Experience in Turkish visa application

When I decided to go to Turkey for my birthday, I was a bit nervous because I heard that Turkey visas were difficult to apply, even when I applied for a visa through Saigontourist, they still did not commit, because we had never had visas to big countries. But my husband said, “Just submit, tell them I like your country, ok?”. I laughed, and also listened to him to prepare my file.

After successfully applying the visa, I have drawn some small experiences that I think can be applied anywhere:
• The visa application is for proof of travel purpose, willingness to visit their country, proof of financial ability to pay for the trip, and commitment to return after the trip so please submit all the required documents, even more (if available).
• Don’t be subjective! I have a lot of friends who have been to many places, but they are still rejected when applying visas to some countries, so please prepare the documents as detailed as possible.
• Freelancer (like us) can completely prove the work and income by freelance contracts, so when working with partners, remember to keep all contracts and remember to fully pay personal income tax.
• The person who is the owner of an individual business household (like me) can also prove the work and income with a business license, tax invoice, and revenue through the bank’s POS machine. If your store only collects cash, you can submit table of monthly sales but I think if submitting banking documents, the commitment will be higher.
• In addition to the savings book with the minimum savings (as required by each country), bank transactions are also important to prove your spending. If you are in the habit of using cards/ transferring money rather than cash, it is easier to prove your financial ability, because you can request the bank to print a statement to submit.
• If you do media-related jobs, mention this in your visa application, to show your communication skills that you can help introduce their country’s culture to your country. I think this is a plus point.
• Write a short, concise “letter” to express your travel aspirations (if you have time).

Information about the visa application documents, please read here: http://thonhiky.org/thu-tuc-xin-visa-di-tho-nhi-ky-tu-tuc
And other information about Turkey here: http://chaothonhiky.com.vn/

Below are our documents of visa applications. Our case is as follows: I am the head of the business household, and both os us are freelancers in production of culinary photos/ videos. Hope our sharing will be helpful for you who are doing freelance jobs.
1. Original passport valid for more than 6 months.
2. 01 photo 4 × 6 white background/ each person.
3. Identity Card (true copy).
4. Household registration (certified copy).
5. Marriage certificate (certified copy).
6. Business license (certified copy).
7. Tax invoice (photocopy).
8. Freelance contract in the last 6 months (photocopy).
9. Certificate of bank savings book balance of VND 100,000,000/ person (original) (3 or 6-month deposit is ok. We have 1-year savings book so it’s better).
10. Bank statement (for each person) of the last 6 months (original).
11. Porfolio of “The House with Two Lives” summarizing our main works.
12. Copy of some articles written about The House with Two Lives, about our freelance works.
13. Copy of some collaborative articles for domestic magazines.
14. Printed versions of website interface, fanpage, video links of interviews that the TV interviewed us or I was the host.
15. Invitation letter, schedule and visa declaration (already prepared by Saigontourist, so we don’t need to prepare anymore).

The Turkish Embassy is located in Hanoi and review applications for a long time (3-4 weeks), so you need to submit your application at least 1 month before your departure to be sure! Especially, if you are self-catering traveller, you need to submit sooner to book flights and hotels.

But personally I think, if you want to go to many places with good costs, you should book a tour. We wanted to try going there the first time, to see where we liked, so the next time we would be there longer, thus we booked a tour. The tour of Saigontourist was quite well organized with a not-too-dense schedule (there was still plenty of time to rest in the bus when traveling through the regions), good hotel (4-5 stars), lovely and caring Vietnamese and local tour guides, many desitnations in the tour that I guess if we traveled without a tour, only the cost for means of transportation would be quite expensive. The first minus point was that the meals were a bit boring, we had to go find something to eat by ourselves (maybe because of our nature of work related to food, we had different expectations than everyone else). The second minus point was that at each location, we were only allowed to stay and go around for a certain period of time and we were always at the end of the group because we liked to take pictures (but we had forecasted this from the beginning, we went to check the location, so we couldn’t explore as much as we usually did). In general, I still appreciate the Turkey tour organized by Saigontourist. You can refer to the trip schedule at the website of Saigontourist.

I hope that you will have an interesting trip like we did!