This is great. I'd use something like this to travel, for sure: Pick a nice, cheap place and stay there.
Though I'm curious... exactly how cheap is 100% cheaper? For example:
Northern Mariana Islands
VISA FREE FOR 30 Day(s)
Compare to Norway:
Accomodation is 100% cheaper
Restaurants are 38% cheaper
Transportation is 100% cheaper
On a similar note: One thing I've found interesting about VISA lists and passport usefulness rankings is that it has no bearing on the experience you'll have coming into a country.
For example, the German passport is supposedly soooo much better than the US passport, but diving into it you see that a few countries have slightly different status designations for the two. Where the status designation for the German one being a slightly better one.
But when you get to the airport in those countries, the US passport has the easier route with the automated immigration. While the supposedly better passport with better status still busses you through the line with the hoard of the newly minted Chinese middle-class with the humans slowly evaluating everyone.
I think the country-specific nuances between status designations are hard to rank, if it is functionally similar in all capacities once you get in the country. And the experience/treatment getting into the country isn't listed at all.
I traveled with a US fellow to several countries outside of respective regions (all Middle East except Iran and Syria), Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Australia, North and West Africa - among others and I cannot remember our passports (mine is French) to be treated differently (when the visa or not visa conditions were the same of course).
There seems to be a bug in the cost of living comparison. For "Restaurant" and "Transport" it shows "x % cheaper" if the first country is cheaper. However for "Accomodation" it shows does display "x % cheaper" when the second country is cheaper.
No problem. What I've been doing is selected citizenship "German, destination country America, USA and cost of life comparison. Then I'm seeing there those strange percentages for the Accomodation part.
This lists Saint Martin as requiring a Visa from the US which I found weird because I didn't need one to visit there as a tourist about four so I looked it up and it seems you still don't need one. Which is great because it was one of the best vacation's I've had.
Bug(?): "Svalbard and Jan Mayen" is not a country. Svalbard is a Norwegian archipelago, and Jan Mayen is a Norwegian volcanic island, so they usually just list under Norway. And they don't use the same flag as Andorra.
Same goes for "Åland Islands" which are part of Sweden, and they certainly don't require a Visa from a UK citizenship.
Also, I'm pretty sure Faroe Islands, Guernsey, Isle of Man and Jersey don't require a Visa from a UK citizen.
Svalbard and Jan Mayen have separate visa requirements to Norway, so they should be listed separately, but the actual listed results seem to be incorrect (I don't think you need a visa from most/all Schengen)
Not sure about Åland, you definitely don't need a visa from UK (or Ireland) to visit Isle of Man, and you're likely right about the others too.
Or go get the one-week free trial at expertflyer, which as far as I know pulls from Timatic, the same database used by airlines to determine whether you need a visa to get on the plane.
Example for comparison: visadb for US->China only says "Visa required to travel".
The expertflyer pull goes into detail about the extended visa-free "transits"[1], exceptions for some visa-on-arrival tourist programs, requirements for also entering Tibet, requirements for yellow fever vaccination, requirements for children traveling with an adult, etc.
[1] While many non-US countries have the concept of visa-free transit for connecting from one international flight to another, they usually require you remain in the airport the entire time. In certain cities, China allows you to leave the airport, stay in a hotel and see the city for 3-6 days depending on which city you "transit" in, so long as the origin of your immediate inbound flight and destination of your immediate outbound flight are not the same country. Some airlines infamously have trouble with this, since their agents incorrectly enter a destination of China (due to a planned multi-day stay) instead of a transit of China, and get back a result requiring a visa.
Most recently, I've seen AA passengers complain due to the popularity of a mileage run LAX-PEK-NRT-LAX, where the passenger spends a couple days in Beijing and never leaves the airport in Tokyo. From the perspective of the Chinese policy, this is a valid round trip to Tokyo with an outbound connection in Beijing, requiring no visa for the transit of China. AA agents try to enter as a round trip to Beijing with a return connection in Tokyo, requiring a visa to visit China.
This is a really cool idea. I especially like the 'cost comparison' feature.
Minor quibble - I checked for Philippines as I'm from UK and go there quite a lot. The DB says the visa exemption is 21 days - it's actually 30 days.
