Asia and Oceania

• Travel Summary
• Safety and security
• Local laws and customs
• Entry requirements

• Health
• Natural disasters
• General
 

General

Insurance

We recommend that you have comprehensive travel and medical insurance before travelling. If you are planning an adventure holiday (including skiing or climbing in the mountains near Almaty) you must ensure that your medical insurance includes air ambulance evacuation. You should check any exclusions, and that your policy covers you for all the activities you want to undertake. See travel insurance.

If things do go wrong when you are overseas then this is how we can help.

Registering with the British Embassy

Register with our LOCATE service to tell us when and where you are travelling abroad or where you live abroad so our consular and crisis staff can provide better assistance to you in an emergency.

Replacing a lost or stolen passport

If you lose your passport you must report this immediately to the police and obtain a police report.

The British Embassy Office in Almaty, at 97 Zholdasbekova Street Samal Towers, 9th Floor, Almaty (Tel: (00 7 3272 506191) does not issue full passports and, before setting off, you should ensure that your passport has sufficient validity and a good number of unused pages. However the Embassy is able to accept applications for new passports, which will be forwarded to the British Embassy in Moscow for processing. Please be aware that this may take between 4-6 weeks. Temporary passports, valid for one year, are available in Almaty and can usually be produced within 24 hours.

You should ensure that you have entered your next of kin details into the back of your passport.

Money

You should bring enough money for your trip. Travellers' cheques are not normally accepted. US$ are the most widely accepted foreign currency. However cash dispensers are now available in most towns. If you are bringing more than 3,000US$ into Kazakhstan you should declare these amounts on arrival into the country and when exiting.