The visas from our travels (2011-2017), country by country
Heads up: this is a diary from back then, not an up-to-date guide. The prices, the processing times and the tricks are the ones from our travels between 2011 and 2017, just as I jotted them down. I haven't updated this page since, and the rules are bound to have changed. For today's requirements, always check the embassy of the country you're going to and your own government's current travel advice.
These are the visas I needed over my years on the road — first as a backpacker through Morocco and Southeast Asia, then cycling around the world — country by country: how I got them, what they cost and the tricks I picked up along the way. If you want to tell me how it went for you, write to me.
No visas needed in Europe (2014-15)
Across Europe, on EU passports, we didn't need visas — Russia or Belarus would have been another story — so when we crossed borders like Ukraine's or Croatia's they simply stamped our passports. There was no visa paperwork at any embassy beforehand: you just turned up at the right border.
Morocco didn't need a visa either (2011)
When we travelled to Morocco we didn't need a visa either: our Spanish and Latvian passports were stamped at the airport.
Visas in Asia (2015-16)
Online visa for Turkey (2015)
Until 2014 you could get a free visa at the border, but from 2015 you had to get it online. Apparently at some border posts they didn't bother checking it, so some people crossed without a visa. When we entered, in 2015, the visa cost 20 dollars and was valid for 180 days, of which you could spend up to 90 in Turkey.
90 days visa-free in Georgia (2015)
When we crossed the Georgian border post in 2015 they stamped our passports and we had 90 days in the country. Completely free and no problems. You could spend 90 out of every 180 days in the country.
180 days visa-free in Armenia (2015)
When we reached the Armenian border in 2015 they stamped our passports: over the following year we could spend a maximum of 180 days in the country. Completely free. If you'd been to Azerbaijan before, there was a fair chance they wouldn't let you in. The only border posts open to foreigners were with Georgia and Iran.
Visa for Iran (2015)
Getting the visa for Iran was a bit thornier. At the time (June 2015) you could only get a 30-day visa, and you needed a letter of invitation through an agency (LOI). We planned our route through Turkey to pass through Trabzon, an embassy with a reputation for issuing Iran visas without needing an LOI, but a few months before we arrived — January 2015 — the rules had changed.
We used the agency Key2Persia for the letter of invitation and had no problems; payment was by transfer to a bank account in Germany. The letter of invitation cost €30, but we got ours on offer for €22.50.
Once the letter of invitation arrived, we applied for the visa at the embassy in Yerevan, Armenia. It cost €50. In 2015, travelling by bicycle raised suspicions at some counters, so we didn't mention the bike: we said we were going by bus and spared ourselves the hassle. They asked for proof of travel insurance; any official insurance paper does the trick — they don't check anything. The visa fee had to be paid at a bank in the centre of Yerevan, so that meant going there and back. The visa took a week to process, and you could pay €75 to have it fast-tracked in a few days.
Once in the country it was simple — though it meant losing a morning — to extend the visa at least twice, 30 days each time; it cost the equivalent of about €10.
In this post I put together ALL the information on the 2015 Iranian visa — the letter of invitation, the visa on arrival at the airport and extending the visa once in Iran — plus the tricks and recommendations of the time.
Transit visa for Turkmenistan (2015)
It wasn't possible to get a normal tourist visa unless you went with an organised tour, a guide and a pile of money to spend. The only visa open to independent travellers was the transit visa, for a maximum of 5 days. Though every so often the odd traveller got lucky and came away with 7.
You needed the Uzbekistan or Kazakhstan visa in your passport to get the Turkmenistan one — coming from Iran.
We applied in Tehran, to collect it in Mashhad. It took at least a week to be ready, but you didn't have to leave your passport.
I told the story of those five days in this post.
Visa for Uzbekistan (2015)
We got a 30-day visa in Tehran. For many nationalities you needed an LOI (letter of invitation), which meant reaching for your wallet. Luckily, for some nationalities — Spanish included — you could get around it with a letter from your own embassy in Tehran (support letter).
The process took 10-12 working days (not counting holidays and weekends), from handing everything in to getting the approval and the stamp in your passport, so you had to arm yourself with patience.
Once in the country you had to register at a hotel within the first 72 hours, but it wasn't true that you had to register every night. Only if you spent more than 72 hours in the same province. A different matter was the policeman who stopped you: out of ignorance or corruption, he might give you trouble over it. The fine for not having your registrations in order could be up to 2,000 dollars!
In any case, we only registered once, right at the end of those first 72 hours. The rest of the time we spent in people's homes or in the tent.
That month of dodging registrations filled a whole post of its own.
No visa needed for Kyrgyzstan (2015)
They stamped our passports right at the border, valid for 90 days in the country. Completely free, no snags, no complications.
No visa needed for Kazakhstan (2015-16)
For visits of up to 15 days no visa was needed; turning up at the border was enough (at least for Spanish citizens). Other nationalities, like Latvians, needed a visa that was easy to get in Bishkek. Ilze paid 20 dollars for a visa valid for 30 days.
Visa for China! (2016)
Conditions varied enormously depending on the embassy and on which way the wind had caught the consul of the day that morning.
In our case, with a bit of luck and a lot of insistence, we got a 90-day tourist permit (single entry, mind you) at the embassy in Tehran. They asked us for a support letter from our own embassy in Tehran, which was a problem for Ilze: Latvia had no embassy there. We ended up reading the EU rules to every European embassy until one agreed to issue her the letter — no, the Spanish one flatly refused.
