Jumbo Passport

Newzealand opened for tourist visa in Jul 2022 after COVID-19. So the processing times were shooting up and showing 51 days P90. I wasn't having hopes of receiving a visa for my potential trip in later in the year. I decided to give it a go anyway. Took me around 3 hours to figure all the documentation and apply for the visa. I made a tentative itinerary with potential trip to Fiji from Auckland.

Timeline

Applied on Friday. Paid ~140 USD visa fee. Fortunately they changed the process to not require sending passport due to influx of applications and speed up the processing. They will only ask passport if required. If I had to send passport, it would have costed additional $100 for VFS + Return Courier in US. The same was around 1000 INR if applying in India.
Received e-visa on next Wednesday. Pleasantly surprised. Not sure if my US visa helped with the quick processing.

Visa Information

Multiple entry for 1 year from date of issue, max 6 months per stay.
Total processing time - 6 days.
Total cost - USD 140.

I applied Vietnam visa twice and the experience has been same both times.

Timeline

Applied online on a Monday. Paid USD 25 fee. The website was looking pretty old I wasn't comfortable uploading my passport biometric page in it but had to do it anyway.
Received e-visa on Wednesday

Visa Information

Single Entry, 30 days from date of issue.
Total cost - USD 25.
Total processing time - 2 days.

I applied Swiss visa multiple times and the experience has been consistent to receive in around 5 days.

The first time was in 2019 when I walked-in for biometrics. The second time was after COVID-19 and so they weren't allowing in-person applications. Fortunately I had biometrics already and so did not require to go again.

The Schengen visa application is pretty standard with all consulates with very requirements changing. The documentation like bookings and itinerary making takes half a day every-time.

Both times, I planned the itinerary to visit Croatia which is outside Schengen area at that time and so the application is for Multiple Entry.

Visa Information

Total cost - USD 80.
Total processing time - 5 days.
Validity

Multiple entry.
First time - 1 year from date of issue.
Second time - 8 months from date of issue. My last visa was more than 2 years and so that could be the reason for time period to be reduced.
Max 90 days per stay.

This is probably the second best visa experience I had so far (first being Japan). Following is the timeline.

Gathered all documents as mentioned in their website and dropped off at USPS on Friday evening. Used 2-day priority shipping. I took the Money Order also at USPS. Included 1-day priority express envelope for return shipping.
Package delivered to the consulate on Monday evening.
Return package picked up by USPS on Wednesday evening.
Delivered to me by USPS in San Francisco on Thursday morning. Super impressed with the speed of processing. I had frustrating experience with wait times for appointments to Schengen Visa and this was so refreshing.

Costed me around $24 (Visa Fee) + $1.25 (Money Order Fee) + $7 (Outbound Shipping) + $26 (Return Shipping).

Visa is issued from date of application to 3 months, single entry and 20-days stay.

Being a software engineer, "Hello World!" got to be my first blog post. But in this case, I literally meant it, saying hello to all the places in the world :)

This picture was taken when I was flying from San Francisco to Bengaluru via London Heathrow in British Airways Boeing 747 Business Class in the upper deck.

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Timeline

Visa Information

Visa Information

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