Our current route takes us through 18 countries. Thankfully as an American we only need visas for 6 of them: Turkey, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Russia. The adventurists recommend using a visa portal – www.thevisamachine.com – to handle all of your applications. You end up paying a decent amount more for the convenience, so we decided to handle as much on our own as we could. That being said, the process can be a little confusing, so we’re going about it easiest to hardest.
Turkey: Application date Jan 11, 2017.
Turkey issues e-visas and their application process is super easy. Took all of 15 minutes for all 3 of our visas. The Turkish visa is good for 180 days, with a start date of a maximum 90 days from applying. Our entry window starts April 10 (the max start date at the time of this writing) and is good through Oct 2017.
Total cost: $20.70 per
Visamachine: £40 per ($48 USD)
https://www.evisa.gov.tr/en/
Tajikistsan: Application date Jan 12, 2017
Tajikistan also does e-visas through an online portal, though you don’t instantly get your visas like Turkey. I would say their site is the second easiest to go through. If you plan on driving the Pamir highway you will need a GBAO permit which is just a box you check on the form. The base visa cost is $50, plus $20 if you get the GBAO permit. Tajiki visas are good for 45 days from your date of entry. Since we have no idea when we’ll be there yet, we put in August 1 which gives us plenty of time to get there at our leisure. You will need to temporarily book a hotel, as you need to list an address on the application form. Hotels.com is great for this because a lot of places you can book now and pay later, or just cancel and re-book something later. There are a few hotels in Dushanbe – some of which are surprisingly expensive given that you are in the middle of nowhere. We booked with Lotte Palace Dushanbe which had a family suite available for $108 a night.
UPDATE: We got approved for all 3 e-visas + GBAO permits within 12 hours. Sweet!
Total cost: $70 per
Visa Machine: £91 per ($110 USD)
https://www.evisa.tj/
Azerbaijan: Application date Jan 12, 2017
Boy howdy did we get lucky with this one. A few days into 2017 AZ launched an online e-visa site, and it’s super easy to understand and use. Like Tajikistan, you have to list an address of where you’re staying so once again we have a tentative booking at some random place in Baku. If you plan on taking the ferry, I highly recommend you find a place to stay as close to the port as possible that’s within your budget. The schedule seems to be erratic, and some teams from previous years leave their cars there so they are ready to load. Note to future rallyers: Stock up on some food and plenty of water for the boat ride. Maybe bring a deck of cards too 😉
UPDATE: All 3 e-visas came back approved within a few days.
Total cost: $23 per
Visa Machine: £110 per ($133 USD) – This will probably drop considerably once their site updates to offer the e-visa.
Turkmenistan: Application date March 23, 2017
Technically you can’t apply directly for a visa to Turkmenistan. This is by far the most confusing country, so the Adventurists have tried making it as easy as possible. In order to show up in Turkmenistan and be granted a transit visa, you have to have to have a letter of invitation. From what it sounds like the *only* way to do this online is to use the Visa Machine site. The VM has a hard deadline this year of April 1 to send in your application, after which you just ain’t getting into Turkmenistan. I guess they have a handshake deal with the Turkmen consulate, as they send off all of the applications at once and wait a few months to get them back. I’ve heard there have been issues before and as this is the most confusing country to travel through on the trip, I’m crossing my fingers we don’t have too much trouble.
Total cost: With a $10 off code, the cost was $55/per
Russia: Application date April 14, 2017
OMG. This one was borderline painful. Not only is it fairly confusing on how the process works, it’s an unnecessarily long and detailed application. Before I do a walk-through let me be very clear on this: The Russians are very meticulous and sounds like they will look for any reason to deny an application. I quadruble (get it? currency joke??!?) checked everything we submitted to them.
Ok first things first. You need a visa support letter (aka Letter of invitiation). I used the website linked below, cost $30 per letter. We were applying for a double visa, so you have to write down what dates you think you’ll be entering and leaving. This isn’t a hard timeline, but your visa will not start before the first entry date you’ve listed. You will also have to list hotels/hostels that you plan on staying at. However long you’re there, it’s my understanding you need to stay at least one night as the hotel “registers” you with the government. Make sure you write down whatever hotels you listed. You aren’t required proof of booking, but whatever you wrote down on your support letter has to match what you put on your visa application. After you get that back you can fill out your application on the Russian visa site. Funny note: Your support letter is in Russian. Unless you can read that gibberish, you’re gonna have to use google translate to help match some of that info to your actual application.
