On tourist visa in UK, where can I travel outside UK?
 

Hello,
I'm on a UK tourist visa in London visiting family here. I come from India and I have an Indian passport. I have been in London for a month now and have traveled a lot in London and Scotland. I would like to travel outside UK (either in Europe or somewhere close in Africa - 4/5 hours flight). I do not have a schengen visa but would like to know if I can apply for the visa from London (as I said I'm not normally resident in UK and am here on a tourist visa). Please suggest places outside UK that I can visit where I can get a visa on arrival or apply for a visa from London.
Looking forward to your advice! Thank you!

I believe you have to apply for Schengen visas (most of Europe is covered by Schengen) from your home country. I don't know of any visas in Europe that you can get in arrival or from London if you are from India...

I'm no expert on this, but I don't think it is that easy to get a tourist visa for a country through the consulate within a country where you are not a resident, but you could check. I mean you can't apply for a tourist visa to Morocco at the Moroccan Embassy in London if you are not a UK resident.

I know there are some countries in Africa where you can go and pay upon entry, but you probably don't want to go there, they do not include Tunisia or Morroco. YOu can go to Kenya, for example, or Tanzania and pay upon entry, even as an Indian citizen. Or other African countries where you probaly don't wnt to go, like Uganda or Ethiopia. You can go to Cape Verde, also, off the west of Africa, which might be the closest place in Africa you can go without a visa in advance.

Within Europe, I think the only place might be Ireland where you should be able to go if you enter from the UK, with your current visa.

I think you're going to have to check with the embassies of the countries you want to visit - since most of us are totally unfamiliar with rules regarding visas for citizens of India. Esp for Americans this is mostly a mystery since we don't need visas for UK or europe - except Russia that I am aware of - and Turkey, but you get that in the airport on the way in.

Perhaps if there is another Indian citizen on the board they might be able to provide more info.

Under some circumstances you may now enter the Irish Republic on a visa waiver programme. Read this carefully:

http://www.inis.gov.ie/en/INIS/Visa%...rch%202012.pdf

Note that the Republic's air and sea frontiers involve all passengers being liable to an ID check, and after its road frontier, travellers from the UK may be stopped.

Whether or not a citizen of country A can get a visa for country B while in country C is entirely country specific. I have certainly done it, in several different countries, but only the relevant embassy or consulate can answer your specific question.

"Whether or not a citizen of country A can get a visa for country B while in country C is entirely country specific"

...isn't the case in the poster's situation.

Visas for ANY Schengen country may be applied for only in the applicant's country of residence. In practice, apart from Ireland, this leaves only a tiny handful of countries it's worth even finding the website of their London consulate for, then ploughing through the (rarely lucid) verbiage on it to see whether they accept visa applications from non-residents.

These non-Schengen countries would be practical (if not necessarily rewarding) to visit. Remember: I'm not saying these countries' London consulates DO accept visa applications from non UK residents:

- Cyprus, Romania and Bulgaria
- Non-EU ex-Yugoslavia (Serbia, Croatia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Bosnia, Kosovo: all separate countries)
- Albania, Moldova, Ukraine, Belarus, Russia
- Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Turkey, Jordan, Israel

Though Turkey DOES issue visas at the arrival airport for Indians with a UK visa, the concession is subject to special conditions, so you still need to work your way through the website of the London consulate.

Don't trust 100% what you read here anyway..only trust offical information. Look online at Embassy websites. Your own Embassy might be the best to begin with as they know all the countries in one consultation.

Thank you all for your advice. I really appreciate it! It looks like my options are quite limited / none at all. At the moment, I'm going to try and call individual embassies/consulates to find out their policy and try my luck, I'm thinking of calling Egypt and Turkey.

I am aware that I can travel to Ireland, but having spent some time in Scotland, I was hoping for a change in landscape. Any thoughts on this?

Thank you all for your REALLY helpful advice!

I would not agree that your options are limited. I have been to everywhere on flanner's list aside from Cyprus, Belarus, Kosovo, Israel and Tunisia, and would have no problem going back to any of them (well, aside perhaps from Molodova!) and can definitely recommend some of them, especially Turkey.

Depends on what you're looking for - beaches (Croatia), scenery (Macedonia), history (all of them), architecture, etc. Probably top of my list for repeat visits currently are Ukraine and Romania.

"I can travel to Ireland, but having spent some time in Scotland, I was hoping for a change in landscape"

May look differently to someone living near a Rajasthan desert or halfway up a Himalaya, but I'd say Ireland and Scotland have very different landscapes - and different cultures (The Irish think much more like the English.)

The weather's different too. Ireland's considerably warmer (in a recent conversation with an Irish gardener, I was receiving commiserations on the perceived harshness of a Cotswold winter: quite right, too, since snow's close to unheard of in the Republic). Don't let that rain fool you: it's only a bit of an exaggeration to say you (well, I) can walk round Ireland in shirtsleeves almost every day of the year.

As long as I've got an umbrella. Think Assam with far, far, lighter rain.

Here's a list, confirm with each embassy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_re...ndian_citizens