If you are in the US, the Indian embassy has outsourced visa processing to Travisa. See here:
www.indianembassy.org/visa.php use the link on this page to get to the right Travisa office. You must provide a lot of documentation to get the visa but we found the process fast and painless.

The south of India covers a LOT of territory. Asking for a "decent hotel" in southern India is like asking for a decent hotel on the east coast of the US.

Where to begin is by getting a guidebook and reading it. Also, go to the top of this page and choose India from the drop-down menu and you'll get a list of all posts about India. CHoose the ones that are trip reports and start reading. This will give you ideas, but is no substitute for a good guidebook.

We just got a visa for my daughter. It took 12 days from the day I mailed it until the day it arrived back at our home in Hawaii.

When you go to the Travisa site, they have a video that explains the entire process. I highly recommend that you follow it. I've ordered a lot of visas including earlier ones for India, but this was the most complicated yet.

Not only do you have to scan and upload your phot and signature, but there are certain ways you need to answer questions on the actual application, and then you need to fill them out differently for the visa order sheet. Along with those two forms, you'll need to to enclose a copy of a gov't ID showing you live at the address that you are having it sent, a money order for the fees, and a return envelope with postage. They encourage you to use FedEx, but we used a padded envelope for the US postal service certified mail, with the postage and fees prepaid (keep your receipt so you can track it once they put it in the mail.)

Ha Ha Kathie, i see you found the process, fast & painless. It took me over two hours to get the application ready for the envelope!
Once I mailed it, though, it was very fast and painles...!

We did our before you had to scan - not as complicated as it is now. But I loved their internet tracking of the visa process. We got 10 year visas so it will be a long time before we have to do it again.

When I got my 10-year, I just filled out a simple application by hand and mailed it in to the Consulate in San Francisco. At least I will be prepared when my passport expires in 2018...

If you are in the US and plan to use travisa, click on my name to read about how to avoid the error I nearly made in obtaining our visas. We too spent a little extra money and got the 10 year visa, and are so glad we did because we liked India enough that we plan to return. We had our visas in about a week.

thanks for all the helpful advice

Since we will be spending 2 nights in India this October before moving onto Bhutan, we decided to apply for the 10-year visa. We sent our passports out via UPS Ground last Monday and received them back via UPS Ground today (Monday - one week later).

It seems the Indian authorities use a different company in the US to the rest of the world. In Australia getting a visa is a painful process.

What is painful about it Rasputin1? I'll be applying for my visa in Australia soon!

Hi Carobb. The Visa Centre in Melbourne is in Swanston Street. People start queueing in the small area between the door and the lifts about 1 - 1.5 hours before it opens. There is no orderly queue i.e first to get there gets in first. People, particularly Indians will worm their way closest to the door so that they are in before their actual turn. Then you have to requeue to get your ticket (as in the supermarket deli). Then you sit and wait your turn. Early in the morning there are usually only one or two booths open. Some of the staff are polite and helpful. Some of the older women still have the Indian mentality that is used in all beauratic Indian government offices, banks etc, i.e. you will await their pleasure and if they can make life difficult for you, they will.
The electronic numbering system does not always function correctly and your number could be forgotten until you get sick of waiting to be called and stomp up to the counter and demand to be attended to.
Then they will go through your documents and will always want some document that they did not want the last time you applied or the signature is in the wrong place or some other beaurocratic nonsense.
And this system is better than the one they had when they were located out in Docklands!
I grit my teeth every time I have to go there to get a visa for us or my mother because I know that I will want to reach over the counter and strangle the person on the other side.
Print out all the instructions you can find on the website and follow them to the letter. Take them with you so that if needed you can point out that you have followed the requirements on the website. Also make sure that you do this just before you go there as the instructions can change from one month to the next. Take all the documents you need including photographs signed in a particular way. Also note that the passport sized photographs you would have had for your Australian passport or for any other country's visa is not acceptable here. It has to be a particular size and in the past could not be done at the post office. Check with the post office that they can do the photograph in the format required or else use someone like Ted's Camera Stores who are already aware of the format and will provide you with the correct sized photographs for about $8. Several copies just in case you need them for SIM cards if you are taking unlocked phones or any other document you may need when you are in India.
Once they have sent them to Canberra you should get them back in a week. You can either return and collect them fromthe Swanston Street office or you can have them sent to you by registered post for a fee. The turnaround is fairly quick - 7 - 10 days.
Good luck.

There is absolutly no need to go through this, carobb. I dunno what Rasputin is on about. Yup, I'm in Melbourne too - so this info is for AUSTRALIAN citizens.

http://www.vfs-in-au.net/ will give you this week's visa guidelines. Fill in forms - carefully - sign, add money, post. Done.

If cashed up, use http://www.visalink.com.au/

I do. I'll pay to remove the stress.

Six visas later I have still to visit a visa office or go thru any of this bizarre runaround. I have the distinct feeling that Raputin, his wife or Mum may be Indian nationals. That's a whole different ball-game.