To be very clear this is not an e-visa, just a portal so that you can fill out the application to mail in or apply in person. The Russians don’t like handwriting, found that out the hard way. I’m not advocating anyone lying on their application, but there are a few questions that are ambiguous that could give them a reason to deny you. For instance, have you ever been arrested for a crime? In Russia being arrested doesn’t mean what it does to us. If you’ve gone to jail for a DUI here (I haven’t thank god) in Russia that would be a temporary detainment and released with a fine. So unless you’re an Interpol listed criminal, I would put NO for just about anything. If you have indeed gotten specialized training in firearms, chemical weapons, etc… I would definitely put NO for that too. There is a question about whether you have medical insurance in Russia. This one tripped me up, because as an American we aren’t required to prove medical coverage. I was a little worried about writing no though, so I went ahead and booked our travel insurance (IMG Direct) and went to change that to yes. DO NOT HIT SAVE/PRINT UNLESS YOU ARE 100% DONE WITH YOUR APPLICATION. When I went back to change that answer, I found that it was uneditable. I could have started from scratch and filled out new apps for everyone, but I didn’t want multiple applications floating through their system and get denied. So yours truly scratched out NO on the printed apps and included a copy of our medical coverage in with our application. Ugh.
When you’re done you have two options: Mail them to the embassy for a considerable extra fee ($85/per right now) or if you’re lucky enough to have a consulate or processing center nearby you can do it in person. There are only 5 in the the US, one of which happens to be in Houston and is only a 4 hour drive. So I set an appointment (ok this is weird because when you apply their ENTIRE schedule is open for every day of the week but they still require an appointment) for the 3 of us and drove down. If you are applying for multiple people you will need a notarized letter from each saying you have their permission to apply for you. The women at this place do not fuck around. Almost instantly I got “Net, Russian goverment not like handwriting. You should redo application” – referencing me scratching out NO and writing yes for our medical coverage. I kindly explained that once it was saved I couldn’t edit it, which is why I unnecessarily included our insurance. She just went back to it. She didn’t like that our support letters (from an approved company) listed our double entry dates on 2 different lines. Ok…nervous laughter. Eventually she stamped all of our passports and put them in a pile to send off to the embassy. So hopefully we get those back approved since the finish line is in Russia…….
UPDATE: Picked up our visas from the processing center in Houston. They were ready in 7 days, wooo!
Total cost: $177 per if you apply in person. +85 if you submit by mail.
Visa Machine: They can’t do this one for you, you’re on your own.
http://waytorussia.net/Services/VisaSupport/Tourist.html?Submit=Get+It+Online+Now
https://visa.kdmid.ru/
Uzbekistan: Application date June 6, 2017
Uzbekistsan is a weird. Like Russia it’s a combination of fill out visa application online, then mail everything to the embassy with a check. Those crazy Uzbeks! First off, LOI’s. As an American I don’t need one, so if you aren’t you’ll have to check the embassy website and see if it applies to you. Since I don’t have to get one, I have no idea how to get one. Sorry! You can get a 7, 15, 0r 30 day visa. I’d recommend not doing the 7 day, as if you get fucked in the Azer/Turk ferry crossing you could be speeding right through Turkmenistan AND Uzbekistan. So apply for the 15 or 30 as it gives you a big window. The cost is the same. They add a twist where you have to check boxes for what major cities you plan on seeing, so you’ll have to cross-reference google maps. Navoi is a city between Bukhara and Samarkand that we’ll be breezing through, so we went ahead and checked that one just in case. They will ask what the purpose of the trip is (in detail?) – we just put general tourism to go see both of the big cities. You will also need to provide hotel info/address, but one again you don’t actually need a reservation. If you have teammates they will need to be listed, and when you’re done instead of hitting continue you hit the next person button. This is actually cool because it’ll save a lot of the info and mostly just ask for personal details.
So here’s the part that is poorly described on their site. What you need to mail to the embassy is the following: ONE (some will say 2) copy of a signed application form. They say you only need a photo-copy of visa pages that have stamps, but various sites across the interwebs say it’s smarter to make a copy of the whole damn thing to include. B/W is fine. You also need to include TWO passport pictures – I guess these get glued to your forms.
UPDATE: The embassy in Washington D.C. processed our passports in 5 days, so the roundtrip was 9 business days.
Total cost: $160 per
Visa Machine: $260 USD – uh yeah, no fucking way
http://evisa.mfa.uz/evisa_en/
https://www.uzbekistan.org/consular/visa/
