What exactly is a visa?
Essentially, a travel visa is a document that shows you’re allowed to enter a specific country, for a specific length of time, to do a specific thing such as tour, study or work. A visa (from the Latin charta visa, literally "paper that has been seen"), is a conditional authority given by a competent authority of a country for a person who is not a citizen of that country to enter its territory and to remain there for a limited duration. Each country typically attaches various conditions to their visas, such as duration of stay, the territory covered by the visa, dates of validity, whether the visa is valid for more than one visit, etc. In any event, a visa is subject to permission of an immigration official at the time of actual entry, and can be revoked at any time. A fee may be charged for issuing a visa; these are often also reciprocal, so if country A charges country B's citizens US$50 for a visa, country B will often also charge the same amount for country A's visitors. The fee charged may also be at the discretion of each embassy and will vary even for the same embassy in different countries and it has been said that visas are just a money making scheme for the governments.
Essentially, a travel visa is a document that shows you’re allowed to enter a specific country, for a specific length of time, to do a specific thing such as tour, study or work. A visa (from the Latin charta visa, literally "paper that has been seen"), is a conditional authority given by a competent authority of a country for a person who is not a citizen of that country to enter its territory and to remain there for a limited duration. Each country typically attaches various conditions to their visas, such as duration of stay, the territory covered by the visa, dates of validity, whether the visa is valid for more than one visit, etc. In any event, a visa is subject to permission of an immigration official at the time of actual entry, and can be revoked at any time. A fee may be charged for issuing a visa; these are often also reciprocal, so if country A charges country B's citizens US$50 for a visa, country B will often also charge the same amount for country A's visitors. The fee charged may also be at the discretion of each embassy and will vary even for the same embassy in different countries and it has been said that visas are just a money making scheme for the governments.
I am travelling on an Australian passport where we have a
lot more access to countries than other nationalities. I read an article a few months ago that
stated the Australian passport remains one of the most welcomed by countries
around the world. As of 2013, Australia passport
holders got visa-free access to 167 out of the 219 countries surveyed for the
latest Visa Restrictions Index. Singapore and Greece also ranked sixth internationally alongside
Australia for the unrestricted access across the world. Citizens of Finland, Sweden and the United
Kingdom held the best passports for global travel last year, with visa-free
access to 173 countries. Coming in at
the bottom of the listing of the visa free access was Iraq with a piddly 31
countries and even worse was Afghanistan with access to only 28 countries. For my Kiwi friends you are one above
Australia in 5th spot with 168 visa free countries and my South
African friends you rank 42 on the list equal with Turkey and St Lucia with
visa free access to 94 countries.
To check your nationalities ranking follow the link
below:
So I guess I shouldn’t complain having a top 6 rated passport
holder with visa free access to 167 countries around the world. So there are 52 countries in the world where
an Australian needs a visa and in the last 6 months I have visited 8 and my
next trip I need another 9. Maybe I
should set a new bucket list of visiting all the countries where I need a
visa? So it just happens the countries I
am travelling to next doesn’t come under the 167 countries (that would be
right) and my visa run will begin again in the coming months. It seems like I only just finished getting my
last stressful visas for my West Africa trip, mainly Senegal and Ghana, which I
did in November 2013, and now I am back on the visa trail again. Ho hum…….
I have done my homework on what visas I needed to get
when I made my booking and out of the 9 visas I need to get there seemed that 4
were going to be headaches for me. Ghana,
Cameroon, Gabon, and the TRICKIEST one of all, Angola. With 3 out of the 4 mentioned embassies not here
in Nairobi (Ghana the exception), at first glance it looked like the closest
Cameroon embassy is in Ethiopia, Angola is in Tanzania and Gabon being in South
Africa. Oh dear…. If I have to travel to
all of these embassies, plus the cost of the actual visas, it was going cost me
just about as much as the actual trip itself.
GHANA
Out of the four ‘tricky’ visas, I was hoping that I could
get my Ghana visa in Nairobi this year.
I was unable to get my Ghana visa in Kenya last year as I didn’t have a
permit in my passport, which I do now have, and when I phoned them a few weeks
ago to check if they would issue me a visa here, after a few questions it was
CONFIRMED that I could get my Ghana visa in Nairobi. This was probably the most important visa out
of ALL the visas as Ghana is my first stop and it is a country where you HAVE
to have it before arrival, it is not one you can get in arrival. But what a relief, I can get it here and it
gets even better, the UK Ghana embassy charged me 180GBP (340AUD) last year and
here in Kenya the visa fee will be 50USD!!!!
Woo hoo.
