, but often boils down to a simple form to let the government of the country you are wishing to visit know simple facts like where, when, and why. (Not to mention the nice little fee they charge for the stamp when it is all said and done.)

Often the visa process is less tied to your interest in the country you are visiting than the country you hold a passport from and the legal agreements the two have between each other. A citizen from the USA can go to any country in the European Union without a visa for 90 days, but someone from India would need to apply for one and go through an extensive screening process. Indians may not need to obtain a visa for Nepal, but U.S. passport holders have to. This is where the select few who have dual citizenship really can take advantage just by choosing the right passport to enter and leave on!

For the rest, who only have one passport and one country to call home, it is best to know where a visa is needed and how to obtain it. As this process is highly tailored to the country you call home, your country’s state department website should highlight the visa process for each country in the world and direct you to various outlets to obtain what you need. When researching, keep the following scenarios in mind:

Visa is Free — You can arrive whenever you wish and stay for a set period of time at no charge.

Visa on Arrival – You are required to obtain a visa, but it is available at arrival in a major international airport or border crossing. Sometimes these are only offered at certain arrival points, and not all border crossings, so check to be sure if your tentative entry point is available.

Visa Prior to Arriving — You must obtain a visa prior to arriving either through online application or at a consulate abroad.

Obtaining a visa prior to arriving is the most difficult one for long-term travelers, as the visas often come with a fixed time frame, not only for how long you can stay in the country, but also for when you need to enter by. For example, you must enter Brazil within three months of the visa issue date as an American. That may ruin your idea to obtain all of your visas at home prior to leaving and will place more responsibility on you to obtain visas while abroad.

Obtaining a Visa at Home

A foreign country should have a visa-issuing consulate or embassy located somewhere in your country.  In larger and more populated countries, there could be several offices with these capabilities scattered about many major cities. But what do you do if you are not located within driving distance of the facility?

The two options that are available differ from country to country and embassy to embassy. The nicer embassies will allow you to mail your passport, application with passport photos, and fee directly with a self-addressed, stamped envelope and will process your visa request within a week or two and mail it back to you with relative ease. The more difficult embassies do not accept mail-in requests and require someone to hand-deliver your passport for you.

A bit of risk is necessary if you must have a visa prior to leaving in this scenario, as you must trust your passport to the care of a friend, family member, or third-party company in the city where the consulate is located. Many businesses have sprung up recently purely to be passport handlers and will accept your passport, obtain your visa for you, and mail it back in a timely fashion for an extra fee of about $50-$100. Just be sure to do a bit of fact-checking before sending your passport to a total stranger, as this may be your only option!

Obtaining a Visa Abroad

Having to visit a consulate abroad is in some ways even easier than obtaining a visa at home. Unlike wherever you are from, your trip’s itinerary is almost certain to put you in many countries’ biggest and most populated cities, just where consulates tend to operate.  Bureaucracy is slightly more complicated than this generalization, as not all consulates and embassies issue visas and may result in a planning headache finding one that will suit your needs.

Country A may not have a consulate in Hanoi, Vietnam, where you may spend four or five days. Country B could. Unfortunately, Country B does not issue visas in Hanoi and only issues them at their branch in Ho Chi Minh City. Country C will only issue visas at their location in Hanoi, and is having a special promotion for extended time for free!

The logistics of visa acquisition can be fuzzy at best, which is why Embassies Abroad  (http://www.embassiesabroad.com) is the premier planning tool for this purpose. Go on to their site, pick the country you want to go to, and find their locations in some of the upcoming countries you wish to visit.  Look at the embassy’s location-specific web page and find out which consulate along your route can issue the visa you are looking for!

Much like getting to a consulate in your home country, hailing a taxi or public transportation, and finding an embassy in a foreign city you barely understand could be a difficult situation. For a few dollars above doing it yourself, your hostel or hotel may be entirely willing to take your passport to the embassy for you, and all you have to do is pick it up a day or two later with a shiny new stamp issued ready to go. More time to explore a city and a bureaucratic headache eliminated in one simple step.

There are many cases where visas on arrival are issued for free but are only for a short period of one to two weeks. This poses a difficult situation for a long-term roaming traveler, because an idea of exit time could simply be unknown. A cheap visa could extend a stay to several months and reduce any last-minute border runs due to the free visa running out. A headache, sure, but leaps and bounds better than the alternative that could end up being significantly more expensive!

For all visa needs while abroad, be sure to carry at least two passport-style photographs for each visa you wish to collect, as these are often a required inclusion on most applications.

Reciprocity Fee

The word reciprocity can be one of the most hated words to any traveler, especially those from the USA. In most cases, visa types are broken up by duration and number of entries. Pricing tiers help save you some cash if you only want a single entry visa for one week rather than a multiple entry visa for three months, for example. When reciprocity is involved, the flexibility in visa types goes away entirely.

Reciprocity is the act of mutual exchange. Any country that charges a visa reciprocity fee will charge you what your home country charges their citizens to visit. For U.S. citizens, the reciprocity fee exceeds $140 at the time of publishing this guide. Before you get upset in calculating that your visa collection may exceed several hundred dollars for a few stamps, cheer up! It turns out that most countries that charge reciprocity don’t make distinctions on your visa duration, so you can request the longest duration possible (three months to a year) with multiple entries, because, well, you can! It may never get used, but it reduces the sting of such a high price ever so slightly.

Renewing Your Visa or Just Overstay?

Overstaying your visa has different consequences in various parts of the world and could change based on where you are from, the border guard you talk to, how smooth of a talker you are, or if money talks with a small bribe.

A visa overstay in the European Union for outside visitors is typically anything past 90 days in a six-month period, regardless of number of entries. While it would be hard to track between multiple passport stamps, the punishment for being caught could put you on a black list with restrictive entry rights for a set period of time, or even detainment. The ability to obtain a longer visa or extend your stay while in Europe is incredibly difficult, and this restriction binds most travelers.

Compare the visa situation in Europe to a country in Southeast Asia, where an overstay fine may be as little as a couple dollars for each day of overstay that you simply pay on exit. Likewise, an extension can be obtained easily by going to an authorized police department or government facility recommended by your hostel, or by doing a border run to leave the country for an evening and come back for a new, free visa issue. As previously mentioned, however, many of these countries offer cheap long-term visas anyway, so purchasing one may be the most logical option and give you most time while visiting without upsetting any foreign governments!

Jeremy Jones is a traveler, blogger, amateur photographer, and engineer. At the time of publishing The Long-Term Traveler’s Guide, he has traveled to 34 countries and island nations throughout North America, Europe, the Caribbean, the Middle East, and Asia. In addition to published writings, Jeremy maintains several travel related websites and blogs including Living the Dream (http://www.livingthedreamrtw.com), as well as the travel and food blog The International Food Project (http://www.internationalfoodproject.com).