May 19
I should be seeing the sights (beach?) in Rio De Janeiro today, but I am sitting here in my temporary home office… a.k.a. my dining room table flanked by dog beds.
Like I said, I was all set to got to Rio on Tuesday morning. On Monday night, while I was checking in for my flight on-line, I thought:
“I may as well take a look at what the US Department of State’s Travel website has to say about Brazil”
It’s a site that usually provides relevant, accurate information pertaining to country specific travel; in particular entry requirements for US Citizens (me). I was quite surprised to read that all US Citizens are required to obtain a visa prior to travelling to Brazil. The site said something the effect of: ‘don’t call us if you go to Brazil with no visa’
The Brazilian consulate’s website concurred a bit more sharply:
“U.S. citizens traveling to Brazil are required to obtain a visa prior to entering Brazil. This requirement is in reciprocity to the U.S. government demand that all Brazilian citizens hold a visa in order to enter the United States.”
I called a visa expediting service, knowing there was no point. Where would they a visa to? My plane?
Damn it. I screwed up big-time. Not until less than 24 hours before my departure, was I looking at specifics. There is no explanation. Just a piss poor planning job on my part. I wound up cancelling my flight and hotel reservations, both with penalties.
The positive? I already used my flight credit for an international itinerary beginning next week. As it stands, I am scheduled to cross the Atlantic Ocean 6 times on 3 different airlines over the next 3 weeks. Please stay tuned…
P.S. You can follow me on twitter (http://twitter.com/planereality) for some pics & happenings that don’t make it to the blog
[...] time I tried to give a preview of upcoming travels, I wound up not going anywhere due to my unexplainable failure to obtain a visa. None-the-less, this week, I will try again to hit [...]
I thought you had to buy your visa at the airport upon arrival right before customs. When I flew into Chile, they redirected people from Canada, Mexico, Australia, etc to a different counter where we were forced to purchase a visa that will be good for the life of our passport before we could proceed to customs. I think Brazil handles things that way, but I could be wrong.
Bottom line, I think the whole “getting back to us for charging their citizens for US visas” scheme is just plain dumb and immature, but that is just my opinion.
I take my recent comment back, you are right… Must obtain a visa prior traveling to Brazil… Chile and Argentina requires “tourist cards”, while Brazil requires an actual visa.