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Comment by _0nac | Hacker News Reader

Interesting, but how do you keep this up to date? These requirement change constantly and the only reliable source I'm aware of, Timatic (which is what airlines use), is copyrighted and quite tightly locked down.

Wikipedia does crowdsource this info fairly effectively though, sample: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_requirements_for_Indian_c...

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You do have to be careful and read the fine print. This year, I was turned away at the Belarusian-Lithuanian border (US citizen) because I had read on that Wikipedia page that it was Visa free. In fact, it is only visa free if you arrive via the Minsk airport. Fortunately I was only driving through a tiny part of Belarus on my way to Poland so it was a simple matter of another 30 minutes or so of driving to enter Poland via the Lithuanian border.

To be fair, visa-free entry into Belarus for up to 30 days is a completely new thing[1]. Unlike most visa-free regimes, it's not driven by any international agreements, but rather by a Belarusian initiative to promote tourism in the country. Therefore, they can set their own requirements, and it's still not possible to take a 2-hour train from Vilnius to Minsk without a visa. The entire program can be cancelled at any time by one side, since Belarusians don't have the same visa-free access to the EU.

[1] https://www.belarus.by/rel_image/6400

To be fair, Ukraine has the same unilateral visa-free regime for EU (plus some other countries) citizens. But it's not as arbitrary. If you are a citizen of one of the countries you can enter through any legal port of entry.

Edit. I keep forgetting that Ukraine now does have visa free travel with Schengen states.

> You do have to be careful and read the fine print.

I think all such sites are just useful for giving ideas of where to go on holiday or hold a business meeting.

Once the idea progresses, it's necessary to check with embassies or government websites on the current situation.

I was confused by the order of countries and thought you were turned away by Lithuanians. Being turned away by Belorussians as a US citizen makes much more sense.

Great reminder. Always check with that country's embassy or risk a ruined vacation and much worse.

This is why you shouldn't rely on Timatic for overland travel. But Belarus border rules are really messy anyway. E.g. you can't go from Belarus to Russia overland, unless you're a citizen of either of them.

https://www.united.com/web/en-US/apps/vendors/default.aspx?i...

Tiamatic. Free for all, I guess maybe consider United for your travel needs if you find it useful.

https://www.expertflyer.com/ also exposes this airline information. Requires a paid subscription. Very useful for frequent flyers.

Visalist is free though.

This is one of those cases where making a mistake is a big enough deal that it's worth paying for information that is known to be correct, rather than relying on a free service that may or may not be up to date.

who are the people who will check visalist and go "ok cool, time to leave - where's my passport?"

anyone travelling internationally checks with the embassy first right? or is there some unspoken expectation that americans/europeans live with during travels about visa on arrival that i don't think about in the same way?

Granted — I subscribe to EF for other reasons, not the visa information.

But perhaps you could look into using it as an API backend to gather the data for your site.

Just shows if i need visa or not after filling all that information. Visalist has this in just one click along with document checklist, official website, visa applicaiton.

Timatic is accessible through the web, for example

https://www.skyteam.com/en/flights-and-destinations/visa-and...

https://www.iatatravelcentre.com/passport-visa-health-travel...

https://www.koreanair.com/global/en/traveling/airport-check-...

Accessible, yes, but you can't copy that information into your own website without a license.

Yes and also the most actionable info like document checklist is not available

I'd recommend using your country's official website, they usually keep the visa requirements and travel advice up to date.

Visalist has links to official websites aswell, so you can always cross check!

What is the advantage of that over just using the official website in the first place? It seems like you'd need to do that even if you used Visalist, so you might as well skip the middleman and just go straight to the reliable information.

It's not always as easy, as each country, and sometimes each embassy has their own structure on their respective website. This service has a lot of merit, especially if used as directory to links of the original source of information. Try finding out whether a Bangladeshi citizen traveling to Saudi Arabia can travel without visa, with visa, with visa on arrival or not at all from a google search.

This website appears to be sourcing it from Wikipedia.

Yes some of it, most of it is from the official government websites

When I checked for USA and Canadian citizens this site uses the data from wikipedia (source is indicated on the bottom right hand side of the page).

I don't understand why anybody would use this site vs the wikipedia site. Can somebody explain the utility here?

Wikipedia doesnt have filters and sorting based on visa category or region / sub regions or even the maps where you can visaualize all the countries with different visa requirements. Also it deosnt have the links to official websites, visa application link , fee links and document checklist. Visalist tries has all this.

I'm not seeing the links to the official websites, on the few examples I tried its pointing me back to wikipedia, ex:

https://visalist.io/algeria/visa-requirements/united-states-...

Yes some of the information is from Wikipedia but mostly it's from official website of the countries

In the "about" page there is a disclaimer:

  The information in the site should be used as a guide only. You are advised to contact your local official mission/consulate/embassy and ensure you have the latest information.

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