Hey dogster! Good to see you posting again. I hope all is will. We will be on the Equinox Oct. 15th out of Rome should the cruise hankering call to you.

As for the Indian visa for us or more specifically for my wife who is a former Indian citizen it was a nightmare. It used to be easy. Just go to the consualte in Chicago in the morning, give them the papers and more importantly the $$ and come back inthe afternoon and its all done. Then as it turned out one of the fellows involved in the Mumbai attacks got his visa from the Chicago consulate and the name he gave was and alias so after that the proceedures changed drastically.

Rather than go thru the details suffice it to say it was laborious and all stemmed from completely contradictory information from Travisa. Several offices including the general office in Chicago, one in Texas and one in NY told us one thing but the office in Chicago specific for Indian visas only told us something completely different. Despite my wife having an old US passport WITH an Indian visa stamped in it we still had a very hard time. There was even a question on her application asking if she ever had any relatives from Pakistan. God knows what we would have had to you if she had.

We finally got it but actually hired a lawyer to go to the consulate with us the day we presented the papers to Travisa if things did not go well which sort of started that way as the recepionist basically told us without even looking up from her papers that we could not get a visa and asked us to leave!! Well I had already spoked to someone in the office, gave her that persons name "assertively" and finally got it done and got the visa the next day.

For me as a US citizen it was OK though its my understanding, at least then that if you were born outside the US and became a naturalized citizen you had to supply a translated copy of your original birth certificate. A US passport is not enough. I had to supply a copy of my BC as well.

The consulate requires that former Indian citizens give a copy of their naturalization certificate. OK. fine except that on that document it states its illegal to make a copy! My friend instead supplied the cert. number and they, the consulate, complied with that.

Others have had an easy time but we had it pretty rough. There such a thing as an OCI card for my wife which is basically a lifetime visa. We'll get that someday but after all this nonsense I'll gladly pay a lawyer to do this work.

Thanks for this info! I prefer the "low stress (less expensive half the price) option" so I followed the link above to the VFS website which states "The Government of India now requires all applications to be completed online." Ok no problem... Selected Tourist Visa - Online Application - Apply Now...read the application procedure, ok I agree, click on the link to start online VISA appliation... "you are now being redirected to the Govt of India network", ok... Firefox tells me this is an untrusted connection but we make an exception and proceed anyway (supposed to be a secure site!) but it won't load the page. Internet Explorer won't load it either. Back to Firefox, it's now accepted my exception and loads the site! Click on 'online application" link, can't connect to server... copy link and paste into address bar, takes me back to original Govt of India page... maybe they don't want to grant me a visa? After several attempts online visa application page finally loads... there is a link at top of the page to install their security certificate... have bookmarked the page so I can return to it easily(?)in a few weeks time!

The visalink site does appear to be much more user friendly and may end up being worth the extra cost...

A couple of questions.... If I am reading correctly, we have to post them our actual passports and they also require a copy of our itinerary. Is that just a matter of providing a list of places, hotels and dates you will be staying?

Typically, a list of places you are going, hotels and dates is just fine.

Visas do require that you send your passports in. So send them via a trackable method.

This is not rocket science.

Nope, but it was amusing at how dysfunctional that website was though....

The website works fine for me.

Welcome back, dogster.

I just tried again, same thing happened. This time I installed the security certificate. It did take several attempts to load the page as it couldn't establish a connection... maybe the problem was with my browser. I have the page open again now... Thanks for posting the links.

Thanks Kathie, information always appreciated...

Rasputin1, thanks for your reply. Think I'll go with the online option, now that it appears I can use the website (seems ok after installing the security certificate). There's also a good thread on IndiaMike about the visa application process from Australia.

No Dogster I am not an Indian National and not male. We are Australian citizens and I have corresponded with carobb when she first considered India a couple of years ago.

So, why on earth are you confusing her with all this totally unnecessary visa office business?

She asked for details of my experience. I gave it.

Topping this to say that you guys weren't kidding - this is truly the mother of all visa applications. We've traveled all over the place and nobody before has ever cared where our parents were born.

Mr. C just spent the whole afternoon crankily filling out the form and has not yet finished. I'm afraid that there's going to be an essay section.

Just read through this thread and saw JulieS's warning about going to the wrong site and having to redo everything - I can just imagine her call to tech support!

Given what Rasputin1 and dogster (and others) had to say, I decided to avoid the queues and stress as described above by Ras... Went for the cheaper of the two lower stress options, ie, VFS online application sent in by post. I didn't find the instructions on their website particularly helpful but managed to find some good "how to" info on a couple of other websites... the process was a bit gruelling as using Firefox was a nightmare... it would drop out almost every time you had to move on to the next page, so went back to the start on numerous occasions. I almost gave up, but decided to download Chrome and give that a try and it was a breeze after that.