Where do you get your data from? Trawling embassy sites? That's quite a lot of work as the information does change. Take Thailand for example - they have made so many changes over the years it's hard to keep up with - even the border staff often don't know what the latest regulation is! :)
I dunno about changes, but Malaysia has been visa free for my contry minimum 10 or more years, yet still is not shown in list of Asian visa free countries for my citizenship. Same goes for Japan. I could understand Thailand always changing visa, but Malaysia is pretty consistent.
it's pretty much useless, just checked visa free asia destinations for my citizenship and apparently Malaysia and Japan are not in Asia, since while they mention many visa on arrival countries, these completely (3 months) visa free countries are not shown for my citizenship, so I will rather not check countries which I am not familiar with
and I am not going through list of 200 countries to correct wrong data ind atabase
also by my experience with prices, those restaurant/transport/accommodaion prices are completely unrealistic, you telling me Cambodia has slightly lower prices of transportation thn EU country? only someone who never been to Cambodia and EU can say that
This is a really nice interface, but I'm curious about the data source and its ability to keep up-to-date. I've very quickly found a few inconsistencies/incorrect entries - I understand these are in the process of being fixed[0][1] but if this is all manual, that might be quite difficult to maintain.
28 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 74.9 ms ] threadThough I'm curious... exactly how cheap is 100% cheaper? For example:
Northern Mariana Islands VISA FREE FOR 30 Day(s) Compare to Norway: Accomodation is 100% cheaper Restaurants are 38% cheaper Transportation is 100% cheaper
Wikipedia color codes it as "admission refused": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_requirements_for_Israeli_...
On a similar note: One thing I've found interesting about VISA lists and passport usefulness rankings is that it has no bearing on the experience you'll have coming into a country.
For example, the German passport is supposedly soooo much better than the US passport, but diving into it you see that a few countries have slightly different status designations for the two. Where the status designation for the German one being a slightly better one.
But when you get to the airport in those countries, the US passport has the easier route with the automated immigration. While the supposedly better passport with better status still busses you through the line with the hoard of the newly minted Chinese middle-class with the humans slowly evaluating everyone.
I think the country-specific nuances between status designations are hard to rank, if it is functionally similar in all capacities once you get in the country. And the experience/treatment getting into the country isn't listed at all.
I traveled with a US fellow to several countries outside of respective regions (all Middle East except Iran and Syria), Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Australia, North and West Africa - among others and I cannot remember our passports (mine is French) to be treated differently (when the visa or not visa conditions were the same of course).
What is this "automated immigration" you mention?
Can you explain little bit more :) I am the one who created the tool on my own so would like to fix the issue you are pointing to :) Cheers
Same goes for "Åland Islands" which are part of Sweden, and they certainly don't require a Visa from a UK citizenship. Also, I'm pretty sure Faroe Islands, Guernsey, Isle of Man and Jersey don't require a Visa from a UK citizen.
Not sure about Åland, you definitely don't need a visa from UK (or Ireland) to visit Isle of Man, and you're likely right about the others too.
Example for comparison: visadb for US->China only says "Visa required to travel".
The expertflyer pull goes into detail about the extended visa-free "transits"[1], exceptions for some visa-on-arrival tourist programs, requirements for also entering Tibet, requirements for yellow fever vaccination, requirements for children traveling with an adult, etc.
[1] While many non-US countries have the concept of visa-free transit for connecting from one international flight to another, they usually require you remain in the airport the entire time. In certain cities, China allows you to leave the airport, stay in a hotel and see the city for 3-6 days depending on which city you "transit" in, so long as the origin of your immediate inbound flight and destination of your immediate outbound flight are not the same country. Some airlines infamously have trouble with this, since their agents incorrectly enter a destination of China (due to a planned multi-day stay) instead of a transit of China, and get back a result requiring a visa.
Most recently, I've seen AA passengers complain due to the popularity of a mileage run LAX-PEK-NRT-LAX, where the passenger spends a couple days in Beijing and never leaves the airport in Tokyo. From the perspective of the Chinese policy, this is a valid round trip to Tokyo with an outbound connection in Beijing, requiring no visa for the transit of China. AA agents try to enter as a round trip to Beijing with a return connection in Tokyo, requiring a visa to visit China.
Minor quibble - I checked for Philippines as I'm from UK and go there quite a lot. The DB says the visa exemption is 21 days - it's actually 30 days.
Where do you get your data from? Trawling embassy sites? That's quite a lot of work as the information does change. Take Thailand for example - they have made so many changes over the years it's hard to keep up with - even the border staff often don't know what the latest regulation is! :)
and I am not going through list of 200 countries to correct wrong data ind atabase
also by my experience with prices, those restaurant/transport/accommodaion prices are completely unrealistic, you telling me Cambodia has slightly lower prices of transportation thn EU country? only someone who never been to Cambodia and EU can say that
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14987484
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14987470