Travel Visas Explained

The difference between a passport and a travel visa, and why you better check your shit before you get to the airport

Since I got divorced and essentially pulled my head out of my ass, I’ve been taking every opportunity to travel the world and get away from my life in the states. Contemplating a bucket list trip to Australia, I finally pulled the trigger and bought my tickets back in February of 2020. Fast forward three years later, having given up on all my lost funds and travel credits from the pesky pandemic, I booked a ticket down under anyway. I planned and researched, picked hotels and checked weather. I got so caught up with the experience and dreams and excitement that I forgot one fundamental part: the TRAVEL VISA!

After the calamity that was renewing my passport during Covid, which entailed sending my current passport away while I waited for the new one, tracking it online to absolutely no avail, sitting on the phone for ten hours with the passport department, and eventually a last minute 6am flight to Los Angeles to the nearest open passport office a day before my flight, I find myself, yet again, having a mental breakdown. In my defense, in all the years and trips I’ve taken, this is the first country where a visa is required.

So what is a travel visa? And how’s that different from a passport?

A passport is issued by your country of origin. It is a document that varifies your identity and allows you to exit and re-enter your home country. It also verifies a person’s identity and nationality on a more serious and globally accepted scale than, say, an ID card. A visa, on the other hand, is a secondary document that is added to your passport, an addendum of sorts. It is issued by the particular country being visited and is represented by certain stamps or stickers traditionally.

Why do some countries require travel visas and some don’t?

Depends on the country you’re traveling to. It really boils down to the topics of immigration an criminal activity. For example, if I committed a crime, let’s say “killing my husband” “injuring or seriously maiming my husband”, I’d jump in the car and drive to Mexico. There, border patrol would flag me across without so much as a look. I am not a legal citizen of Mexico, I have no business being there, and now I’m a person of interest on “America’s Most Wanted”, but no checking of passports or travel visas. A visa requirement would’ve squashed my felonious dreams if Mexico were terribly serious about cutting down on immigration and crime. Luckily, they are not. However, I sure as fuck wouldn’t have traveled to Canada, where border control is much more serious.

So here’s my experience applying for my first travel visa…

Back to my mental breakdown. After years of planning, preparation, and countless dollars spent, we are now ten weeks out. I’ve known for a long time I needed a visa, but I didn’t really give it much mind. I’ve been more focused on beach wear and this annoying fat roll on my inner thigh I can’t get rid of. Casually I pop over to the Australian government’s website and see that they have a handy app for your phone. I download it. Then I ignore it for four additional weeks. I mean, how serious can it be? It’s on an app. When I do finally give it my undivided attention, I realize the first page says, in large block letters, to apply FOUR MONTHS in advance. Four fucking months?! That’s 16 weeks, which is 10 weeks more than I have now. I’m having post-Covid flashbacks and immediately start freaking out.

Faced with the possibility of being stuck at home, I switch to super psycho mode. I’m running around the house trying to locate my passport because, to my surprise, it requires you to wand your phone over the passport so that it can scan the internal chip. Tell me they’re not listening to us, I dare you. Then it asks me exactly where I’m staying, with who, and how many cats they have (kidding about the last part). So you need to list where you’re staying and for how long, the address and phone number of the place, and with whom you’re visiting. I had to photograph my passport and then wand it over the front page. I paid my $20 Australian and submitted the paperwork, all via app. All I could do now was wait.

And wait I did, not. In fact, unlike the passport I waited for all damn summer of 2021, this time I only waited six minutes. SIX MINUTES. That’s right. Six minutes later, I received an email confirmation that my Australian visa was accepted and would be digitally tied to my passport. No stamps. Nothing. Four months my ass. All that energy acting like a psycho, wasted. I don’t necessarily think it’s that easy for everyone, but I’m pretty fucking squeaky clean: I’m a citizen of the United States, I have no criminal record, and I have never changed my legal name, to my first husband’s chagrin. That being said, it probably isn’t that easy for everybody but it sure as hell wasn’t hard. And, being that I’m still six weeks out, the immediate acceptance of my visa shortens the time in which I can use it, since it is valid for 365 days, for three months at a time. If I was a jet setting travelista, I might be annoyed.

This experience taught me that, again, you can’t trust anything you read. And while I’m sure there are times when it doesn’t goes that smoothly, you probably already know if you’re a card carrying criminal trying to flee the county. But just to be safe and avoid any unnecessary drama, don’t be a lazy bitch like me and apply for your visa at least 60 days out. Just in case there’s an APB out for a Wanda Carlos Herrera.

xoxo, The Bitter Bitch