A step by step visa guide to the USA

** disclaimer: This is a sponsored post but this does not alter the fact that I share my own honest experiences about this service**

With the summer ahead, everyone longs for a well-deserved vacation. We are also counting down the days till our next travel adventure. Within a week we are traveling to the other side of the world, the United States. We are planning an unforgettable road trip through the Deep South. We are eager to discover the local culture. With all the hours that we’ve already spend planning our itinerary, we forgot that we need a visa to enter the USA in addition to the traditional travel documents. In my online search to arrange the visa as quickly as possible, I ended up on a super interesting website. Here you can apply for the right visa for your travel destination in a very easy and efficient way.

Because I find this an interesting and very important subject, I am happy to devote a blog post on how you can obtain your visa for the United States step by step via the website above.

A step by step visa guide to the USA

1- Which visa do you need?

Go to the website and see which visa you need. We travel to the United States and therefore need an ESTA.

Click on apply for ESTA on the homepage or go directly to the correct webpage.

If its your first time applying for an ESTA, you can watch an introduction video. At the top of the webpage you must enter some personal information. After that, you can click through to the official questionnaire.

3- Questionnaire

This questionnaire is certainly not such a huge task. Everything is explained very clearly and you only have to follow the steps. To complete the questionnaire, it’s useful to have a few travel documents at hand such as your international passport, national register number and travel itinerary. To start you must enter a few contact details.

Then you will be asked for your travel information, such as when you arrive or where you will stay. Don’t you know yet where you will stay or are you making a road trip like us and your accomodation is not planned yet, don’t panic. You can click on “unknown” as answer to this question.

Afterwards they will go into your personal details. Do you have trouble finding the correct information? No worries, in the strip on the right, you can always find an explanation of where and on which document the info you need can be found.

Finally, the questionnaire closes with a few background questions. Don’t be put off by these questions. This is just a standard procedure when applying for a visa for the United States.

When you have completed the questionnaire, you can add a fellow traveler and then this person must go through the same questionnaire.

When everyone completed the questionnaire,  click on apply for ESTA.

4- Control and payment

In the last step you will be asked to double-check all the information that you have already entered. Do this carefully because a small mistake is easily made. Finally, you close the entire process of the application with the payment. You can choose from various payment options.

5- Confirmation and follow up

After payment you will receive a confirmation email confirming that the payment has been received. You can also follow up your ESTA application via the link in this email.

6- Approval

An hour after the application, we already received confirmation via email that our ESTA application had been approved.

You can print the document, but this isn’t necessary. Your ESTA is linked to the international passport that you used to complete the questionnaire. So make sure you don’t forget this during your trip. Even if something changes in your passport (expired, theft, loss, etc.), you must request a new ESTA document.

Applying for an ESTA, visa for the United States, has never been this easy. The website is very well structured, everything is explained down to the smallest detail and you only have to follow the steps. The entire process takes just 10 minutes of your time.

Thank you for reading.

If you have any questions or suggestions regarding this blog post, please leave a message below.

Yours truly,

Sarah

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Would you like to plan an unforgettable trip? Then be sure to check out this useful overview of my personal travel tips!

Skyscanner is the place-to-be to book flights. This useful travel comparison website helps you find great deals for numerous destinations. Because I travel a lot, I often use airport parking. I already had good experiences with Parkos and Quickparking.

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Would you like to travel with public transport from one destination to another? Then 12togo is the place to be. Here you can easily find transfers in several countries.

Being a travel blogger I get a lot of questions about which photography equipment I use to photograph my travels.

I shoot with full-frame system camera: Nikon Z6II. I have a few lenses, but these 3 are my absolute favorites when traveling:

• All-round lens: NIKKOR Z 24-70 mm f/2.8. (I shoot almost everything with this. Are you just starting to shoot? Then I would recommend this lens)
• Wide-angle lens: NIKKOR Z 14-24 mm f/2.8. (Architecture, interior, landscapes,...)
• Zoom lens: Nikkor NIKKOR Z 70-200 mm f/2.8. (Wildlife,...)

A tripod is also important if you want to take pictures of yourself, or if you want to photograph with a low shutter speed (dark space, night photography, waterfall,...). I use one from Sirui. For videos to post on  my social media channels with I use my iPhone. When I travel alone I take my Joby GripTight GorillaPod PRO 2 with me. It's a small, useful tripod that I can attach to anything. Do you want to learn more about how to take the best vacation photos? Then take a look at my e-book where I share all my photography tips. Would you like to be able to edit your holiday photos quickly and beautifully? Then my Lightroom presets are an absolute must-have.

I wish you an unforgettable time on your next vacation!