I got my USA Tourist visa (10-YEAR MULTIPLE ENTRY VISA!!) last September 2015 while I was on a tourist - free visa in Bogota, Colombia (South America). If you're from the Philippines, we get 90-days free entry in Colombia! I checked the rules on the USA Immigration if I will be allowed to apply for a tourist visa outside of my home country (the Philippines) and it says that everyone can apply ANYWHERE in the world even without residency but you just have to prove and give a valid reason why you're applying there!

MY TIP: Wag mo kagad unahan ang sarili mo na ma-rereject ang visa mo.. believe in yourself! Kung ikaw hindi maniniwala.. yung consul pa kaya?

Here's a quick story that I wrote last September 30, 2015: Some people told me that I wouldn’t be able to get a USA visa, because I have to apply it in my home country (Philippines) and I have to provide a lot of evidence, but I decided to try my luck last week! I filled out the form online (and submitted some of these requirements/ I declared that I was unemployed since travel blogging is still hard to prove as a full-time work). I have my Aunt in the USA but she's not sponsoring my trip so I didn't have to talk about her on my application (the Consul only asked her name and address during the interview, nothing else). Here are the documents that I submitted on the online application:

Passport - Old and New with ALL the stamps
Philippines Bank Statement - I had around 80,000 Philippines pesos that time.
Letter with planned Travel Itinerary in the USA, Caribbean, and Central America
Old Job - Certification when I was still in Iraq (I have digital copy on my email)
Travel Insurance

I'm a Filipino with a Philippine Passport and here's the story on how I got my 10-year USA Tourist Visa in Bogota, Colombia (South America)

After the online application, I needed to make an appointment for the FINGERPRINT and the CONSUL INTERVIEW. Luckily there was an interview opening this week, so I scheduled the finger printing yesterday and had an interview with the American Consul this morning. After 10 minutes of talking, she told me that my visa was approved and I would be able to get my passport next week! ❤️❤️ I was quite nervous, the line at the Embassy was very long - a lot of Colombians were applying for the visa (I saw a lot of them being rejected, it was hard to watch)

The interview went like this: The American Consul greeted me good morning in Spanish before she continued asking me a question in Spanish.

KACH: Sorry, I don't speak Spanish.

CONSUL: Oh right! Then why are you applying here in Bogota? Why do you need the USA visa?

KACH: Ahm, I just arrived here last month and we've been actually traveling around South America for over a year now. My fiancée and I wanted to go to North America and go on a cruise to the Caribbean but I needed a USA Visa most of it.

CONSUL: So where do you live? In the Philippines?

KACH: I've been living abroad for 6 years now, 4 years in the Middle East and this last 2 years traveling around the world.

CONSUL: Interesting, it says in your form that you're UNEMPLOYED. How do you fund your travels?

KACH: I worked as an expat for 4 years so I was able to save enough money, then my fiancé and I lived and travelled in Vietnam teaching English, before heading to South America. We also have a travel blog which helps us save money in traveling - getting complimentary stays in hotels.

CONSUL: What's your blog? Great adventure!

KACH: Two Monkeys Travel - my British fiancée is the white monkey and I'm the brown monkey. Our story is actually featured on the Forbes website.

CONSUL: (She checked our blog in Google and the Forbes article) and told me that we have a great adventure. She saw that I have a pending Immigrant petition (which is approved, but on a long wait list), and she asked who my relatives are in the States and some other details.

Her final words were: YOUR USA VISA IS GRANTED! You'll get your passport within 14 days, just check your email for details. I got my passport with the valid visa within 5 days!

I visited the States for 5 times already and I never had issues at the immigration! #dreamsdocometrue

How about you? Have you tried applying for USA visa? How was it? 😍

P.S. It shows in their system that my family has a pending Immigration Petition and it was approved in 2005 (My Aunt petitioned us to move to the USA in 1995), it's already approved and we can move to the States but we have to wait for the Quota number of the immigrants coming from the Philippines which might take for another 2 years.