DesertNomad

I have applied for several difficult and costly visas for independent travel: Sudan, Iran, North Korea. All took 6 weeks and were over $100. It rally wasn't a factor. The only visa I will never apply for again is for India. Total hassle requiring a copy of my driver's license, utility bill, more than $100, a 5 hour drive and just too much hassle.

It is 10 year multiple entry so I need to go back to India at least once before it expires.

Forrest Bump

Visa to Belarus is the highest I've paid so far.

Forrest Bump

I've seen people just walking through Brazil/Paraguay and Brazil/Argentina land borders, in the Iguazu area (called tripla frontera).
I had to enter purposely the Paraguay checkpoint of Ciudad del Este to ask for a stamp into passport, whereas behind me many simply walked along the pedestrian side of the bridge.
Same day, I wanted to spend few hours in Argentina, inPuerto Iguazu, but the whole passport control of both Countries seemed more a voluntary stop.

I guess something has to do with MERCOSUR agreement (at least for locals).

rankourabu

You realize how much a USA visa costs right?
I am sure it scares off tourism in the millions.

I am all for other countries charging reciprocity fees - and I wish more countries charged US citizens a high price for entry.


I myself will pay a visa if a place is interesting to visit:

I've had to pay for dozens of visas on my travel - some are just obvious money grabbing scams (Australia for example).

some of the most expensive
Russia - $150 (hard)
India - $90 (easy)
Turkmenistan - $90 (hard)
Kazakhstan - $90 (on arrival)
Tanzania - $50 (on arrival)
Zimbabwe - $75 (on the bridge)
Uzbekistan - $70 (on arrival)
Iran - $77 (easy)
Zambia - $80 (double entry on arrival)
Bangladesh - $51 (on arrival)
Syria - $50 (easy)

some of the cheaper ones
Kenya - $10 (on arrival)
Bahrain - $15? (on arrival)
Qatar - $27 (on arrival)
Turkey - $20 (on arrival)
Jordan/Egypt - cheap (on arrival)
Myanmar - $30 (easy)
Armenia - $8 (on arrival)
Sri Lanka - $20 (internet)
Indonesia - $10 (on arrival)

I rely on my EU passport for South America.

sokolov

Real Life Story: An Australian friend of mine was taking the "trip of his life", flying around through Europe and North Africa for over half a year, with some trains or buses thrown in. He had saved years for this trip. At the end, he wanted to travel in style on the Transsiberian railway from Europe to China and fly back home from there (maybe Hongkong).

But he needed a Russian visa. In Australia he was told that he can't have a visa more than six months ahead. He should apply in Europe. In Vienna, he went to the consulate one morning, stood in line for hours and when it was his turn they closed. "Come back tomorrow." But tomorrow he was in Budapest already. So he went to the Russian consulate in Budapest, where he was told that he had to apply at the Russian consulate in Australia since his residence and/or citizenship was in Australia.

He never went on the Transsiberian railway and spent his savings in other countries.

Now if he had needed a visa for the Schengen area, it would probably have been no better.

PointWeasel

As a Canadian, the Algerian Embassy in Ottawa issued my Tourist Visa within 3 business days. Not sure if their embassy in DC is much slower or not, but Algeria is very keen for more tourism so I would give it a shot. The new Le Meridien in Oran is great and I acutualy liked Oran more than Algiers. The country is great and people are very friendly. My only issue was bank machines...very very very few of them and even fewer actually worked for me, like 2 in total.

My visa fee maxout is 100 dollars.

Yaatri

I can beat that story. A fried of mine died, at 38. All his family, except a brother, who was working in an Indonesian port city, for a Hongkong based company. We decided to holf the funeral for the brother to arrive. The brother had been to the U.S. many times and had never overstayed his visa.

1. He went to U.S. Embassy in Jakarta with a letter from his company that it would be responsible for his expenses in the U.S. The consular section, of the U.S. Embassy told him to apply for the visa in Hongkong.
2. He flew to HKG where the U.S. Embassy told him to apply from India as he was an Indian citizen,
3. He took the first flight out of HKG to BOM. In Bombay, he was told he had to apply in Calcutta, since his address was listed in the eastern part of India, which fell under the jurisdiction of the U.S. consulate in Calcutta.

That was really horrible.

Yaatri

I have never had any problem applying for an Indian visa. The last time I applied was in 2002. I have always received my Indian visa the same day. It maybe more difficult for people who have held an Indian passport as they are required to prove that they have renounced Indian citizenship.
Did they ask for both, or one of them. DL or a recent utility bill is considered proof of address, as it is in the U.S. too. A ten year multiple entry visa for $150 is very good deal, much better than Chinese, U.k. or the U.S. visa.

spc354

Price of a visa, I understand, is usually set by reciprocity, with quite a few exceptions that are beneficial to US citizens by the way.
That said, the behavior of the officials providing consular "service" is usually consistently rude and unsympathetic (far beyond enforcing requirements).

