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Visa Information | Gritty Globe
Pre-Travel Info
Visas: The Legal Downfall to Spontaneous Trip-Planning
Visas allow you to enter and exit foreign countries. Unfortunately, there's no universal standard for them.
Find out what you need to do in order to acquire your visa way before you head out. You don't want to find out a week before your flight that you need to apply for a tourist visa 8 weeks ago.
Know what to expect.
There are different types depending on what you'll be doing in the destination country. For travelers, a tourist visa is sufficient. There are also students visas, business visas, working holiday visas, etc.
Usually, American citizens can acquire a tourist visa easily to most developed nations. To find out all the requirements for obtaining a visa to a specific country, visit ProjectVisa. They have comprehensive, up-to-date information about acquiring visas to almost any country in the world.
There are agreements in certain areas of the world that allow travel throughout adjoining countries much easier. The most well-known of these agreements resulted in the Schengen Visa, which allows the visitor to enter into any of the nations in the agreement. Citizens of non European Union countries are required to obtain only one Schengen visa from the Embassy in any of the Schengen countries. This eliminates applying for visas for each country within the agreement. The Schengen countries include: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden.
Another common visa that allows access to multiple countries under one visa is the Central American Single Visa. The countries under this agreement are Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua. Once you enter into one of these countries, you can pass between the others without obtaining another visa.
For more information about visa requirements for a specific country, check out the Gritty Details sections for that country.