3 ms·

Is it necessarily lying? If you go to a conference for a hobby that's tourism, right?

pc86 3y ago
Very few people speak at conferences as a hobby. Even fewer speak at conferences as hobby about things they get paid for. Even fewer would be legitimately willing to do this if it included an expensive middle-of-the-night flight, jet lag, and a Visa application process.
- ghaff 3y ago
  I've done it. Of course, I didn't travel internationally just for the conference and I didn't need a visa, but I've attended tech conferences on my own--including speaking. Why not? And how many Europeans who attend FOSDEM or Americans who attend Flock (admittedly a lower bar than traveling internationally) are doing so on their own? ADDED: And people with hobbies/interests like, say, medieval history absolutely will attend a conference/event as part of a vacation even if it has zero connection to a day job.
arunarunarun 3y ago
Generally, when you apply for a visa, there's documentation guiding you towards the correct type of visa based on purpose of visit. Everything I've seen buckets conferences under "business visa".
xenophonf 3y ago
That changes the parameters of the hypothetical. Your original hypothetical was explicitly about misrepresenting the purpose of one's visit to a country, which one should not do because that's illegal. *OBVIOUSLY*. Whether attending a conference for a hobby counts as a vacation trip or a business trip would be a question for the destination country's consular affairs office.
patrakov 3y ago
> If you go to a conference for a hobby that's tourism, right? That's exactly what I was told (as a statement, not as a question) by an official a few years ago when applying for a visa for a trip to Germany.
- ghaff 3y ago
  I know governments aren't always commonsensical but it would seem odd if someone (not in the business) would need a business visa to attend Comic-Con or similar.

pc86 3y ago

Very few people speak at conferences as a hobby. Even fewer speak at conferences as hobby about things they get paid for. Even fewer would be legitimately willing to do this if it included an expensive middle-of-the-night flight, jet lag, and a Visa application process.

ghaff 3y ago
I've done it. Of course, I didn't travel internationally just for the conference and I didn't need a visa, but I've attended tech conferences on my own--including speaking. Why not? And how many Europeans who attend FOSDEM or Americans who attend Flock (admittedly a lower bar than traveling internationally) are doing so on their own? ADDED: And people with hobbies/interests like, say, medieval history absolutely will attend a conference/event as part of a vacation even if it has zero connection to a day job.

arunarunarun 3y ago

Generally, when you apply for a visa, there's documentation guiding you towards the correct type of visa based on purpose of visit. Everything I've seen buckets conferences under "business visa".

xenophonf 3y ago

That changes the parameters of the hypothetical. Your original hypothetical was explicitly about misrepresenting the purpose of one's visit to a country, which one should not do because that's illegal. *OBVIOUSLY*. Whether attending a conference for a hobby counts as a vacation trip or a business trip would be a question for the destination country's consular affairs office.

patrakov 3y ago

> If you go to a conference for a hobby that's tourism, right? That's exactly what I was told (as a statement, not as a question) by an official a few years ago when applying for a visa for a trip to Germany.

ghaff 3y ago
I know governments aren't always commonsensical but it would seem odd if someone (not in the business) would need a business visa to attend Comic-Con or similar.