Hello all, since this is the perpetual travelers place it seems the right place to ask this question.
My wife and I are going to be taking a year to travel the South Pacific and Asia. The problem is that we are not going to be buying our tickets in advance because it's too long of a trip and too complicated to plan. We are only buying tickets on the S. Pacific legs with our last flight ending in Indonesia. The confusing thing to me that I can't seem to find an answer to is this:
Many countries require(at least they say they do) proof of onward travel plans when you apply for a visa. If we are traveling by train/bus/or even flight but just don't know our plans yet and would like to get the visas before leaving home is that possible? Is there a way around the onward ticket proof requirements?
Hopefully someone with some experience in this area can answer because I'm quite perplexed by it.
Thanks all.
This is not the perpetual travellers branch. I think you have misunderstood 'long haul'. This branch is for people living and working abroad. I'd suggest you try the SEA branch or the RTW branch.
If you have tickets to Indonesia, I don't see any problem until after you get there. So you need to say in your post what countries you will visit after that and which ones are asking for proof of onward travel.
Unfortunately, governments don't seem to realize that not everyone has planned every step of their trip beforehand. One simple rule that applies to 99% of travellers but being in the 1% it doesn't apply to is a real problem.
I think that evidence of sufficent funds for yourselves and tickets out of Indonesia would be enough.
It would be helpful to know your passport. Some of these rules are general and if you check the website of the embassy in your country you may discover that with your passport, you don't need proof of onward travel.
One possibility is to get your visas as you travel and plan your exit when you plan your entrance. In most cases visas are time limited so you should have some idea of how and when you will be departing.
Sometimes if a country requires proof of onward travel, if you have a visa for the next country that is sufficient.
Most countries are not set up to accommodate travelers with vague itineraries of undetermined length.
Many island countries want to be sure that you have the funds to get off the island.
For those countries that require proof of onward travel, consider getting a fully refundable plane ticket and just cash it in or exchange it for the next visa your need.
Ruth
Basically Australia and NZ wants to make sure if you are on a visitor you are not going to work illegally or worse not leave the country. In general I would think proof of onwards funds e.g. $2000 on a recent bankstatement or a credit card or 2 should be OK but you need to check with the countries involved stating your passport that you will travel on. And at the end of the day your entry is dependent on the impression you give to the immigration officer at the airport. Another problem too is if you are refused entry by the country the airline that you came on has to fly you back to where you came from - so some airlines have tougher rules than the countries themselves. Its hardly ever a problem crossing a land border
My wife is from Mexico with a Mexican passport. I'm from the US with a US passport. She'll certainly have more problems than me regarding visas I would imagine.
I will explain in a bit more detail what we're trying to do. We're traveling from North America and making a sweep through the South Pacific and only buying plane tickets up to Indonesia. We're going to spend about a year traveling so this first leg will be about 3 months. Once we get to Indonesia we're going to go around the edge of SE Asia and through the Phillipines, up to Japan, and into China and then make our way, by land, down to SE Asia. This is why we don't have onward tickets. We will have to plan as we go and besides the fact that there's no need to have tickets to travel overland, we really don't have any idea of timing.
So my question pertains to ways around the "must have onward ticket" rule. I'm just wondering how flexible those rules are and what experiences people have had dealing with and averting them. We can certainly show a bank statement showing money in the bank so they don't think we're there to stay if that helps.
Thanks for all the responses.
Given your wife has a Mexican passport, I suspect that you will find that you will need to show tickets and that you won't find any easy way around this requirement.
As I said, cheap tickets or refundable tickets are perhaps your best option. Many countries in SEAsia require you to present tickets if you arrive by air. Some airlines won't let you board without a return ticket since they are responsible for your departure if the country won't let you enter. Thailand now requires that you show a return ticket when you fly into Bangkok. if you don't have a ticket, the airlines might not let you board.
Sorry you don't like the idea of timing but lots of places will require that you have some proof of departure. There is no way to predict the flexibility of this issue but I suspect that your wife's Mexican passport will make it less likely that this will be overlooked and not more likely.
Ruth
Thanks Ruth. Hopefully we will only experience that situation with flying and since we will do very little flying I'm hoping that border crossings can be done. Might just be an adventure in patience and figuring it out as we go. GETTING the visas is more of a concern for me at this point since we need to do that now. If we need to buy bus tickets or something out of a country then that's fine later on, but getting the visas now without showing a ticket is our biggest concern.
Sounds like people have real difficulty with the airlines and perhaps we'll just have to ask our ticketing agent about getting into Indonesia without departing tickets and go from there.
Thanks again.
You do NOT need to get lots of visas before you depart. In fact, I would wait and get each visa in the country just prior to your entrance to the next country as I expect that at some point you will be visiting the capital city or a city with a consulate.
In your shoes, I would have a general idea of the order in which I intended to visit countries and which countries offer visas on arrival and for which it is better to get a visa prior to arrival. For example, both Indonesia and Thailand offer visa on arrival for 30 days maximum for tourists but tourist visas can be obtained at consular offices for 60 days if you apply in advance of arrival. In both cases, I am not aware of any requirement that you obtain tickets in advance when getting a visa in advance of arrival but in both cases I am pretty sure that if you arrive by air and get a visa on arrival this is required.
Ruth
Ruth, thanks again. We will probably get as many visas as possible before leaving, especially the required ones. Being that we're taking such a long trip it is likely that we'll spend more than 30 days in certain places such as Indonesia and are somewhat required to get the visas in advance I guess. No way around some of those.
Thanks again for the tips. Luckily we live in NY and can pick an embassy and it's here for us to go to get answers which makes things a bit easier.
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