Flights and visas

Flights, travel dates, arrival and departure protocols

Each field-schooler makes his or her own flight arrangements ensuring s/he/they arrives on the days noted. Booking one’s travel ensures you getting the best price or being able to use points to book. You are encouraged to connect with your field school peers and to travel to India in small groups with other field schoolers, for both support and travel company. It takes about 24 hours, a dozen time zone changes, and two lengthy flights.

Each small group will be picked up at the airport by our travel agency and brought to our hotel. It doesn’t matter which major carrier you use. In the past, some students have connected to Delhi through Japan or China on Air Nippon or Air China, at a reasonable cost. Due to strained political relations, please do not route through China. The majority have flown east and connected through Europe on a range of airlines including Jet Airways, Air Canada, KLM, Lufthansa, United etc. Some flights route through Toronto. Take some time in fall 2023 to investigate the various options and share your ‘finds’ with other field schoolers.

When should I buy my plane ticket and travel insurance for India?

We recommend you wait until February 2024 to buy a ticket, but if you wish to proceed earlier, that too is fine. When you do purchase a ticket, we strongly recommend buying trip cancellation/interruption insurance as a precaution should there be unforeseen problems. You will also require travel medical insurance for your entire stay in India and/or a second country you travel to before or after. It should only be a few dollars a day at most. Airline-arranged travel insurance is often more costly than insurance you arrange yourself directly through companies like Blue Cross, AMA or through a website such as kanetix.ca. Your family may also have insurance that can be extended to cover travel. So check before you buy.

Note that full medical insurance is required, and you will need to complete a form for MRU confirming that you have insurance.

What about passport and visa(s)?

You will require a valid Canadian passport with an expiration date falling after January 1st, 2025. If your current passport expires anytime prior to January 2025, you should have it renewed by long before our travel dates in May 2024. We require your passport number for our travel agent for train bookings.

You will also require an e-tourist visa to visit India, and you may also require a visa for other countries you plan to visit around our time in India. Print off a few copies of your visa and passport and any other critical documentation.

How do I obtain an e-Tourist visa?

This is the official Indian government site that issues tourist e-visas. We have had good luck using this service for e-visas. For a 30-day visa, you may apply a month in advance of your arrival in India. When applying for a 1-year visa, you may apply 120 days in advance of your arrival.

When prompted for a name and address in India, please use our travel agent’s name and address:
Naresh Mahra
Sanoli India Tours
8 CSC Suvidha Market, Netaji Nagar, New Delhi 110023
E-mail : naresh@sanoliindiatours.com

Your travel is leisure in purpose because your courses are happening in Canada, not India.

Field Schoolers have typically received their electronic e-tourist visas within 3 days of applying online. When approved, go back into the website and print off a proper PDF of your e-tourism visa which includes your photo. You will need this to gain entry to the country. Printing the confirmation is not enough.

Best advice is to familiarize yourself with the visa process, which requires additional information from travelers with family connections to Pakistan, Sri Lanka and a number of other Asian countries, and we can discuss in the months ahead, the best option for each of you.

Travel & health insurance

All participants are required to confirm, by completing a required MRU insurance form, that they have arranged to have comprehensive out-of-country health insurance for trip including the dates of the field school, and for any other travel days you undertake before or after the field school.