dumbest question of life
but please bare with me.
What exactly are visas, and why do we need them? I've travelled before, but I've never organized my own trip so all the paper work was done for me in the past. Is a visa just a "permission slip" saying: "I'm from ______, I'm visiting you on vacation. I am legally allowed to be here. Thanks!"
I'm traveling for a year (Central Am, South Am, New Zealand, Aus, southeast Asia), but I don't exactly know which countries I'm going to. We wanted to have alot of leniency on our trip... so I guess what I'm asking is should I be getting all my visas before I leave- will I have to get like 40 of them?
We aren't leaving until April 2010, so I have a while to research and plan... but for the sake of visas, what if we get into Thailand, then unexpectedly decide to spend time in Vietnam- can we get visa's while we're there? How much do they cost? How long do they take?