Case in point is my recent experience with the Consulate of Ghana in NYC. I applied for a tourist visa in early November. I did not provide hotel information, explaining that I would enter overland from a neighboring country, within a set period (providing copies of my confirmed and purchased air ticket for round trip flights to the neighboring country and 5 yr multiple entry visa for that country). My passport was returned without the visa and I ended up wasting the significant return courier charges.

I then setup reservations (that I could cancel anytime) for all dates within the travel time frame. The consulate required confirmation on letterhead of hotel, with the physical signature of the director of the hotel, and his/her passport or driving license copy sent as scanned attachments. Before I wasted another set of courier charges I emailed the information to the consulate and asked if it was sufficient. No reply.... I called and kept detailed messages asking for someone to return my call... no reply for a week.

Eventually on the eigth business day after my initial call, someone returned my call and said they have no record of my email... so I had to fax again. Then after two days, and calling the number registered on my cell phone, I managed to catch the person and she said it "appears to be OK."

So on that day, Oct 25th I immediately resent the documents and my passport. As luck would have it, Andy happened. My package was not delivered until Nov 1. I needed my passport for overseas travel (to Europe) for Nov. 8. With 3 business days required, I was still OK. It could be mailed back on the 6th and I would get it on the 7th, I figured.

In any case, I was trying to get reassurance that it would be mailed on the 6th. So I asked a friend to go to the consulate and check. The consulate informed that they had decided to do it only on the 8th at 2pm (not even morning) which made it impossible for me to make the flight leaving from JFK. My friend showed the staff my confirmed itinerary for the 8th, but was told "2pm, 8th!"

I then rebooked my travel for the 9th, paying a cancellation penalty and also for a higher class on the 9th, and asked my friend to go pick-up my passport in person on the 8th, and also get the unused pre-paid (stamped) express-mail envelop that would not be used.

The person at the counter refused to return the envelop, and when my friend asked a second time, the response was: do you want the passport or not? My friend returned with the passport and without the stamped envelop!!

I wish I could say that this was a one-off situation, but the rudeness is really common at all consular offices (the US included). But this is the first time there was this blatant confiscation of unused prepaid postage (to be re-used by simply pasting another form on the packet) that I have come across in dealing with a consular office.

Good job, Ghana Consulate at the UN, New York City!

M60_to_LGA

Wow - I'm sorry to hear about those experiences. I've had to get two Brazilian tourist visas in the past, and both times it was pretty painless.

The first time was in 2005, at the Brazilian consulate in Asunción, Paraguay, when I was traveling aimlessly around South America. I went to the consulate, got their bank information, went to the bank to make my payment, came back with the receipt to the consulate and dropped off my passport, returned the next day to get it and my visa.

The next one I had to get was early last year, at the consulate in DC. I went, used the Internet kiosk they had set up to enter my information and print out the application form, paid in cash (despite the supposed insistence on a money order/cashier's check), then picked up the passport and visa two weeks later. I actually think the visa was in fact ready a few days before the day they told me to come back.

It sounds like the process has become far more difficult and arbitrary since then.

PointWeasel

Ah yes, the easier days of getting a handwritten or typed Brazilian visa in a matter of a few days is long one, at least in North America.

I applied for one in 2007 from the Consulate in Toronto and got it within 10 days, handwritten and typed combo. Since their Consulate opened in Vancouver to serve Western Canada, they enforce a strict 3 week courier door to door turnaround timeline or they will return the envelope unprocessed. If they ever require an interview, that will be it, I will visit elsewhere. I shudder to think how they will deal with the Olympic rush in 4 years.

The other visa oddity I have experienced is with Turkey. Canadians are charged one of the highest visa fees for some reason, even higher than Americans!

B747-437B

This is actually very surprising as I have helped hundreds of people get Ghanaian visas in the past decade from consular stations ranging from Pretoria to Houston to Beijing to Dusseldorf and probably a dozen others. Most have been issued on the spot or at most within 48 hours. I have never once heard of them asking for the kind of paperwork you describe.

If you have the name of any consular officers who you dealt with and who were unhelpful, please can you PM it to me and I will pass on the details to someone who will ensure this gets looked into.

Visa-On-Arrival is also available for Ghana if you need to travel in a hurry. Details on http://www.ghanaimmigration.org/

SirJman

Trying to get a Saudi Transit visa in Seoul involved 6 trips to the embassy, probably 50 emails, meeting with 2 consuls, and eventually ended up being denied...3 days before departure.

Had to cancel that ticket and eat my Kazakh visa I already paid to have issued. (Surprisingly easy in Seoul to be honest).

Another fun one, was the Bangladesh embassy in Seoul refused to issue visas to foreign passport holders, even if they held Korean residency visas. I was told I need to 'fly to Canada and get the visa there'

Ya, right.

MrDplus

Yes. I try to travel to places where I don't need to get a visa, or where I can get it on arrival. With a Mexican passport that's challenging at times, specially since I travel with US passport holders, and sometimes the requirements are tougher for me.

So far, the only visas I've gotten in advance are for the US and Thailand.

Yaatri

I understand. Americans are spoiled. It would be even harder if you were from a developing country.