Lebanon was on our radar for a long time and we finally managed to fit it into our last trip. It definitely delivered what we expected and went beyond. I’m so excited to go through what we have done and share what we have seen and experienced with you but before that let’s have a quick look on planning tips for visiting Lebanon.
Unfortunately Lebanon is not a top tourist destination and it is a shame, but that’s why you can not find enough information on internet about entry into Lebanon and visa requirements. Here I’ll share our first hand experience based on our last month visit.
How to get to Lebanon?
Lebanon is located between Turkey, Syria, Jordan and Israel and of course Mediterranean sea. It used to be easy to drive to Beirut or get on the bus to go between Damascus and Beirut but unfortunately it is not a feasible option in the current situation. For obvious reasons , flying from Israel to Beirut is also out of question, So for us the obvious choice was either flying from Istanbul or Amman to Beirut. You can definitely fly directly from Europe to Beirut as well but because of it’s location, it is really easy to fit Lebanon to your itinerary if you are visiting Turkey or Jordan.
Main airline of the Lebanon is Middle east airlines and it runs daily flight to Istanbul and Amman. We paid 100 usd to fly from Istanbul, booked it online from their website easily and the cost covered the seat selection and 30 kg of luggage Definitely recommended.
If you want to fly from Jordan, you can use Lebanese airline or Royal Jordanian airline. From Jordan, it is more expensive because they can not take the direct Amman- Beirut route and although it is a shorter distance they have to make a detour to get to Beirut. I’ll explained more about that on our post for the second leg of the journey, Beirut to Amman.
The other item to consider when selecting your itinerary is the direction! If you want to visit let’s say Lebanon, Jordan and Israel, you definitely have to do the Lebanon first and then fly to Jordan and visit Israel through Jordan. If you start with Jordan and Israel, you can not enter Lebanon afterward, looks tricky but it shows how important it is to plan carefully when visiting this region. I’ll get into more details in Lebanon visa section.
Lebanon Visa Requirement
Based on the visa requirement map, we needed visa on arrival, but apparently visa on arrival is just a stamp without any cost so entry to Lebanon is free for all the countries highlighted in Green and blue. The process was easy in Beirut airport.
The airport was under renovation so the arrival hall was really tight but the process was nice and easy and we got our entry stamp in our passports easily. Some useful first hand information on Lebanon visa:
- The immigration officer will check every single page of your passport for Israeli visa or the Jordanian land border exit to Israel. If you have any of them, you can not get in. Pretty much most of Muslim countries won’t let you in if you have Israel visa in your passport, that’s why Israel won’t stamp passports anymore but Lebanon and Iran are also sensitive even on the Jordanian land border stamp from king Hussein Bridge, because they know that you eventually got to Israel. So if you have it in your passport, don’t try to get in as well.
- On the other hand, Lebanese government is giving you the same service as Israel. It means if you are worried that you don’t want to have Lebanon entry stamp in your passport because you are not sure if it affect your other visa applications or border crossings, you can ask them not to stamp your passport and just give you the pink card instead. They normally won’t do that automatically but you can ask for it and they check with their supervisors and will give it to you. We were travelling with three other friends and they all asked for the pink entry card and they all got it.
And we finally landed in Beirut, got through security, let the fun begin in the next post 🙂