$50USD
GABON
I surfed the web for where my closest Gabon Embassy was. From the information that I sourced, it
seemed that the closest one was going to be in Ethiopia, which at the end of
the day is not the end of the world. In
my research I did find a phone number and an email address for Gabon here, not
knowing if it was an official embassy, High Commission or an Ambassador as it
didn’t seem to be on any of the lists that I had been looking at. Well I figured I had nothing to lose, so I
sent an email to the address that I found asking if they had the facility to
issue an Australian passport holder a Gabon visa and literally within 2 hours
they had replied back with a positive YES they can do it here in Nairobi, for a
cost of 240USD, bit it can be done. The
fee seems a little excessive, but when you put it into perspective, if I had to
get it in Ethiopia I would be up for an airfare, accommodation and
transportation costs and I know that those costs would exceed the 240USD. My other option I looked into was while I was
holidaying in the US at the end of the year I could get to the Gabon Embassy in
Washington. I also sent them an email in
America to see if they would issue an Australian passport a visa and they did
reply back a few days later and told me that my closest embassy was in South
Africa!!! This is after I heard back
from the small embassy here in Nairobi that they could so it here. This is the frustrating thing about visas you
can check with 3 different branches and get told 3 different things.
$240USD
CAMEROON
It surprises me that there is not a Cameroonian Embassy
here in Kenya. The closest one is in
Ethiopia apparently. While I was
Googling the hell out of locations of closest office, I had a brain wave and
checked Australia. I will be back in Oz
for 4 weeks and figured that if there was an embassy in Australia that would
just be perfect. Well I am in luck and
there is an embassy in Sydney and they have a great website with all the
information you need to apply. The only
thing it did not state was how long it takes, so I have sent them a proforma
email off their webpage. I am still
waiting for a reply from them but I think that a 4 week window will be plenty
of time to get this visa issued, and it is another ‘tricky’ visa crossed off
the list.
$120USD
ANGOLA
The Angolan visa has a ‘reputation’ of being quite
difficult to obtain. Researching this
one, it seemed that I had the choice of the London branch or the Tanzania
branch. Both options are no better than
each other as it seems it takes 21 WORKING days for the visa to issue. That’s 3 weeks of accommodation to be paid
and when you look at it like that, the Tanzanian branch, hands down would be
the cheaper option. Looking outside the
box, I checked the US again and there is an Angolan Embassy in New York, where
I will happen to be in December, so I have emailed them to see if they will
issue a visa for an Australian passport holder and I am waiting on a reply back
from them. They have a great and
informative website, and from that, it seems that it only takes 5 working days
to get a visa issued in the New York branch.
I just hope that they will reply back and even then, I need to check the
validity of the damn thing, as some visas are valid from date of issue and
others are from date of entry. Nothing
is ever easy in ‘visa world’. I had
friends that did the same trip I am doing, a few years ago, and none of them
could get an Angola visa en-route and they had to fly over that section of the
trip, now that would be a bummer.
$141USD
So that is 4 of the trickiest visas. I am yet to phone the rest of the embassies
here in Nairobi, but I am hoping now that I have my Kenyan permit I will not
have a problem obtaining the other 4 visas required and I know that Benin will
not be an issue as I got that here last year with no issues. I spoke to someone today that got their
Nigerian visa last week, and as long as you have all the correct documentation,
it was turned around in 3 days. This was
music to my ears and just leaves the unknown of the DRC and The Republic of
Congo which I will follow up with phone calls this week. So all in all, it isn’t looking too scary now
that I have looked into, and have a rough plan, in place. Let’s see if the plan turns into the wanted
reality.
So what countries will I be going to and where will I get
my visas?
Ghana- can be obtained in Nairobi-50USD.
Togo- can be obtained in Ghana before the tour.
Benin-can be obtained in Nairobi-50USD
Nigeria-can be obtained in Nairobi-125USD
Cameroon-can be obtained in Australia-120USD
Gabon-can be obtained in Nairobi-240USD
Congo-can be obtained in Nairobi-TBA
DRC-can be obtained in Nairobi-TBA
Angola-hopefully in the USA-141USD
Namibia-do not require a visa.
South Africa-do not require a visa.
***I HATE OBTAINING VISAS***
But it is a necessity of the traveller and there is
nothing we can do about it except work out where and when to get them and be as
nice as possible to each Embassy as they hold the golden ticket to their
countries and if you piss them off they can make life very difficult for you.
So wish me luck in my endeavour to get my visas in the
coming months. As daunting as they
always seem on paper, and I have said this many times, as long as you have all
the required documentation, the embassies are not as scary as it seems. Hopefully.
From what I can make out, with the small correspondence I have had with
the overland company to date, most travellers on their trips apply for all
their visas en-route, and that makes sense for the people that are doing the
whole 5 month trip as some of those visas would definitely expire before they
even got to some of the countries. I
think I am in a fortunate position where living in an African country, I have
access to a lot of the embassies, more so than if I was living in Australia for
example. So I guess I shouldn’t be too
worried if I don’t get all the visas I need, as I am sure I will not be the
only one who won’t have them all, and actually being the only one to have all
the visas may actually cause more problems.
Maybe/maybe not. Mind you I had
the same thoughts last year with Guinea and I was actually the only one out of
the 5 people that DIDN’T have that visa and it was stressful and costly to get
it on my own en-route with the help of Zoe in the Ivory Coast. So one should never assume.
**LUCK LUCK LUCK LUCK LUCK**
It was really an amazing blog, acquired great knowledge from this looking forward for more blogs like this. Even we have some education related blog that will help for better future Visa Interview Process
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