Help With How And What Visas To Get :-)

[kotitihaere]

Hi all,

We are 2 people under 50 travelling on a New Zealand passport. We are leaving NZ on 3rd Dec 2006 for our round the world trip.

Our inital plan for Thailand was as follows:

Get 2 month visa from KL for Thailand and spend 2 months travelling through South Thailand and do a border run at Ranong in august - we decided to do this as we don't want to rush to Bangkok to get the 1 month extension!

continue north and in September go to Laos for about 26 days (this will end up being 3 months total, a 2 month tourist visa and a 1 month VOA)

Back into Thailand in October 2007 (1 month VOA)

Nov 2007 into Cambodia (1 month VOA)

Dev 2007 back into Thailand then finally leave the country for good in Dec! (1 month VOA)

However, from reading here, this will not be possible to do this way.

I have read in some of the posts there there is a 2 or 3 entry tourist visa - can these be gotten in Laos / Cambodia?

Is there another way to do the same sort of trip, or will we have to redesign our itinarary?

Thank you for your time

[aussiestyle1983]

Try to get a double entry tourist visa from the Royal Thai Embassy in NZ ( forget what city its in )

You are NZ citizen I guess, so I doubt they would have any problems in issuing a double entry tourist visa, that would cover all of your first trip to Thailand.

Im not sure exactally how the double entry works, but I think its like this...........

1st entry you get 60 days, you can extend it for an extre 30 days. Do border run. You come back into Thailand and get another 60 days ( that is the second entry you double entry tourist visa allows ) and if you want you can extend that as well for an extra 30 days. ( not sure but if your in the south, maybe you can extend at immigration in Phuket )

So total days, 60+30+60+30 = 180 days.

If you want to try to get a double entry tourist visa, do it in your own country, places in SE asia are most likely not issuing them much after the new changes. Also rumor has it that with a tourist visa now, you get 90 days not 60, so you dont have to do the 60 + 30 visa run trup anymore, however, i dont know about this or how true it is. Maybe someone else could help or ask the thai embassy there....................

Seems like since you will be in and out alot, you would be able to keep applying for tourist visa's from different countries that you would be in before comming t oThailand. Just remember, the free Visa exempt stamp ( you refered to it as a VOA ) you are allowed to get as many as you want, but the total days you spend in Thailand on one must be 90 or less in any 6 month period.

[dr_Pat_Pong]

It is still 60 days plus another 30 days by extension. The Thai Embassy is in Wellington, and there is a Thai Consulate-General in Auckland.

[kotitihaere]

Thank you for your replies

the problem we have with that is that we leave in Dec 2006 and will not be going into thailand until June 2007 and therefore can not get the visas from here as they have to be used within 2 - 3 months of applying

Any other suggestions would be most appreciated

[aussiestyle1983]

Your only other choice is to apply for the tourist visa's at Thai embassy's in other countries you will be in before going to Thailand. You would proably have better luck in a western country being a NZ citizen, if not, you will have to try one of Thailands neighbouring countires. KL Malaysia or Singapore would be your best bet, but as of late, most SE Asian countries are now only offering single entry Tourist visas...................

Or you could just just get a single entry tourist visa 60 days, extend it for 30 days, then do 3 monthly visa runs, giving you an extra 90 days, total 180 days. But then you would not be able to use the free visa exempt stamps you get from the visa runs for another 90 days, as you only get a total of 90 free visa exempt days per 180 days.