Why is getting a tourist visa so complicated?
Official visa websites frequently glitch and lose saved information, while customer support channels remain completely unresponsive to technical errors. These hurdles — combined with mandatory tour company requirements and endless application forms — leave travelers stranded for weeks, unable to complete their travel plans without major frustration.
What the numbers show
Counted from the threads quoted below. How we count
- The most recent one is from September 2026.
- It is not one crowd: 5 people on Reddit and 1 on Stack Exchange ran into the same thing.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
Found another way around this?
Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.
Why is getting a tourist visa so complicated?
- 1booking through mandatory tour companiesDid this help you?
- 2resubmitting online applications multiple timesDid this help you?
- 3visiting multiple desks at airport immigration to get documents approvedDid this help you?
- 4Skipping the ESTA and applying directly for a B1/B2 Visitor Visa at an embassy to explain situations in personDid this help you?
- 5Submitting a shorter 2.5-month bank statement to avoid showing the transactionDid this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“difficult to get a visa, must be with a tour company (I really hate going on tours)”source ↗
“Application was long, website didn’t work at times (I kept submitting my sponsors details but it never saved), no one would answer my calls or emails about website issues, after resubmitting twice it took almost a month for it to be approved”source ↗
“I recently traveled to Afghanistan to visit family. While I was over there, local authorities wouldn’t let me leave the country without obtaining a local paper Tazkira.”source ↗
“I’m now looking to travel to the United States and want to know how to handle the ESTA / visa process properly.”source ↗
“I want to be 100% transparent because I know lying on US forms can lead to a permanent travel ban, but I also don't want an automated computer system to flag me incorrectly”source ↗
“They make it so hard for people to apply as if its a first nation.”source ↗
“It's so awful im kinda feel like my head is gonna pop out. Such a big country cannot make a normal website ?wtf. I've been trying for 3 hours now.”source ↗
“How can I make this visa 😫”source ↗
“Are there any ways so that my mom can get a Schengen visa quickly here in the Philippines?”source ↗
“If I say that this transaction is the repayment of a loan, how suspicious will that look, and how will that affect my application, given all the positive situations around my application?”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 3Why do visa applications keep getting amendment requests?
- 7Can I leave the airport on a long layover without a visa?
- 10How to extend an international trip with visa and school conflicts
- 2Finding firsthand travel info for non-tourist routes
- 2Can I get a tourist visa while unemployed?
- 4Can a US citizen and a spouse on a visa go through immigration together?