China Travel Forum

[Ann]

I am living in the U.S. and planning on travelling around the world. I won't get to China until about August of this year. Here's my problem. I know that in order to get a Chinese visa, you have to go to the embassy yourself or have someone represent you. I will be going to Washington DC next week anyways, so I figured I'd do it while I was there. But from the websites, it seems that the visa expires 90 days after ISSUANCE. is this true? it doesn't make sense, that it would start after issuance and not when you actually get to the country and "activate" it. I'm confused.

I'm having a hard time trying to find the right answers as all the embassies I call,I can barely communicate with anybody, or they transfer me to fax numbers (ugh).

Maybe I can apply for the Chinese visa while I am in Australia? Also, it looks as if they only issue 30 day visas, but I know visitors to have gotten 60 day visas..

I leave march 1st and here is my plans. Tahiti, cook islands, Fiji, NZ, Australia, Thailand, Japan, China, then onto Europe. So as you can see, I won't be in China for quite some time (August is when I get there). I was actually planning on taking a boat from Bobe, Japan into Tianjin (near Beijing).

Had I been flying from Japan to Hong kong, it probably would have been easier to have gotten a Chinese visa there..but now since I'm entering the country by boat, I feel like I should have this done before hand.



any help is MUCH appreciated!!! thanks all!

[Noel]

Three months sounds right on the visa expiration. And I'm sure you can get a visa from another country. Just don't worry about it until about a month or so before you're going to enter China. Also, you might want to try getting a visa in Hong Kong. I've heard (but I don't know through direct experience) that you can get visas in HK that are 60 or 90 days, and you can also get multiple entry visas. Most Chinese visas, unless you pay extra, will allow you to enter the country only once, so no side trips to Vietnam while you're in the south, unless you get a multiple entry. If you can't get an extended two or three month visa, don't worry. Get the 30 day visa, then you can extend it while you're in China by going to the Public Security Bureau (China's police).