Comment by disordinary | Hacker News Reader

Comment by disordinary | Hacker News Reader

I don't know how he thinks non US citizens have it easy to go to Russia, I've been there a couple of times and unless things have changed in the last couple of years you need to pre-book and pay for all your accommodation, and get sponsorship letters from each hotel you are staying in. It takes a month or so to process and takes a couple of trips to the Embassy (each of which is an hour or so wait).

If you want to visit friends or relatives then they have to undergo a background and finance check. Not pleasant if they are elderly relatives you are visiting.

When you get to Russia, if you're staying outside of the main centres then you need to register in each town (usually at the police station or post office). Hostels and Hotels really don't like foreigners turning up out of the blue without being on the itinerary.

This is from New Zealand who has a fairly cordial relationship with Russia and (before the current boycott) they are one of the biggest consumers of NZ dairy products.

Anyway good effort by the writer. Some hard and dangerous countries out there. I wonder how the heck he paid for it.

It's a shame he didn't have to enter the USA as a tourist too. The requirements for Russia seem pretty similar to the hoops I had to jump through when I visited a summer school in Baltimore coming from South America.

Fun fact: I was told to bring to the Embassy interview a photo of my family, because by default it's assumed that I'm planning to remain there illegally, and is my job to convince the employee of the opposite. The photo would prove that I have a reason to come back.

>, because by default it's assumed that I'm planning to remain there illegally, and is my job to convince the employee of the opposite.

The countries that the USA doesn't require hoop jumping are basically 1st-world wealthier nations on par with the United States. (See map.[1]) The countries that are considered "poorer" such as Mexico, etc require Visas because of the assumption that the person wants to establish a better life in the USA. The USA doesn't have to worry about illegal immigration from citizens of Switzerland, Canada, Japan, etc.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_Waiver_Program

The ESTA is definitely a curious hoop jump that feels like applying for a visa: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_Waiver_Program#Electronic...

Yeah that sucks, the US isn't nice to anyone. Although we get a far easier go of it (just need to fill in an online form every couple of years).

I don't know how people transit in say LAX if they are from countries that the US doesn't like. I guess you can't.

You can't. After 911 USA has scrapped airport transfers without passport control, which is pretty unique by world standards.

For example, most of cheaper flights from Mexico to Russia (and rest of the world in general) are via USA. That means USA gets to decide who gets into Mexico and who doesn't.

Transit is different. Because you never leave the transit area of the airport, you aren'"entering" the country. This is why Snowden had to hang out in a transit area of an airport hotel until he could get the paperwork to legally enter Russia.

You may still need a transit visa, but those should be easier to get.

There is no concept of transit/international zone in the U.S.A..

This means passengers, even the ones on transit, must have legal right to enter the U.S..

Going through a U.S. airport just for transit is always a bad idea, as it takes a lot of time to cross the border.

Depends on where you're a tourist from. Coming from Australia, the visa was an auto-approved electronic thing. I arrived in LA, had a queue of about 3 people at customs, had a piece of paper stapled into my passport, and that was ripped out when I exited. The only way it could have been smoother was no visa required at all, or fewer people in the customs queue (not that 3 is something to complain about)

In the middle of my journey, I crossed the border at Nogales for an afternoon's shopping - this was at the peak of 'swine flu' and people scared of the border drug wars, so there were few palefaces (few = my companion and I, no others). Entry into Mexico was literally a turnstile. Entry back into the US? I went to present my passport and was just waved through.

Ironically the only "border trouble" I had in the US was crossing Texas, at a border checkpoint 100 miles inland, where a shouty man screamed at me for daring to have my passport in the trunk of the car... made me pull off to the side and wait for him to finish screaming at other people.

I have New Zealand and Australian passports. I've been to 115 countries.

Russia was a bit painful to get a visa due to bureaucracy. But for me so far Turkmenistan was the most difficult to get into. I still have the really hard ones to go, though.

Which passport is best to travel on? I had a bit of bother with police corruption in northern China when they assumed we were Russians, but the NZ passport magically made it all go away.

I have NZ/AU/DE. In general NZ passports are better than Australian, particularly for many Muslim countries, but also for many other places like India, where NZ'ers get visa on arrival. Inexplicably to my knowledge, the reverse was true a few years ago for Tunisia, where Australians had an easier time than Kiwis.

Re: police corruption in northern China, I suspect that you may have misinterpreted the situation. Documentation checks for foreigners nearing or leaving border regions are standard in China, I live there and have been through tens of them.

No, we were pulled into the police station in Harbin after being set up by a taxi driver, they had a Russian translator there for us. When we pulled out the NZ passports the police officer started yelling at the taxi driver and we were herded out of the station. So it seems fairly clear that it was some sort of setup to try and get Russian tourists (who are potentially used to corruption). Or maybe they just don't like Russian's and pull them in to check them out.

We also had issues crossing the border from Blagoveshensk to Hei Hei, but that was because the officer at the border (and this was all from body language, there were no translators or anything like that) was not convinced that the NZ passports were not fakes, probably they don't see much variety on that particular border crossing.

According to this[1], that would be Finland, Sweden, Germany, and UK.

I remember they used to provide the full list too, but now that seems to be behind a registration process, which I don't wish to go through.

[1] https://www.henleyglobal.com/international-visa-restrictions...

The 2014 list is here: https://www.henleyglobal.com/files/download/hvri/HP%20Visa%2...

How do you manage to travel so much? What is your job, or how do you make money?

I run a software company. A very small software company. Instead of focusing on growing it, I've focused on being able to work part time and remotely.

I went to Russia (Moscow and St. Petersburg) in 2002 while living in Finland (I'm a US citizen). My then girlfriend, now wife is a German citizen and arranged the paperwork and I took my documents to the Russian consulate in Helsinki and paid for expedited handling (unease about foreign country and no passport on hand). There wasn't a lot of paperwork at the time.

First couple of nights were in Moscow. Train ride to St. Petersburg, check into the hotel. Take a nap. Phone call -- "Um, your papers expired today." Dumbass that I was, didn't look at the visa the consulate had issued only covered the Moscow portion. This was a Sunday. Monday meant a trip to the St. Petersburg airport and talking with a border official. A nice gentleman in a tweed suit.

A couple of hundred euros handled the issue (we had 4 days left on our trip). Something I will remember. Putin was president at the time as well.

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