We’re not even officially started on our 10-degrees around-the-world trip and we’ve run into our first significant roadblock. If our first destination country is any indication, we’re in for a LOT of frustrating bureaucratic obstacles. Case in point: getting a visa for Kenya.
It should be easy. As Americans our passports get us in to almost every country in the world with the minimum of hassles. And so it seemed when I did the research for Kenya. Simply apply for an electronic visa on the easy-to-use website and boom! Within 72 hours you’ll receive via email a printable visa you can show at the airport on arrival and breeze right through immigration.
Great, sounds good!
But… which web site is the “official” government site? If you search for Kenya visa you get a page or two of “official-looking” sites, none of which turn out to be the actual government visa application site. All the poseurs claim to be official, and many of them are legitimate agents who will process your visa application for a hefty surcharge of a couple hundred dollars (the official visa is only 50 bucks). The true “official” visa site is buried in the search results. I eventually found it, and to my surprise it appeared to be a modern, responsive web site that was designed to be easy-to-navigate.
So far, so good. I clicked a few buttons and filled out the application and uploaded a photo of my passport and my face. It took less than ten minutes. Easy! Then the site directed me to the payments page. Almost done! Just 50 bucks, and I’m already imagining driving a Land Rover through the Masai Mara. Then…
PAYMENT FAILED.
Wait. What? I double checked the numbers. All were correct. I tried again.
PAYMENT FAILED.
I tried a different card.
PAYMENT FAILED.
I tried my debit card.
PAYMENT FAILED.
I called my credit card company and my bank. They reported no problems with the cards. There was a help line number on the Kenyan eVisa page, so I tried calling it.
Nope, my Greek SIM card didn’t allow international calling. So I spent an hour trying to figure out how to call the helpline from my phone, eventually setting up a Skype account with $10 calling credit. Finally I got the number to ring, assuming that a helpful Kenyan immigration officer would quickly resolve my issue.
Nope. No answer. It was Sunday, so maybe they didn’t work on the weekend. I waited until Monday, and tried again. Still no answer. I tried every phone number I could find for Kenyan immigration. No answer anywhere.
I’m panicking a little. It’s only three days until we fly to Kenya. Can we get in without an eVisa? Will they do a visa-on-arrival? I do some web research, and the answer isn’t clear. They’ve issued visas on arrival in the past, but there are many articles from early 2019 that state Kenya will move to an electronic visa only in the future. What happens if we show up at the airport in Nairobi and they won’t let us in? We have lots of prepaid lodging already lined up. Will we lose it all? Would they force us to leave? If they refuse to admit us, where would we go?
I tried different web browsers. I tried it on my iPhone and my Windows laptop. I tried using a coffee shop wifi, thinking the wireless router in our AirBNB apartment might be the culprit. Still…
PAYMENT FAILED.
Aaarg! I’m at my wits end. At this point, we’ll just show up in Kenya and hope for the best. We can’t be the only ones having this trouble with the eVisa web site. They want us to come spend our money in Kenya, right? They won’t throw us out of the country, right?
We’ll find out in 48 hours.
Update: read the surprising conclusion to this story…
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