The Turkey Shuffle

by Karen

No matter how much careful planning you think you do, there’s always something small that can slip through the cracks. In our case, it was a pretty big crack!

Somehow we got the idea into our heads that Mark didn’t need to apply for a Turkey visa beforehand, that he would be able to purchase one upon arrival for $20. We both could’ve sworn it was true. In fact, it IS true for US citizens, but not for Philippine citizens.

We were thisclose to booking our 14 days in Turkey, when on a whim we decided to read the page about visa requirements.

PHILIPPINES
Ordinary passport holders are required to have a consular visa before travelling to Turkey.

To say that we panicked is a gross understatement. We scrambled to get all his visa paperwork together, going through the motions of booking fake hotels, printing out flight itineraries, filling out forms, and grabbing cash, and raced towards the Turkish embassy in Paris, only to find out they were closed. We then realized that it might take days or weeks to get the visa approved, so we gave up on the idea of going to Turkey for 14 days.

Turkey was an important strategic segment of our trip. Because we’re only allowed 90 days in Schengen territory, and because we want to experience Christmas & New Years in Europe, we needed a way to extend our time in the Europe region through January. An obvious solution would be to fly to Asia, then come back, but we have bigger plans for that trip later. 😉

So what were our other options? We couldn’t go to a country that required Philippine citizens to get a visa in advance, and we couldn’t stay too long in Schengen, lest we go over our 90-day welcome.

• Extend our stay in Morocco (US & Philippine citizens OK for 90 days)
• Go to Israel (no visas required for both of us)
• Go back to London

After e-mailing the Turkish consulate in LA about our visa issue, I found out that there was a loophole for Mark entering Turkey. According to the friendly Turkish consulate worker:

If you come to Turkey by a cruise ship and thereafter leave Turkey for another country by the same cruise ship, all cruise passengers on board are exempt from visa for a daily stopover. If your cruise ship starts from Turkey or ends up in Turkey, all passengers are subject to a visa to enter Turkey. Depending on the citizenship of the passenger, an advance visa may be necessary to disembark.

Really? Even if we have to disembark the ship? *flutter of hope*

Mark found a cruise with Costa Cruises that fits into our itinerary quite well (anyone back home wanna join us???). But, we need to be absolutely sure, for real this time, lest we repeat our mistake:

YOU DO NOT NEED TO HAVE AN ADVANCE VISA UNDER YOUR CRUISE TRAVEL ROUTE FOR ALL TURKISH PORT OF CALLS. AS LONG AS YOU ARE LISTED IN A CRUISE PASSENGERS LIST, YOU VISIT TURKEY.

Yes sir, we will go and visit Turkey! With the supposed blessing of the Turkish consulate, we went ahead and booked our cruise!

Now because we are leaving from Italy, we would be spending extra time in a Schengen zone. We did the math and so far it seems to work out (we hope). So if we’re on a cruise ship, which country are we technically in? I e-mailed the Greek consulate in LA and got back this response:

When you are on the cruise ship in Greek waters, you are considered as being in Greece.  They will stamp your passport when you enter and exit the country.  As a U.S. citizen traveling on a U.S. passport you can stay in the Schengen area 90 days in any six months.

So, hopefully this all works out in the end. A cruise will be a nice break from all the planning, and in addition to Turkey, we get to visit Greece, Croatia, and 2 new Italian cities in the process, something that we hadn’t planned. 🙂

Related articles

• Travel to 46, not 25 countries with the Schengen visa! 😉 (tranhuong102blog.wordpress.com)
• Turkey, Greece Push Tourism Collaboration (eu.greekreporter.com)

Groupon

Hadn’t thought about it before, but Groupon is a great resource for looking up cheap activities while travelling. I used it during our last trip to Hawaii, and seems like it would be feasible for all countries on our trip! The only downside is that they will spam you to kingdom come, and most of their deals involve liposuction or spa therapy.

 

Immunizations

Can’t believe Walgreens has walk-in travel immunizations. If I’d have known earlier, I would’ve saved myself time from scheduling doctors’ appointments and just going there directly. Lesson learned!

I’m starting to think we might’ve needed to start our immunizations sooner. Hep A & B sound like they are a series of shots, rather than one shot, so we might need several trips to the doctors’ office. Hopefully we can continue our shots in Boston.

 

International Driver’s License

Went to my local AAA branch and applied for my international driver’s license, just in case I needed one. It was super easy, just had to fill out a form, take a photo, and pay $23. Much easier than applying for a visa or passport, and I get it on the spot. Granted, it’s a booklet and somewhat cumbersome, but still handy to have.

We also bit the bullet and rented a storage unit near our apartment for $55/month. It’s a simple 5’x10′ that should fit our needs. We plan on leaving our large, replaceable items there, such as shelving, mattress, miscellaneous toys. My friend Samantha was generous enough to let me store my car in her garage, along with Mark’s motorcycle.

Less than a month to go!

 

UK Visa Approved!

Mark finally got his UK visa approved, so this clears the way for us to finally book our flights and accommodations. Luckily, Morocco and Turkey issue visas upon arrival, so we don’t have to worry about those beforehand.

Managed to finally sell our couch yesterday, after posting it on Craigslist for 2 months. I think we’ll be keeping our mattress though. Preparing to sell my desk.

Unfortunately, plans for lending my car out to someone fell through, so I will need to figure out a solution on what to do with my car. I guess out strongest option at this point is to go ahead and drive it all the way to Boston, otherwise I will need to see if I can leave it in a friend’s garage. I did some research on the cost of storing a vehicle in SoCal, and the numbers are ridiculous:

Self-storage: $380/month
Driving from San Fran to Boston: $320 gas
Flying from San Fran to Boston: $180/person

So the cost of flying vs driving is about the same, except that driving is 44 hrs straight, not including possible detours we will take. But on the flip side, we do get to see the US and possibly monuments we’ve never gotten a chance to see. It could be an adventure, but eat into the cost of our Eurotrip.