Visa preparation Welcome back. Once again, I'm Dr. Nicole Montero, CEO and Chief creator here at Zen wanderlust travel. And we're going to go right into part two, starting off with talking about what you need to know about getting a visa for your next trip. Can you imagine going through all of the trouble of researching your plane tickets, your destination, getting prepared by booking your accommodations and thinking in preparing for all of the exciting activities you're going to do when you go to your next trip, but for some reason, it didn't dawn upon you that you needed a visa. You get to the airport with all of your bags packed and neatly prepared and everything the way that you have planned it, except for that one little detail. You go to the counter and you are told by the ticket agent that you will not be able to board your flight because you don't have visa?

Yes, it has happened so many times to many people. So that's why I thought we would start Part Two with talking about preparing for and getting your visa. Your takeaway for this lecture is, please don't neglect your visa. You don't want to be like anyone in that story I just told you, right? So please don't neglect it. And what you can do is do your research and apply on time.

Do your research and apply on time. What does that mean? It's like, number one finding out or being clear about what is a visa. A visa is a certificate or endorsement in your passport, that indicates that you are allowed to enter a country and stay for a specified period of time. So it's a pretty official and somewhat legalistic, legalistic document. It says that you're allowed to be in the country, and it says For how long and also under what conditions Why do you need One, as I said, It specifies the entry requirements.

It says that you can come in for how long it shows legally and officially that you have permission to be in the country. And it also indicates why you're entering. There are different types of visas. So the type of visa you have will indicate what you're allowed to do while you're in the country and what you're prohibited from doing also while in the country, and also how long you're allowed to stay. So it's really important it says a lot that little stamp or endorsement in your passport, that's a visa actually has a lot of information packed into it. Some visa facts so a visa does go inside of your passport, and we talked about passports, how official they are, you actually can sometimes extend your visa or change your visa type once you're in the country.

So you might apply for a certain type of visa like a tourist visa, and it's only for three months. But once you get there, you decide that you want to work a little bit and stay longer. In some cases, you actually can change your visa type and extend it once you're in the country. And even if you have a visa, so you apply for a visa before you travel or you get one, apply for one, once you arrive at your destination, final entry into the country is really still up to the border customs agent. So you might have the visa that says you're granted permission, but you might be asked some additional questions. Or people may look at your itinerary and the customs agent is the one who finally gives you that entry permission into the country.

So as we said, a visa is an official type of document that says why you're there and for how long and there are different types of visas. All countries specify their requirements and the criteria for entering their countries. And those are the types of visas that they provide an opportunity for you to apply for. So some countries actually have what's called a Visa Waiver Program. They have an agreement with other countries. And there's an agreement mutual agreement, usually between two countries that they would allow citizens, their citizens from their respective countries to actually enter without a visa.

So many of the EU, EU countries and the United States have a visa waiver, the United States and Canada has it so you can actually, if you're a US citizen, traveling on a US passport, you can go to any of the EU countries without a visa. That is if you're going as a tourist. Now if you want to go to work or go to school or do some business, then you would have to apply for an official visa. And likewise, citizens from those countries where there's an agreement can come to the US without applying for visa unless is for other purposes, such as Being a student working or some sort of business. Also there are some countries have temporary versus permanent visas. Temporary visas tend to be those that are very short term where you're going again to be a tourist or a visitor.

And permanent visas might encompass doing other activities such as more longer term stay, which would encompass work, again, studying as a student or business. And so those different types of visas again, include student visas, work visas, tourist visas are by far the most popular, and also business visas. And it's really important to be clear and upfront and honest about why you're going to a country when you apply for the visa, so that you can actually have the correct visa. You don't want to take the shortcut where you just say, oh, let me get a tourist visa is cheaper is easier, but then you go and you actually plan on setting up a business or working or something else. So how do you actually apply for visa, just like everything else information is power. So what you need to do first is actually contact the consulate for that country.

Every country that has, you know, diplomatic relationships with other countries. They have an embassy or consulate in that country where one of their functions is to process visa applications and facilitate people being able to travel to their country. So you first want to contact the consulate so that you can know exactly what the requirements are and how you need to go about it. So one thing that is important to find out is how long will it take to obtain a visa. Some processes are pretty short like 10 days, others depending on the country and the time of year, it can take up to 30 days or longer. So you want to find out how long it would take so that you do apply in enough time.

The other thing is you want to make sure that your passport is valid. We talked About passport validity in the previous section when we talked about applying for a passport, so you want to make sure your passport is valid. You don't want to go any farther with trying to get all of the documentation and paying fees for a visa if you don't have a valid passport to put the visa in. The other thing is to be very clear about why you are travelling to the country. As I said previously, there are different types of visa. And these are considered very official and legal documents, you could actually get into a lot of trouble if you say that you're only going to be a visitor or short term tourist.

