The good news is that you can now apply for your Vietnam visa online – $20 processing fee (and $25 fee for the visa) and its waiting for you at the airport when you arrive!

My favourite “entry” is going into Namibia from South Africa. There were 20 of us on a tour and the officials (with very little else to do) had been perfecting their autographs until they were works of art. Each signature on the entry stamp took around a minute to complete!

There are some visa’s that I would rather not have as they waste space, but was recently very disappointed that the DPRK wouldn’t stamp my passport (and they took the visas too) so all I have is a cryptic exit stamp from DangDong in China!

your experience is surely an incite to all travelers and they can surely pick a clue to get prepare themselves when they travel to these destinations.

Its surely a nice, interesting and useful post.

I like to add here that no immigration Officer is trained to be irrational, rude, corrupt and indecent. They are told that they are key to the country, any foreigner who is coming an going immigration is the last an first official with whom he interacts. So the theory of ” First Impression is the last impression”.

But there are so many factors that an Immigration official ha to deal in his day to day working and lastly its the individual how he does his job.

is this true?

if so, where is this number? and why dont they say how much time u have?

one example is my passport to enter madrid says

22.07.08 21

what does the 21 mean?

and then the exiit says

28.07.08 23

what does the 23 mean?

thanks

I’m actually a little disappointed when a place doesn’t bother to stamp passports. I’d also like to see a bit more creativity in the designs of the stamps (Europe gets low marks in this category). So far, my favorite is Montserrat, with a big unexpected green shamrock.

@Global,

Yes, you are correct that there are some places you need to be careful about the stamps (Israel for everyone, Cuba for U.S. citizens, etc.) and also correct that this is not as big a deal as many people think it is.

One good thing about U.S. passports is that they allow for unlimited (and free) passport page additions. I have had three sets done so far, and everywhere I go someone comments on how thick my passport is. I am going to miss that in a couple of years when it expires completely.

In practice it seems to be less of a problem than some references on the internet make out. However, it does still matter with some countries. The countries that are persona non gratis with certain other countries (eg Israel) are well aware of the issue and general help out by stamping a loose piece of paper if asked instead of your passport. Nonetheless in some cases the only options are to have a second passport if your own country allows it (some do and some don’t), or try to time your visits so that they are on different passports (eg one before a passport fills up/expires and the other after).

Personally, I wish more countries could be like Switzerland and not be stamp happy. My current passport is just over a year old and already I’m running out of blank pages for visas.

I too love South Africa. I visited SA, Lesotho, Botswana, and Zambia in one wonderful month long trip. I only had problems with long lines and inefficiency when crossing between SA and Lesotho. The Botswana crossing was a breeze.

We had big problems trying to get into Zambia from Botswana. We had paid for our visas already, but they wanted $167 US only, because the US supposedly upped their visa price for Zambis to that amount… so Zambian customs said. It was near the end of our trip, so very few of us had that much left. Fortunately, we were able to negotiate them down to $20 per person. They took our passports and the money, then demanded another $10. It was a little frightening having the agent hold on to our passports while a stoic and peeved looking soldier stood nearby. We paid the $10, but got stopped frequently on the road by fake police/military personnel who demanded money to continue driving.

It was all worth it to see and experience Victoria Falls. Being on the Zambia side, I got to walk through the gorge opposite the waterfall. The tremendous water force kicks mist into the air, so it is constantly raining. Now I know why the locals call it “the smoke that thunders.” I couldn’t even see, there was so much water everywhere, loud, almost deafening… amazing experience.

I am glad that I was traveling with a good negotiator, otherwise, I may not have been able to enter Zambia and see the falls or bring donations to the school in Livingstone.

My girlfriend is heading to Cambodia in January for two months to do some non-profit work, and they don’t offer multi-entry visas, so she’s thrilled at the chance to pay for multiple visas to cover her intra-region travels!