Which Countries Can You Go to Without a Visa? A Data Viz on Visa Requirements by Country.

So I was on Wikipedia a couple of months ago checking visa requirements trying to decide where we could go without a visa and came to a realisation that this is not a very user-friendly way to get the information. The table was sorted by country names alphabetically on Wikipedia so if you wanted to check just the countries where you didn’t need a visa it was a lot of manual work. Well not a lot of manual work but still isn’t everyone looking for ways to make life easier for everyone now? This might just be a first world problem though. So as an analyst faced with a first world data problem, I did what any other analyst would do and concluded that I can present this data in a much better way that is user-friendly and a lot easier for the target audience to absorb the data.

So, without going into too much detail about the process, below is the visualisation that I created. All you need to do is select your passport and then the buttons on the bottom left will show how many countries you do not require a visa to and how many you do require a visa to. There may be in some instances buttons such as disputed, travel banned or admission refused (Armenia). The colourful box next to the map shows the number of countries in each continent you can or can’t visit (depending on which button you select). To go back to the original view, just deselect everything you have selected. In hindsight, maybe I should have included a reset button.

Visa on arrival is categorised as visa not being required and the detail can be found when you hover over the details on the table on the right or on the map and it will be next to the Type of visa category. The details category shows any details such as number of days visa is valid for and any other specific details that is mentioned on the wiki page. eVisa and online visa is categorised as visa required even though this may be easy to obtain.

Please click the link below to see the visualisation. But have a read of the important notes below before hand!

Link to Data Visualisation

IMPORTANT THINGS TO NOTE ABOUT VISA!

• PLEASE TAKE THIS AS A GUIDE ONLY and check with the relevant embassy if any of the details have changed. Because let’s be honest Wikipedia is not the most reliable source. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT. I do not want anyone to travel to a country based solely on this information and be turned away from entering the country because they do not have a visa.
• The data was taken on the 1st of May 2017, and the only adjustment I made afterwards was to Qatar visa requirements. This is because I read on the news that they changed their visa requirements for several countries. Any other changes that has come into effect after this date will not be captured in this. Hence the importance of the first point.
• I tried to optimise the data viz for mobiles but not too sure how it will look on mobiles. For best results, I suggest using a desktop/laptop or tablet. Also, open the viz in full screen if it is not properly optimised to your screen on the blog post.
• Wikipedia was again the source of information for countries and their continents data.

All 197 countries can visit Maldives without a visa.

An interesting insight I found was that all 197 countries included in this list can visit Maldives without the need for applying for a visa. This makes Maldives joint number one in terms of freedom to visit in the world. I just find it sad that we Maldivians do not get the same flexibility when we try to visit other countries. Maybe we are just too small a country to matter or we do not have enough to offer other countries for them to give us visa free access? I mean our country only has a population of less than 400,000 so even if the whole population of Maldives was to visit, say a country like France, it does not even exceed the daily number of international tourist arrivals in France (stat taken from Statista). So please Maldivian Foreign Ministry, help a brother out 😉 .

Anyway, we shouldn’t be complaining because we can still visit 70 countries without the need for a visa! So that’s 70 countries to add to the list of places to visit! So let’s get travelling guys!

I hope you have enjoyed the data viz and found it useful. Please share and let others know that there’s so many more countries you can visit easily. I am hoping to create more travel related data vizzes in the future so please subscribe for more.

Happy Travels!

Bobbé

Sources:

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Visa_requirements_by_nationality

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependent_territories_by_continent_(data_file)

https://www.statista.com/statistics/436536/total-number-of-inbound-arrivals-in-france/