United States visa requirements
The rule for your own passport, from United States's official immigration page, with the date it was last checked. The same answer for every guide in United States: New York, Grand Canyon, Las Vegas, San Francisco, New Orleans, Denali and 35 more.
Travel authorisation requiredup to 90 days$40
Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Switzerland, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, Chile, Israel
ESTA under the Visa Waiver Program. Romania was admitted in 2025 and then suspended again, so Romanian passports currently need a full visa — this one has flipped twice, so check the official link rather than trusting anything written down, including this. Bulgaria and Cyprus have never been in the programme. ESTA is refused if you have travelled to Cuba, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Sudan, Syria, Libya, Somalia or Yemen since 2011 — those trips mean a full visa instead.
No visa neededup to 180 days
Canada
Visa required in advance$185
Every other passport
A B1/B2 visitor visa, with an in-person interview. Waiting times run to many months in some countries — start early.
How to get it: Apply for ESTA at esta.cbp.dhs.gov at least 72 hours before travel. Every other site charging for this is a reseller.
ESTA — required
When: At least 72 hours before you fly. Most come back in minutes, some take days.
Have ready: passport, a credit or debit card, your employer's name and address, any other citizenships you hold.
The page calls itself the "Official ESTA Application Website" in its own title, because the trade in charging for this is large. Valid two years, not per trip.
Official form · checked 2026-09-11
Entry rules change often and depend on your passport, your route and the purpose of the trip. Confirm on the official page before booking.
The guides in United States
New YorkUnited StatesThe city that never sleeps
Grand CanyonUnited StatesA mile deep, and no photograph has ever conveyed it
Las VegasUnited StatesA city built to take your money, and extremely good at its job
San FranciscoUnited StatesSeven square miles of hills, fog and other people’s ideas
New OrleansUnited StatesThe least American city in America, and the best-fed
DenaliUnited StatesSix million acres, one road, and a mountain that makes its own weather
YellowstoneUnited StatesThe first national park anywhere, sitting on top of a supervolcano
Los AngelesUnited StatesBeaches, canyons, and a city built for driving
MiamiUnited StatesArt deco, ocean heat, and a Latin American pulse
AnchorageUnited StatesA city with moose in the gardens and the whole of Alaska out the back door
JuneauUnited StatesA state capital with no road out, a glacier at the edge of town, and rain
OahuUnited StatesWaikiki on one coast, the North Shore on the other, and a volcanic ridge in between
ChicagoUnited StatesThe city that invented the skyscraper, on a lake with a horizon
YosemiteUnited StatesA granite valley with waterfalls down both walls, the biggest cliff face in North America at one end, and sequoias older than most countries
ZionUnited StatesA canyon of red sandstone you walk up the middle of, in the river, with a cliff route so exposed it has chains bolted to it
BostonUnited StatesFour hundred years of American history in a city you can cross on foot
SeattleUnited StatesWater on both sides, a volcano on the horizon, and the coffee that changed how the world drinks it
NashvilleUnited StatesLive music in every bar on the street, from ten in the morning
MauiUnited StatesA volcano you drive up for sunrise above the clouds, a coast road of waterfalls and one-lane bridges, and whales in the channel all winter
MoabUnited StatesA desert town between two national parks, with two thousand stone arches on one side, a canyon labyrinth on the other, and the Colorado river through the middle
Hawaiʻi Island (the Big Island)United StatesAn island with eleven of the world’s thirteen climate zones, a volcano that has erupted in most recent years, and the best stargazing on earth from the top of Mauna Kea
KauaʻiUnited StatesThe oldest and greenest Hawaiian island: a canyon Mark Twain called the Grand Canyon of the Pacific, a coast with no road along it, and rain that made all of it
Washington, DCUnited StatesA capital of free museums on a two-mile lawn, cherry blossom for two weeks a year, and a metro that actually goes where you want
San DiegoUnited StatesThe most comfortable weather in the United States, a park bigger than Central Park with fifteen museums in it, and the Mexican border twenty minutes south
CharlestonUnited StatesPastel houses on a peninsula between two rivers, the best restaurant town in the American south, and the fort where the civil war started in the harbour
Key WestUnited StatesThe end of the road: 160 kilometres of bridges to an island nearer Havana than Miami, where the sunset is a nightly performance and Hemingway’s cats still have six toes
Bryce CanyonUnited StatesAn amphitheatre of orange rock spires at 2,500 metres, best at sunrise, and some of the darkest skies left in the country after it
SedonaUnited StatesRed sandstone buttes around a small town of galleries and trailheads, with the Grand Canyon two hours north and a vortex on every hill according to some
Joshua TreeUnited StatesWhere two deserts meet: spiked trees out of a children’s book, granite piles climbers come from everywhere for, and a sky with the Milky Way in it
Death ValleyUnited StatesThe hottest and lowest place in North America: salt flats below sea level, dunes, a crater and a painted canyon, all within an hour of each other
Glacier National ParkUnited StatesA road over the top of the Rockies past hanging valleys and waterfalls, with grizzly bears in the bottom of them and glaciers that will be gone within a generation
Grand TetonUnited StatesMountains that rise four thousand metres straight out of a flat valley with no foothills, a river of moose and beavers under them, and Yellowstone an hour north
Big SurUnited StatesNinety miles of cliff road between the mountains and the Pacific, with redwoods in the canyons and nowhere to stay that is not booked months ahead
Napa ValleyUnited StatesThirty miles of vineyards between two ranges, four hundred wineries on them, and a train and a balloon to see it from
Lake TahoeUnited StatesA lake of startling blue at 1,900 metres with mountains all round it, a dozen ski resorts on them, and a casino strip where the state line crosses the shore
AustinUnited StatesLive music every night of the week, barbecue worth queueing three hours for, and a river full of swimmers in a city that hits 38°C
PortlandUnited StatesA city of bookshops, food carts and bridges under a volcano, with the Columbia gorge and the Pacific each an hour away
PhiladelphiaUnited StatesWhere the country was declared, with the art museum steps Rocky ran up, a covered market since 1893, and the best cheesesteak argument in America
SavannahUnited StatesTwenty-two garden squares under live oaks hung with Spanish moss, a river of cargo ships at the end of the street, and open containers allowed on it
Santa FeUnited StatesThe oldest capital in the country, built of adobe at 2,100 metres, with the light that brought the painters and green chile on everything
Palm SpringsUnited StatesMid-century modern houses under a 3,000-metre mountain, a tram to the snow at the top of it, and two hundred days of sun a year