Visiting India and Nepal next February

I am going to Nepal and India later this year.

For India, I was able to apply online. I received the ETA in a few days.

For Nepal, there is an online portal where you can fill out an application, but at the end it says you must now present your physical passport at the embassy or consulate. I used a third-party agency (PVS International, located just outside Washington, DC) to expedite the process because I was uneasy about getting the Nepalese embassy to send it back to me in Mexico. In the future, if I have to apply for a visa that requires me to send in my passport, I'd probably work with the embassy in Mexico City.

I took selfies with my phone. For Nepal, I printed them on photo paper using my home printer. For India I sized them on my computer to the size required and uploaded them to the online application. No problem in either case.

Supposely you can apply for your visa on arrival in Nepal. But we were urged by the tour company not to do that, as it can take several hours and delay your entry.

I applied for and received both ETAs well before the 30 days prior to entry. Both indicate that they are valid for one year after the date of issue.

I will be applying for a new India VOA visa in the next 10-15 days so will reply back to what my experience is - my flight is towards the end of the month.

For Nepal, I had a good friend who went hiking there in April and I believe got the visa on arrival. I will check with her and update this post.

Re: weather in February - it will be quite chilly and likely foggy early in the mornings. I wouldn't be surprised if temps get into the low 40s. Definitely take a fleece. The day time temps should be fairly comfortable. Not sure if your tour of the Taj will be first thing in the morning (lesser crowds); if so, you will want a fleece.

We applied online for our visa from India for our trip last November. We had our visas within a few days of applying online. For the Nepalese visa, we were told by the tour company to get it on arrival in Nepal. They have computer kiosks for you to use at the Kathmandu airport for doing the visa application and a helpful person there to help you if you have any questions during the application process. It only took us about 15 minutes on arrival to get our Nepalese visas.

For weather information I like www.wunderground.com. They have a section for historical weather you can check my day, month, year. Checking the same dates over several years gives you some sense of the likely variability.

I applied for an online business visa to attend a work meeting in India last year- I was actually rejected (the first time this happened to me with any visa application) because some registration number was missing on the invitation letter from the organisation hosting the meeting I was attending, and I was advised to reapply in person at the visa centre, where I was then granted one. I did a bit of Googling and found it's common for people to be rejected from the online application for minor things, both for business and tourist visas- so be very careful with the paperwork, since you don't get back the visa fee if you're rejected and you'll have to pay again.

I visited Nepal some time ago (2019) but was able to get a visa on arrival very easily. I don't remember the process taking very long.

I've been to Delhi and the Taj Mahal in February and the weather was extremely pleasant- I think that's meant to be the nicest time of year in that area. Sunny but not too hot.

An Indian visa is very simple, but as noted, pay attention to detail - they're very picky and will reject based on the slightest error. I'm in the process of applying now for Overseas Citizenship of India (OCI), and it's been tricky. But a visa for tourism is easy.

Re photos, India has a specific size that may not match your standard passport size - it's worth getting one taken by a passport photo place - if you tell them it's for an Indian visa they will know the format.

Weather in Delhi and Agra in Feb is cool - very pleasant .