Everything You Need to Know Before Visiting Venezuela
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Are you planning a trip to South America’s most challenging country? We went recently after months of planning and talking to locals.
It’s a country that requires a lot more preparation than most.
Therefore I’ve compiled this handy guide full of everything you need to know before visiting Venezuela as a tourist in 2025.
I’ll be covering how to manage money in Venezuela, how to visit safely and how to ensure your trip runs as smoothly as possible.
Save yourself hours of scouring the internet for research purposes, as I will cover what you need to know here.
Bring a Printed Itinerary With Full Details of Your Trip
This isn’t France or Spain, you can expect to be questioned intensely by immigration when you first arrive here. Especially if you’re from a western country with politics that don’t align with Venezuela’s.
And unless you’re from Iran, Russia or Nicaragua, that will most likely be the case.
In some cases, I’ve heard of people being questioned for over 2 hours on arrival. We were able to get through in ten minutes however. And there were two key reasons for that: having a fluent Spanish speaker, and printing out a detailed itinerary.
Our itinerary included our flights in and out of the country, where we would be staying each night, and what we would be doing every day.
We attached printouts of our return flight tickets (you must have these before visiting Venezuela), our accommodation bookings, correspondence with bus companies, and confirmation of our pre-booked safari experience at Hato El Cedral.
You should book accommodation for every day possible before your trip, and be able to explain gaps for nights where you have none booked (for us, it was because we planned to take night buses, hence including the bus correspondence in our printouts).
You will save yourself a lot of problems by preparing an itinerary like this. Unfortunately Venezuela isn’t a country where you can just wing it by turning up and planning on the spot.
Make Sure You Enter and Exit the Country by Air
Whilst Venezuela is surprisingly safe, and nothing like the horror stories you tend to hear, the border regions are still dangerous and immigration officials are more likely to detain tourists travelling overland.
The Colombia borders especially are home to warring drug gangs, whilst border officials are much more suspicious of foreigners in these areas. Particularly people who fit their profile of a potential “mercenary” (often solo male travellers who have a military, police or journalistic background, with an increased risk for US passport holders).
The Brazil border regions are marginally less dangerous, but still not safe. Whilst the Guyana border is dense jungle, which is pretty inaccessible anyway.
I do know of tourists who have entered Venezuela overland from Colombia or Brazil, driven around the country, and left through the land borders without issues. This is risky however and I wouldn’t recommend it.
Venezuela is not a country where it’s wise to gamble with safety.
Have Evidence of a Return Ticket to Your Home Country
For some reason, Venezuelan officials are really funny about this, and it’s the one thing on this list we didn’t do during our own Venezuela trip, which led to a few issues when leaving the country.
We had return tickets to Bogota in neighbouring Colombia. We also had flight tickets a couple of days later from Bogota to the wonderful Peruvian city of Cusco.
Just as we thought we would be stamped straight out of the country without issues, the officials took our passports and told us to wait.
We sat for a nervy 30-40 minutes with no idea what was going on. In the distance we saw one lady combing through our passports page-by-page looking at every single stamp. And I have a lot of them!
A German man was in a similar position, and he was getting increasingly agitated as time went on.
Do NOT show signs of fear, or they may view it as you having something to hide. We were nervous, but kept our cool and sat quietly whilst the officials did what they wanted to do.
They were suspicious of the fact we had no tickets to our home countries (the UK and Paraguay respectively).
Eventually, we asked for our passports back, got them back, and were stamped out of Venezuela. But a lot of hassle could’ve been avoided here by having tickets to our home countries (get refundable tickets if you don’t actually plan to head home).
We never found out what happened to the German…
Arrive at the Airport 5+ Hours Before Departure When Leaving Venezuela
This is VERY important unless you want to risk missing your flight. And don’t think you can get away with turning up even just 4 hours early, because then there’s a real chance you won’t make it. Anything under 4 hours and you may as well just book the next flight instead.
The check-in process in Venezuela is slow, frustrating and poorly organised. If you arrive at the airport 5 hours early, you will beat the locals and be anything from 1st-10th in the queue once the check-in area is set up.
We were lucky, we were first in the queue, and by the time we had our boarding passes, the queue already snaked round to the entrance and would have taken hours to get through. As foreigners, we would not have made our flight if we’d arrived an hour later.
Getting to the airport 5 hours early seemed frustrating to begin with when no one else was around, and staff didn’t know where we needed to go, but it paid off big time.
As mentioned previously, we were held for a while when attempting to get stamped out of the country. Even if you do have flights to your home country, I wouldn’t recommend arriving any later. You don’t know when officials will decide to slow you down for some sort of nonsense reason, and this isn’t something worth gambling with. Flights from Venezuela are not cheap.
Everyone who has been to Venezuela recently will tell you this: get to the airport 5 hours early. They are not exaggerating about the time needed here, and I cannot stress enough how important this is to ensure you make your flight.
Do Not Use Airport Taxis
Using “official” taxis from airports can cause problems in many countries. Often they will scam you, and in extreme cases, drivers have been known to harm and even kidnap passengers.
