Visa requirements vary from one country to another, depending on the relationship between countries. In some cases, a visa may not be required while in others, it may be granted on arrival for stays of limited duration. In several cases, however, a visa has to be obtained in the traveller's home country, before departure. The simplest route to a visa is to find out the rules and regulations, and follow them.

Once granted, a visa should be thoroughly checked for its validity, both in terms of its duration and any restrictions there may be on the earliest or latest date of entry, as well as for its type- that is, for single or multiple entries.

If one anticipates regular travel to a particular destination, obtaining a multiple entry visa is both time- and cost- saving. Multiple entry visas also make good travel sense in that they permit easy changes in travel plans. Those planning to travel with packaged tours should also opt for multiple or at least double-entry visas, because unexpected turning points in tours may result in having to crisscross the border of a country and, as a result, entering that country twice.

On a tour of Europe with my wife, for instance, we found ourselves having to enter Italy twice. We has only single-entry visas, but our helpful Italian tour guide pleased our case and managed to get us out of that tricky situation.

Flagging the visas in one's passport also makes its easier for you and immigration officials to locate the relevant visa simple and quickly, especially if you are a seasoned traveler with a voluminous and colourful passport.

Health requirements also vary depending on where you come from. In many countries, travellers have to show their yellow-fever vaccination certificates if they are arriving from some of the yellow fever-prone countries of Africa and Latin America.

The attitude of diplomatic staff seems to display a strange logic of its own, triggered by the location of their posting. As a general rule, I have found that the more remote the area, the more congenial the diplomatic staff posted there. The more diplomatically significant the country of posting, pomposity and officiousness seem to rule the day.

I was in a small West African country once and needed to make a business trip to a European country. It was a Saturday and the flight I wanted to take was scheduled to leave on Monday morning. On a very long shot, I walked up to the embassy compound which housed both the office and the ambassador's residence. Ignoring the "Beware of Dogs" sign, I walked in to the residential area, handed my business card to the only person around (who turned out to be the gardener) and asked him to take this into the ambassador, saying that I would like to meet him.

The ambassador emerged in a paid of shorts, greeted me politely and heard me out. He then made a call, following which an official came out of one of the adjoining houses to open the embassy office, and I was issued with the visa. When I asked the ambassador his name in the course of thanking him, he merely shrugged the matter off, saying he was merely doing his duty.