Filled in forms - carefully - signed, added money order, posted via registered mail. Waited anxiously.... We had our visas in our hands exactly one week after we had posted them! We were able to track progress online and although it was a bit painful getting the application together, once that was done the whole process was very fast.

Be really careful though because we almost missed signing one page. I also sent in our itinerary, flight details and gave our agent's details as our Indian reference, probably overkill but we managed to get our visas with minimal hassle!

Yikes, just watched the video! Not rocket sciece, but one needs to be especially detail-orriented in this process. Hopefully my compulsivity will pay off!

Nobody is more type A than Mr. Crosscheck. He meticulously screened the video yet screwed up several times along the way, and has still not finished. He seemed to be doing lots of scanning, retyping and muttering under his breath. At one point my signature was not positioned properly in the allotted box and he thought he would have to redo everything, but luckily found that he had saved a version along the way.

And to further complicate the process, we realized last week that I didn't have room in my passport for the visa. I ended up having to pay an expediter to urgently get me extra pages.

This is a good reminder to me to get my 10 year visa transferred into my new passport.

Nobody is more type A than Mr. Crosscheck. He meticulously screened the video, yet screwed up several times along the way. It is now Day 2 and has still not finished. He seems to be doing lots of scanning, retyping and muttering under his breath.

He said to tell you that he had to call Travisa in SF to find out whether to upload the photo on p. 3 of the govt. form. Travisa acknowledged that the video was not clear and said that the photo only gets uploaded on the Travisa form.

Finally, the task was almost complete...and a checklist appeared showing that my signature was not positioned properly - there was one squiggle outside the allotted box. For a tense moment, Mr. C thought he would have to redo everything, but luckily found that he had saved an unsigned version along the way.

And to further complicate the process, we realized last week that I didn't have enough room in my passport for the visa (which I'm assuming will be humongous). Ended up having to pay an expediter to urgently get me extra pages.

You are really fortunate being able to get 10 year visas.
US 10 yrs, Europe 5yrs, Australia 6 months...

I agree! After all that work, I want the visa to last for a while.

They must mean that it's easy to get your visa approved once you deal with the bureaucracy of the forms. But out of 50+ countries that we've visited, this was by far the most detailed and time consuming visa application process...and probably the first online form I've seen that needed a video to explain how to fill it out.

carobb - What's the deal with 6 months? You'd think they'd want to encourage tourism from Australia?

Yes crosscheck, you would. I don't get it either. Though I note that there are 8 pages of questions for Indians applying for a tourist visa in Australia which allows them to stay for up to 12 months... there are some questions that I didn't have to answer to get an Indian visa, such as who in my family won't be travelling with me and providing evidence of funds...

Farhan: Take it from one whose been there. It can be a nightmare sometimes. Definitely not easy. My wife, a US citizen now but who was born in India went thru hell to get her visa. Never underestimate the workings of the Indian bureaucrat mindset.

I'm now in the middle of the application process - and am so glad I read this before I started it.

Crosscheck, it was thanks to your post that I was able to convince my husband that we don't upload the photo on the gov't VISA form, but will do it when we complete the Travisa form.

I'm now muddling through the Travisa application - will finish tomorrow, I hope.

Keep us posted on your progress please. Some get lucky, others.........

Passports with visa have arrived! We sent it out on Saturday, 9/15, and we had it in hand on Monday, 9/24! In fact, the first delivery attempt was on Friday, 9/21, but no one was home. So they get many plusses for the speed with which it came through.

After all the stress over how complicated the process is, I have to say it wasn't THAT bad. The process was tedious and required one to pay careful attention, but was not really complicated. Watching the video helped a lot and reading this post helped clarify some of the confusion.

And Travisa was helpful with specific questions we had, especially when it came time to mail the package in. I get very obsessive about the details and could not wrap my head around how, exactly, to paste the labels on the Fed Ex package with 2 different forms. But here, Travisa was very helpful, and it was really less complicated than I made it.

And so, we have in hand, our visas -- sadly, we got them for 6 months, but should we go back, we know how to apply for the visa, at least!

So happy to hear it worked out well for you!

This process has been trying, but it's not the worst visa application I've had to deal with. I did not read every single entry on the thread, but something I thought was unclear was where they ask you to list every country you've visited in the last 10 yrs. We travel extensively (actually had to make a last minute run to LA to add passport pages so that we had the pre-requisite 2 blank pages), and the field does not allow for much space. I read on some forum that you should add an extra signed page with the rest of the countries that you were unable to fit on the application. However, I found on a visa service provider site that you don't need to list all the countries, only as much as can fit on the line. Another problem that I had was that my driver's license that I was using as my proof of residency is under my maiden name still. So I'm trying to contact them to see if that's really a big issue. I'll update when I find out. Hopefully, they are better at responding by emailing than they are with picking up the phone.

Hi LanC - We received the 10-year visas without a problem and have much in common - had to go to an expeditor for extra pages and only listed as many countries as we had room for. Curious to see what happens with the license. Is both your maiden name and married name on your passport?