The cost of the 90-day Chinese visa at the Tehran embassy, at least in 2016, was 40 dollars.
The vast majority of travellers who tried that same embassy that year only got 30-day visas. It depended on how you sold yourself, what you looked like and, as I said, which way the wind was blowing.
The tourist visa (whether 30 or 90 days) could be extended once in China for another 30 days in any city. In fact, almost any type of visa could be extended by those 30 days without much trouble.
Once in the country, it was relatively easy to arrange business visas to stay in China for long stretches. I ended up staying a year in Chengdu.
No visa needed for Hong Kong (2016)
For visa purposes, in 2016 Hong Kong wasn't China: entering Hong Kong meant leaving China. Your Chinese visa was cancelled if it was single entry, or renewed on re-entering if it was multiple entry. That's why Hong Kong was a regular spot for a visa run from China for those on business visas.
To enter Hong Kong no visa was needed: at the airport or border itself they stamped you in for free, and that let you stay in the country for 90 days (for EU citizens as well as most Latin American citizens).
No visa needed for Japan (2016)
In the summer of 2016 I went to Japan from China. There was no visa of any kind to arrange in advance. On arrival at the airport they asked me a string of questions about my intentions in Japan and stamped my passport with a 90-day stay permit — on an EU passport.
Mind you, they asked me for proof that I'd be leaving the country within those 90 days; without it they wouldn't let you in. They didn't ask for the ticket itself, just a reservation of some kind.
If you don't know when you're heading back, you can easily tweak the reservation from your flight into the country — swapping departure and destination and the dates — to show to the immigration officers. You'll run into this onward-flight business in half the world; a cheap exit ticket that doesn't hurt to lose (a bus or a budget flight to the neighbouring country), a refundable booking you cancel afterwards or one of those services that rent you a reservation for a few days all work too.
Visas in Southeast Asia (2011-12 and 2016-17)
No visa was needed for Malaysia (2011)
In Southeast Asia it all started off quietly, at the end of 2011. After a flight from Paris to Kuala Lumpur our passports were stamped at airport control. No problems, no visas needed: a simple stamp let us travel around Malaysia for 3 months.
No visa needed for Singapore either (2011)
In Singapore we didn't need any visa either. We went there by bus from Melaka and the process was quick and simple. Entering overland you got a 2-week stay permit; if we'd arrived by air it would have been 30 days. Even so, once in Singapore, you could extend the stay up to a maximum of 90 days.
About the visa for Thailand (2011-12 and 2016-17)
When we flew to Thailand from Singapore our problems began, in December 2011. Being Spanish, I got a 30-day permit for Thailand, no visa needed and free of charge — and that's how it worked whenever you entered by air. Ilze, on the other hand, had to pay for the visa on arrival — only 14 days — since her passport wasn't on the same list.
Entering Thailand overland, the stamp in the passport only gave us 14 days.
Once in Thailand you could do what's known as a visa run: a trip out of the country to one of its borders, to come back in and renew for another 14 days.
In any case, if the plan was to spend longer in the country, the best move was a tourist visa. With the tourist visa we could stay 2 months, and if we paid double we could get the double-entry visa, which let us do a visa run at the 2-month mark and stay another 2 months in Thailand.
The best place for price, speed and accessibility to get the Thai tourist visa was Vientiane, Laos — we got ours there in 2012. For more information, see our post on the Thailand visa; there you can find the prices and the embassy address from back then.
From December 2016 to March 2017 the embassy in Vientiane was issuing 60-day visas for Thailand free of charge, to promote tourism after the king's death.
In Vientiane they no longer issued multiple-entry visas, so the only option was the 60-day single-entry visa, which could be extended once in the country by an additional 30 days.
Visa for Laos (2011 and 2016)
The Laos visa could be arranged at the border crossing itself, but since we didn't know where we'd cross, whether some hitch might come up or whether they'd try to charge us more right at the border, we decided to sort out the Laos visa while we were in Bangkok.
The Lao visa cost about 30 dollars and allowed a stay of 30 days in the country. For more information, see our article on the Laos embassy in Bangkok.
Crossing the border from China at the end of 2016 we got the visa at the border itself, without going through any embassy. The visa cost me 35 dollars on my Spanish passport, and Ilze 30 dollars on her Latvian one.
Visa for Cambodia (2011)
We decided to arrange the Cambodia visa in Bangkok to avoid problems at the border, even though at the time it was possible to get the visa at the border posts. In our experience, though, that led to haggling and time lost at the crossing.
For 25 dollars we got permission to visit Cambodia for 30 days. See our article on the Cambodia embassy in Bangkok for more on that.
Visa for Vietnam (2011)
The Vietnamese visa had to be arranged in advance, as it wasn't possible to get it at the border. The entry date was the one fixed in the passport, unlike the open dates of the other Southeast Asian countries.
We'd heard stories of trouble with Vietnam visas obtained online, so we decided to do it at the Vietnam embassy in Bangkok even though the price was a bit higher: over €40 for 30 days.
This page stopped in March 2017, and that's how we're leaving it: as a record of those years, not a guide to yours. Today's requirements you'll get from the embassy of the day, not from me.