If you are traveling internationally you need to be aware of the ever changing visa requirements for your travel. The best way to know for sure what is required is to be working with a knowledgeable travel agent and/or a good Passport and Visa company. The passport and visa company stays on top of the ever changing visa requirements even more than a good travel agent. While a good travel agent will know the requirements to certain countries they won’t know all of the rules for all of the countries. 
Why is this important to you? Recently Turkey changed their visa requirements for US citizens. In the past you could get your entry visa when you arrived into Turkey. For instance at the airport in Istanbul you could get your Turkish visa and continue on your way to the Blue Mosque. he suddenly one day Turkey announced that American’s needed to have the visa BEFORE they left the USA. If you were not staying on top of this, you could have gone to take your flight from the USA and been turned away at the gate for not having a visa. Or worse, had the airline not caught it, you would have been turned away when you arrived into Istanbul.
You can’t believe what is on the internet or being discussed in forums or groups. As I write this I did a search on the internet in Google regarding the new Turkish visa requirements that went into place 2 weeks ago. 95% of the information I found we incorrect. They were all still showing you could get your visa upon arrival.
Getting turned away when you are arriving to take a cruise departing from Istanbul can make for a bad way to start your vacation.Furthermore visa requirements vary depending on what nationality you are. Just because Turkey requires US citizens to get a visa before they leave does not mean that applies to Canadians, Australians or any other countries citizens. Another thing you have to look out for is what other rules does the country enforce on foreign visitors. For instance did you know American’s with a DUI conviction on their record run the very high risk of being turned away at the Canadian border? Does not matter than you are on your way to the cruise to take you to Alaska. You will never get to the pier.Checking with a Visa and Passport service who tracks all of these things is an absolute necessity when traveling internationally these days.
But if you want to look online quickly, we found a website which tells you based on your citizenship which countries require you to have a visa.Visitors select their nationality from a drop-down menu and instantly see, on a color-coded world map, which countries require a visa for them to visit and which don’t.
Tell VisaMapper you’re of Irish citizenship, for example, and watch loads of nations on the map turn to happy shades of green. This color means you won’t need a visa to visit them.
Say you’re from Iraq, though, and everything — with the exception of Haiti and a few small islands — goes instantly maroon to tell you that “a visa is required prior to arrival.”
A few counties are missing from the site, and you should double-check its data with your embassy if you live abroad or your State Department before traveling, but the map is nevertheless fun, addicting and educational. You can play around with it to see what travel is like as a citizen of different countries.
