Our $ / € 500 offer is ending in 2 days, don't miss out! Here are the trips that are discounted:
20 to 28 June, 2026
29 August to 6 September, 2026 – Photographer aboard
3 to 11 October, 2026
13 to 23 June, 2026
13 to 23 October, 2026
11 to 17 October, 2026
8 – 14 November, 2026
29 December, 2026 to 4 January, 2027
14 to 22 March, 2026
12 to 20 December, 2026
28 December, 2026 to 5 January, 2027
25 October to 1 November, 2026 ONLY
13 to 27 December, 2026 or 13 to 30 December, 2026 with Patagonia extension
13 to 20 February, 2027
The entire SFT team will be on this trip!
20 September to 3 October, 2027
11 to 22 October, 2026
Now onto this week's travel tip.
Have you ever needed to get a visa for a trip?
I am extremely lucky to have a privileged passport ranking among the top-3 in the world for the last many years when it comes to visa-free access.
This means that there is a very long list of countries I can visit without the need for a visa, and these are the ones I have prioritised. Getting a visa is costly, sometimes painful and often requires you to visit an embassy in person and leave your passport there, something that is pretty hard to do when you travel so much.
For a period, I had a secondary passport of the same nationality, designed for these situations where you travel a lot and need to leave passports at embassies to get visas. This is a rare circumstance under which Spain allows you to apply for a second valid passport with only a 2-year validity for precisely those situations.
If you come from a country with low passport privilege and high visa requirements, you have probably spent hours applying for visas and providing sometimes ludicrous documentation to be allowed to travel.
The most onerous visa I have ever had to obtain is the one for the US. It required a stack of "just in case" documents and a lengthy application process that timed out on me multiple times at the stage of entering all the countries I had visited. I then had to pay $160 and find a slot for an in person interview which is a mission and can take up to a year or more. Luckily, in Singapore I could get an appointment in 3 weeks while in Spain I needed to wait 364 days, and I now have a 10-year visa.
This week, I wanted to share resources to check whether you need a visa or other documentation for travel.
How to check if you need a visa
Since COVID, the world has become harder to travel around in, not easier.
More countries have added pre-approval requirements, health and custom declaration forms and the like, so even if you have a powerful passport, you still need to fill in paperwork to be allowed entry into a country.
This can sometimes be super hard to figure out, since rules change all the time.
Here are some websites to check if you need a visa or any other documentation to travel (and yes, I would recommend confirming with more than 1 source).
Emirates website
I have used the website from Emirates for many years to check visa requirements. It is thorough and it includes things like transit visas and considerations for your country of residence which can affect visa requirements. It will tell you if you need a visa or if there are other requirements such as passport validity, number of free pages, return ticket, etc.
Note: The website does not tell you where / how to obtain a visa, it just indicates if you need one.
I often check the UK one because British requirements are closest to Spanish and because when a visa is needed, they will link to the official website for it.
There are lots of scams online when it comes to obtaining visas and it is easy to fall for them even if you are a well traveled person. Sometimes, they will claim you need a visa that you need to process on the website when you can actually get it yourself online and for a much lower fee on the official site. This is the case for Vietnam visas with so many agent websites pretending to pose as the official that it is super hard to find the actual official site.
IATA Travel center
IATA is the International Air Transportation Association so one of the best sources for this. Most airline staff will look at the IATA or similar website using their info, to check whether you have the required document to board a place.
They also provide info on customs and airport taxes, as well as vaccination requirements, which is useful since some countries require you to show proof of vaccination for example for yellow fever, and it lists websites to go check or obtain documentation, which makes it extra useful to avoid scams.
Sherpa
This website is great and I have used it many times for this. They are a visa service agency, so they can also help you obtain some visas, but they won't make you think you need their services if you can get an evisa yourself online.
Their website is clean and easy to use and they provide links to official sites and very clear explanations on requirements beyond visas such as vaccination, custom forms, etc.
Wikipedia
If you type "Visa requirements for XX citizens" you will find the page that has all the visa requirements for your country.
In grey, it shows the countries you need to obtain a visa for prior to arrival, those are the more difficult ones that often need a trip to the embassy in the country you live in or the nearest country with an embassy. Above is the page for Spanish citizens.
These pages tend to be pretty accurate and updated if you are from a major country, but beware if you come from a smaller one, and double check with other sources.
2026 / 2027 Full calendar of tours
Xmas markets magic
See the full list of our future trips below. We are working on 2027 tours already so stay tuned for our Swedish Arctic and Ecuador's 2027 dates!
✅ = Trip is confirmed ☑️ = SOLD OUT 💃 = I or Meg will co-host these trips
🏔️ Kilimanjaro climb on Intl Women's Day: ✅ 1 to 10 Mar or 1 to 15 Mar with safari extension >> Book here.
🚗 Cuba: ✅ 14 to 22 Mar || 12 to 20 Dec || New Year's Eve >> Book here
🧘♀️ Bali: 20 to 28 Jun || 29 Aug to 6 Sep [Photographer onboard] || ✅ 3 to 11 Oct >> Book here
🌮 Oaxaca: 11 to 17 Oct || 8 – 14 Nov || 29 Dec 2026 to 4 Jan 2027 >> Book here
⛩️ Japan: 💃 ☑️ 28 Mar to 7 Apr [Photographer onboard] || ✅ 13 to 23 Jun || 13 to 23 Oct (Fall colors) >> Book here
🐑 Iceland: ✅ 11 to 18 Oct || 25 Oct to 1 Nov >> Book here
🍝 Tuscany: ✅ 13 to 20 Jun [1 SPOT LEFT] || ✅ 5 to 12 Sep >> Book here
🎄 Xmas markets: ✅ 21 to 29 Nov || 5 to 13 Dec >> Book here
🦘 Australia: 💃 ✅ 11 to 22 Oct >> Book here [Meg will host this trip]
🥘 Barcelona & Beyond: ✅ 20 to 28 Jun >> Book here
⛵ Greek islands sailing trip: 💃 ☑️ 29 May to 5 Jun >> Book here [Meg will host this trip, Photographer onboard]
🌴 Caribbean island hopping: 💃 💃 ✅ 13 to 20 Feb, 2027 [Photographers onboard, both Meg and I will host this trip] >> Book here
🐪 Morocco: ✅ 2 to 12 Oct [Photographer onboard] || ✅ 6 to 16 Nov [1 SPOT LEFT] >> Book here
🇦🇶 Antarctica: 💃 ✅ 13 to 27 Dec [5 SPOTS LEFT] >> Book here
🦁 Tanzania Value safari + Zanzibar: 28 Aug to 7 Sep (Great Migration) || ☑️ 11 to 21 Sep (Great Migration) || 23 Dec to 2 Jan, 2027 (Xmas + NYE) >> Book here
🇹🇿 Tanzania Luxe safari + Zanzibar: ☑️ 25 Sep to 5 Oct, 2026 (Great Migration) || ✅ 1 to 10 Nov, 2026 >> Book here
🦭 Galapagos sailing: ☑️5 to 12 Dec >> Book here [Photographer onboard, 1 SPOT LEFT]
🇪🇬 Egypt: ☑️ 3 to 12 Apr || ☑️ 30 Oct to 8 Nov || 4 to 13 Dec >> Book here
❄️ Swedish Arctic: ☑️ 28 Mar to 3 Apr >> Book here
