Letter of ınvıtatıon for vısa applıcatıon to Austrıa

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The letter of invitation is not so simple anymore. It is a form where the person sigining it, swears before the authorities of their own country, that they will cover any costs associated with your stay, that they will provide health insurance for you, and be responsible for any legal costs and fines if you happen to not leave the country etc etc.

How do you want a total stranger to do this.

Also, having this letter, most embassies still tell you that processing time can be up to 4 weeks if I recall correctly.

Do you have all the other documents that you need to get a Schengen visa? There are a lot of them and some of them have to be recent originals, like bank statements.

I can't see how you're going to get around this problem and you certainly won't be able to sell your car in Turkey if it's in your passport. The cost would be prohibitively high.

As #2 said it is very unlikely you will get a complete stranhger to vouch for you due to the financial implications that has. If you can't get a visa in Turkey, you can go to customs and have them transfer the car to your wife's passport.

I've just done some Googling and I'm not 100% convinced that you need a letter (or form) of invitation if the purpose of your visit is tourism. After all, how many SA tourists coming to Schengen would know someone here? Are you sure you need this?

#54 Yes you do. Alternatively you can also provide pre-booked accommodation and flights in and out of Schengen, but if you want to enter with your own transport there is no alternative to the invitation letter.

Oh. Thanks for the explanation, george5. I've done a little more Googling and I've found that different Schengen members seem to have slightly different requirements. Is that possible?

If it is possible, maybe the OP could apply for a visa for the country where they enter Schengen: Slovenia and Hungary are both possibilities. I realise that this still takes time but it may be an alternative. Any Schengen experts around? George5, you seem to know a lot about these matters. Have I got things wrong?

I'm not going to spend any more time on this because it's not clear if the OP intends to return to this thread.

Oh. Thanks for the explanation, george5. I've done a little more Googling and I've found that different Schengen members seem to have slightly different requirements. Is that possible?

Technically no, but in practice the requirements, especially in regards to how much pre-booking has to be demostrated to vary. They even vary from embassy to embassy, so it a bit of a case of getting lucky.

As for which embassy to apply at : Again - technically - you have to apply at the embassy of the country which is your main destination, all others should in theory turn down the application. However some embassies don't enforce this regulation too strictly and do issue visas if you have a plane ticket into an airport in that particular country.
That siad - OP is apparently planning on entrering by car, so he'll need to demonstrate more than pure arrival (which would likely be Slovenia or Hungary), i.e. intent of staying in these countries for more than a couple of hours in transit if he wan't the respective embassies to issue a Schengen visa. Plus he'd need an invitation letter from a person or company and/or booking confirmation letter by a travel agency in that particular country.

Thanks again, george5. With just 16 days to drive from Turkey (Istanbul?) to London, I can't see how there could be a "main destination" anywhere in the Schengen Area, can you? There must be about 5 days travelling in there, I would have thought, so that leaves just 11 days even if the OP leaves today.

1 day to the Bulgarian-Serbian border.
1 day to the Croatian-Slovenian border.
1 day to get from that border to a destination in Austria.
2 days from Austria to London.
But it's the weekend and the consulates are closed so there's even less time.

However, when you think of how long it's going to process a visa application, even assuming that the OP has all the other necessary documents, it's a tough one to crack. I notice that the OP says "I need several documents" so it doesn't look too good, does it? I wonder if some of those missing documents are original and recent bank statements. They won't be there on Monday morning.