Traveling is complicated.

For anyone who plans on doing any traveling, please be attentive to the boring paperwork that goes along with travel.

To travel or study in Chile for more than 90 days [I will be there for 6 months] you need a visa. In my case, I need a student visa, but, it was never really clear from the consulate's website what I needed to apply for the visa, other than three forms that were available on their website. I also could easily see from the website that it would take two weeks to get the visa once I had applied in person. Two weeks.... I wasn't really concerned with the amount of time I needed to get the visa. But, once I found out what I needed, I became extremely concerned. I needed and HIV test (takes 2 weeks to process) and background check from the FBI (16-18 weeks). When I found this out, I only had about a month left before I was going to leave.

My stress level was extremely high as I was trying to get everything sorted out, but I am very lucky. For most countries that require visas, you can't get on your flight without one. For Chile, you can apply for a student visa once you are there. Instead of paying the $100 fee for the visa, I will have to pay $100 when I arrive at the airport, which all visitors to the country have to pay.

The lesson? Get your visa, passport, and whatever other paperwork you need to travel as soon as you know you need it. You never know how long everything is going to take.