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Getting Your Travel Visa – Part 1

Before you set foot in another country, particularly in Asia, you will in most cases need some sort of visa in your passport or they won’t let you in! Don’t let this scare you because getting your Visa is actually not that hard at all. So, let’s dive into a little background of the Visa and its purpose. The Visa by definition is a way for countries to identify foreigners that reside inside of it. Many different types of Visa’s exist, like: Student, Work or Travel and the type of Visa will be clearly stated on it, usually only in the native language in that country.

Do You Really Need A Visa?

The first thing to do is to double check if you actually need a Visa or not for the country you plan on traveling to. This information is freely available on the U.S. Government’s Department of State’s website (state.gov) or in any travel book you find. If for example we wanted to travel to Taiwan, we can easily look that up under the Entry/Exit Requirements in the Taiwan category:

The very first sentence says that people holding American passports can stay in Taiwan without a visa for up to thirty days as long as they have a confirmed return or onward flight. So, what if you want to stay longer? Then you’ll need to apply for a Visa.

Get your Asian Visa

So, at least for the case of Taiwan, you’ll need to get a visitor visa if you want to stay for longer than 30 days. This is true of many countries in Asia. I’m sure when you imagine getting a Visa, you are probably thinking that you will need to fill out all kinds of forms and wait in long lines to get this magical piece of paper into your passport. Luckily, foreign embassies don’t resemble the DMV and this process can even be done through the mail (if you don’t mind mailing your passport away).

The very first thing to do is to find the embassy’s website of the country you wish to visit. Most countries around the world have several embassies in the United States so this shouldn’t be too much of a challenge. Using Taiwan as an example again, there are over 5 Taiwanese embassies in the United States. The Los Angeles branch of Taiwan’s embassy’s website looks like this:

They have contact as one of their main links on the navigation bar, so I filled out the form asking what I needed to do to get a visitor visa. The next day I got a nice reply that was extremely informative. Here is the reply I received:

So, for a Taiwanese Visa, all that is necessary is to fill out one simple form & to write out some checks to “TECO.” It is mentioned in the reply that everything can be done by mail, however I would rather play it safe since the LA Taiwanese Embassy is not so far away and take everything there myself.

The form itself is just a standard, Name, Address, Phone Number type of form with a few signatures required. Here's a quick look at part of the Visa application for Taiwan:

The Visa is a bit costly, however that price is non-negotiable, that is just how much it costs. Flight ticket & 2 Pictures are trivial to get since I plan to go there. So, all-in-all getting everything necessary together for applying for a Taiwanese Visa is not a difficult process. Now, the next step is bringing everything to the embassy and getting the Visa.