Consolidated Visa Guide for your Hard to Reach Neighbors

by Grant Martin on

Like many other travelers, I usually don’t spring for the easy-to-reach canonical tourist destinations. It’s not that I feel that I’m better than Cancun or a Royal Caribbean cruise around the Dominican Republic, it’s just that I feel like I should go to the difficult places while I still have the energy and wanderlust to get there.

Many of these places, though, have stringent visa requirements. And let’s get something straight before I continue: you need a visa for any foreign country that you visit — it’s just that most places you can get a stamp at the border or can get waved through without stamps or papers. Trust me, when your 90 day tourist visa is up you’ll still be in trouble, regardless of the country you’re in.

But to go places like China or Russia it’s necessary to apply and get a visa before you leave the country — often times several months before you leave. This can be as simple as sending your passport into your local consulate or as difficult as paying some draconian service to take your passport into the embassy, fill out the forms and charge you a hundred bucks for their “service.” Luckily, CNN has compiled a comprehensive list of countries in which you’ll need visas in advance and procedures to get them.

My advice: plan ahead and go to the consulate in advance yourself. You may have to jump through a few extra ridiculous hoops to get your visa, but that’s more time that your passport is in your hands and not in the hands of a middleman who could potentially lose the most important document that you own.

$30 Million Still Gets You to Space as a Tourist

by Jamie Rhein on

Today marks the 50th year anniversary of the day the space satellite Sputnik was launched into orbit by the Soviet Union. That day the space race was on.

These days, if you have the money to do it, it’s not uncommon to travel to space on a private venture. That’s what Richard Garriot is going to do next year. He’ll be the 6th private citizen to have this ultimate get-a-away experience.

Garriot’s heading to the International Space Station (ISS) under a deal made between the Federal Space Agency of Russia, and Space Adventures, a private American space tourism company. In a nutshell, a Russian rocket will take Garriot to the space station, the American company arranged for this to happen and Garriot is picking up the tab. This is to be a working vacation, though. While at (ISS) he’s going to be doing experiments for private research companies.

If the name Garriot sounds familiar, think Owen Garriot. Owen Garriot, is a retired NASA astronaut who spent time aboard Skylab and Spacelab-1 is his dad. Next year’s trip will be the first time an American astronaut’s kid has headed to space. The Russian’s beat the Americans on this account. Sergei Volkov, the son of Alexander Volkov, a cosmonaut, is a cosmonaut will welcome Garriot to ISS. You can read more details about Garriot’s upcoming trip on Space.com.

Manmade Archipelago to be Built off the Coast of Sochi

by Neil Woodburn on

Not to be outdone by their oil-rich colleagues in the Middle East, semi-oil rich Russia is now creating its own Slavic version of Dubai’s The World complex.

The World, as you might remember, is a manmade archipelago fashioned in the shape of our planet. The Russian version is slightly more nationalistic in scope and will be designed in the shape of Russia itself.

Federation Island, as it is expected to be called, will be located off the coast of Sochi, the future site of the 2014 Winter Olympics. Although the nearby mountains are a wonderful winter paradise, the beaches they overlook are Russia’s most famous and beloved. The 6.2 billion dollar investment in Federation Island hopes to capture some of that sentiment and become a second home to Russia’s upper class and deep-pocketed tourists–especially those visiting for the Olympics in 2014 when the project is expected to be completed.

For more photos, click here.

Why Everyone Should Fly Aeroflot Once in Their Life

by Grant Martin on

Russia‘s national carrier, Aeroflot, has made a lot of progress in the last few years. Once abhorred by the general public as a “dangerous” carrier (although their record is no more tarnished than any domestic airline), a few new Airbus aircraft, superjets and an international advertising campaign have surged the company into the present. Now you too can enjoy the paltry legroom in coach, paper-thin seats and an indifferent, completely hostile ground crew.

But Aeroflot has one juicy perk that most other carriers don’t have: a delightful communist past. And though most of the crew and staff are tight lipped about the Soviet days, some of their aircraft ooze it.

Enter the Tupolev Tu-154.

The first time you see a Tu-154, your first thought is that you’re getting onto a Russian bomber. Perhaps because its got that glass nose cone, slightly reminiscent of the B-17 (think Memphis Belle) or the tri-engine superjet configuration– something about the design makes you think that you’re going to be flying through some heavy flak over the English Channel, need to strap your double seatbelt across your chest and put on your aviator goggles.

On the inside of the plane you’ll initially think that you’re on any old domestic carrier. Closer inspection to the finer details reveals the beauty though: tarnished metal air vents, operational ash trays that aren’t screwed shut and old worn upholstery make one wonder how long its been since this bird has had an overhaul.

Why does this make you want to fly Aeroflot? Because its a living piece of history. As you hear the three engines rev up on Pulkovo’s 10R runway and the aluminum starts to strain as the Tupolev gains speed, you think of how this ancient piece of machinery was once built. Through the cold war, through the end of the Gorbachev and the demise of the USSR, Russia was not too long ago a forlorn and desolate place. How much change in the communist landscape has this aircraft seen? How has the political climate matured as flight 54 flew back and forth between St. Petersburg and Moscow?

Landing in Sheremetyevo outside of Moscow, you see the IKEA just outside of the airport grounds and will soon be among the oil tycoons, their 7 dollar espressos and their sports cars now common in this cosmopolitan city. In the society that’s quickly leaving the dark days of Communism behind, its nice to have a brief look into what Russia once was. Strange that it’s from 30,000 feet.

Russia’s Own Superjet Unveiled

by Iva Skoch on

It seems that everyone who has flown Aeroflot, the Russian airline, has some sort of crazy story, either from takeoff (pilot sitting on a crate of beers), landing (wheels falling off), or mid-air (the doors not being completely closed causing the cabin to get freezing cold). Those could all be urban legends, but the truth is, their planes tend to be old. All this could change very soon.

Russia just introduced their brand new plane: Sukhoi’s Superjet 100, the first Russian commercial airliner designed since the end of the Soviet Union. As a mid-range passenger liner with 75 or 95 seats, it will compete directly with Brazil’s Embraer and Canada’s Bombardier. Good news, folks.

Flying Aeroflot, assuming they will purchase these planes, might just become as boring as flying any other airline!