And then you start making business deals and somehow studying or working right. So you need to be very clear about why you are traveling to the country what you plan to do, so that you can ask the consulate what type of visa to apply for. And there are cases where your first purpose for going might change once you arrive in the country. And in that case, you actually can look into changing your type of visa and extending the time period. The next thing you want to do is determine if you have to apply in person or by mail. Some consulates are really far from where you might live, they tend to be in the larger cities such or that, or the governmental cities such as Washington, DC, or New York City.

And so you could be in a state that's far away from there and not be able to go in person. So you need to find out what are their processes for how you would apply if you need to do it by mail. And also, if you are close by if you need to go in person, or even if you're in the same city, if they would prefer that you do it by mail. Some of them have also little satellite offices in different cities where you can actually go in person if need be. And sometimes they're actually services that you can pay an additional fee for, and they would actually handle everything in turn. Have telling you the documentation, accepting payment and delivering all of the information to the constantly.

The next thing is to find out if you can obtain a visa upon arrival. There are many countries where again, if you're going primarily as a tourist or a visitor, you can apply or get your visa once you land. And those I've been to many countries like that many countries in parts of Africa and the Caribbean, even in Asia, you can apply once you arrive. So for example, going to Botswana, if you are only going to stay for 90 days, you can fill out the application and pay the fee once you arrive. So you want to find that out. Now there are some circumstances where you actually can do either one you can apply before you leave to travel or you can get the visa once you arrive.

And when you have those two options Do you want to weigh them very carefully, because it might say that that they might give you information that you can apply once you arrive in the country. But it actually might be much more convenient and easier, and actually safer for you to go ahead and apply before you travel. So you want to make sure you research which option might be best if you do have an option. The next thing is you want to gather all of your documentation, and be clear about the visa application fee and how they would like for you to pay. Many places don't take cash. Many consulates want you to either pay with the money order, or cashier's check, or maybe a personal check.

Make sure that you are clear about what the visa application fee is and how you should pay. Again, once you do your research and you find out how long it takes to obtain a visa. And you might be planning your trip around that timeframe. You want to make sure that you do everything accurately so that there aren't any delays in your visa application. And then finally, just like everything else, you just do it you actually apply. What are some things that you might need, so each consulate is different.

And each type of visa might have different requirements. But in general, you often need proof of travel, which is an itinerary, a copy of your ticket, or your flight itinerary to say that you actually are traveling to the country, you might sometimes need an invitation letter or proof of your business or activities in the country. So that could be anything from a personal letter from the person that you're visiting. Or, you know, if you're going for some sort of academic conference, or some sort of business activity, you might need an invitation letter from the business or the agency or institution that you're going to be working with. And that happened to me, I've gone to a few conference in different countries such as China, and Egypt, and usually the conference would provide an invitation letter that was easy to take to the embassy to get a visa.

You also might need proof of accommodations. So they want to make sure that you actually have planned a trip, you're not just randomly trying to get a visa. So proof of travel your itinerary and also proof of accommodations, sometimes depending on the type of visa, they might want bank account information. And that's often required for travelers that are coming to the US in order to get a visa. The US Embassy might want to make sure that the person isn't planning to actually come here and overstay and move to the US but they are actually planning to go back to their country. And so there are some countries that they might ask for bank account information to make sure that you're planning to come back here to the US.

They may also ask For photographs, the same way that the passports need you to have certain dimensions and backgrounds, and, you know, restrictions in terms of glasses and jewelry, and so forth. So make sure that you really look clearly at the photographs, requirements so that you have the proper photographs. So that's basically what you need in a nutshell, proof of travel where you're going to stay invitation, possibly bank account information, the application and photographs. So there are some helpful sites again, you will always want to check first with the consulate of the country that you're going to to see what their visa requirements are. You can also get some really good information on the State Department website, travel state.gov and there's country information that includes everything from safety to what you might need for your visa going into that country so you can get some really good information there.

Also, there's another site called worldwide visas. And they also provide the different information about different types of visas, the countries that that particular country might have a Visa Waiver Program with, and how you might apply for any type of visa you're looking for. So those websites are connected to the lecture, and you can click on them and explore them. Very helpful. So the thing that you want to remember with visas is that failing to plan is actually planning to fail. And we said that with talking about planning for, for travel, but this is really important with visas, failing to plan is planning to fail.

So your visa challenge is to find out the visa requirements for your next trip, even if it's a trip that you haven't really solidified or planned for sometimes the visa Requirements might make the difference between deciding between one country and the next country. Some countries have much easier visa application processes than others. So if you're thinking about or starting to research a country that you're going to go to next, try to find out either at the State Department website, the country's constantly it website or the worldwide visas website, what the visa requirements are, so you'll be prepared