You probably need to read what I said - - which was some countries charge fees simply because western countries also charge fees. Was that not clear. Reciprocity Fees always sounded quite fair to me. Doesn't mean I have to like paying it though. Which came first I have no idea, but Australia has probably always charged.

I suspect a lot of the visa charges imposed by first world countries are because they got sick of people coming in on visitor visas and never going home, but for poor countries relying on tourism dollars to even a limited extent to retaliate doesn't make a lot of sense. A typical tourist spend per day double or triple what the once-off reciprocity fee would bring in so it is a dumb move to impose it and discourage visitors. Bolivia for instance charges us nothing so its economy benefits as a result. Why it charges those from the US is a mystery to me, but there is no doubt that Bolivia has a very good reason and it probably isn't just because the US charges Bolivians because I'd be very surprised if Bolivians don't have to pay to come to Australia yet we don't pay.

As for Paraguay not being worth paying $140 to visit (and not being able to get a visa at the border which is more to the point) - I can't help that and I guess neither can the Paraguayans. Maybe they will wake up eventually like Argentina and scrap the reciprocity charge and / or introduce on-line visas like Brazil has so even though they still charge for the visa, at least there is not the added expense of having to hang around in a city for several days to get the paper visa. Chile has never introduced the fee at land boders and now that Argentina has seen the light, I doubt whether Chile will go ahead with extending their fee and may well withdraw the one imposed on visitors flying in.

I did do a lot of research on Paraguay in the beginning and I decided - based on a few blog reports - that even if there was no charge to enter, there was no good reason to visit anyway and the high entry fees were just the clincher. Uruguay was similarly uninspiring but at least did have the huge advantage of giving 12 month TVIPs plus had a well established network of places to leave vehicles stored.

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Tony
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