Whilst this won’t happen in Singapore or Japan, we’re talking Venezuela here, a country where anyone “official” is not to be trusted, and that applies to taxi drivers too.
I’ve been told it costs US$60 for a one-way taxi from Simon Bolivar International Airport (the main one serving the capital) to Caracas.
We agreed to pay US$35 for our Airbnb host Antonio to pick us up when we arrived. And he turned out to be much more than just a host, as he offered guide services throughout our few days in Caracas.
By having a trusted local pick us up, we not only got a much cheaper rate, but had a reliable contact we could meet at the airport who we could trust to help us navigate what was a new country for both of us.
Do Not Say Anything Negative About the Government
This is a big deal here. Do NOT say anything bad about Venezuela’s government. This covers the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela (a term that has applied to the country since 1999), socialist revolutionary Hugo Chavez who led Venezuela from 1999-2013, and current leader Nicolas Maduro who has been in charge since Chavez died in 2013.
A relatively recent example of why you should not criticise these figures, is the arrest of politician Nelson Piñero on sinister “hate speech” charges for mocking Maduro on TikTok.
Whilst our phones were not checked at any point in Venezuela, I cannot guarantee this won’t happen to you, and would advise deleting any content that mocks or says anything negative about Chavez, Maduro or the current regime.
Antonio confirmed that criticism can lead to jail if the wrong person overhears you.
Don’t bash anyone associated with the government, even smaller figures not mentioned above. It isn’t worth the risk.
Download Yummy Rides and Ridery Before Going
There is no Uber in Venezuela, and just as with airport taxis, street taxis can be dangerous.
Fortunately, Venezuela has two Uber alternatives: Yummy Rides and Ridery.
Download these two applications onto your phone before visiting the country, and make sure you set up your accounts so that they are ready to use whenever you need them.
If you stick to Caracas, you may not need them at all, because the metro system is safe and easy to use (albeit frustrating at times because only a handful of trains are still functional, meaning waits of up to 15 minutes).
However I recommend having the apps ready just to be on the safe side.
Recommended: Speak Fluent Spanish or Travel With Someone Who Does
Venezuela is a Spanish-speaking country. And unlike somewhere that attracts regular tourists like Peru or Costa Rica, this is a challenging place to just wing it if you only speak English.
For starters, you can expect to be interrogated a lot when you first arrive in the country. And don’t expect the officials here to speak English.
Similar may happen when you leave, whilst I also know stories of foreign tourists who were held by police for over an hour in an attempt to extort bribes from them during their stay.
Away from the pesky authorities, the bus system is very chaotic here, and having a Spanish speaker to understand what’s going on and arrange everything is invaluable.
My Paraguayan girlfriend did a brilliant job of ensuring everything went smoothly during our week in Venezuela. And without her, things would have been ten times harder.
Venezuela was my 73rd country visited. It was by far the country where travelling with someone who spoke the language was most necessary.
Bring Lots of US Dollars, Especially Small Bills
US dollars are the primary currency used in Venezuela now, although bolivars are still used for small change.
Venezuela experienced severe hyperinflation which went over 1,000,000% by 2018, depending on what source you believe. Funnily enough, the government didn’t exactly make this data public knowledge, meaning the figures you see online may not be accurate…
Several currency devaluations followed, to the point where US$1 today is worth an estimated 200 trillion original bolivars. During my first Colombia trip in 2022, Venezuelan refugees in the streets of Bogota were selling handmade crafts, created using Venezuela’s worthless money as it had lost all of its value.
Whilst the latest iteration of the bolivar, the digital bolivar has a more reasonable exchange rate (US$1 was worth 68 bolivars when I went in March 2025, but 76 a month later), US dollars are now king here.
Almost all transactions will take place in dollars, although businesses rarely have enough change, so you will either end up paying more than expected, or receive change in bolivars.
To avoid this, you should bring a lot of small bills. Foreign cards are unlikely to work at all in Venezuela (my Mastercard didn’t) and unless you use Zelle, a payment system sometimes used in the country, Venezuela is pretty much cash-only.
You don’t need to exchange any money for bolivars. You won’t use them often, and will receive a handful in change regardless. Only US dollars are necessary.
Bring enough money to cover your entire trip. Venezuela is expensive and you will have limited access to money if cash runs out.
Also be prepared for unexpected costs such as bribing police (we didn’t have to, but other tourists haven’t been so lucky) and expensive food.
We ended up with around US$70 in US$1 bills, and many more US$5 and US$10 bills which came in handy on a daily basis. Only during our safari trip did we pay with larger amounts (US$400 for 2 days covering 2 people).
Purchase an eSIM Before Entering Venezuela
Venezuela is a country where you should make sure you have a SIM card to access internet when needed (Wi-Fi doesn’t always work well here).
This keeps you covered in case of emergencies, ensures you have access to Yummy and Ridery to order taxis when needed, and allows you to use vital apps such as maps and translation applications.
I purchased an Airalo eSIM for Venezuela, which made it easy to access internet whenever I needed it, and ensured nothing went wrong during our trip.
I always use Airalo for eSIMs as they are reliable and have helped me in trickier countries such as China and Venezuela where it’s important to have internet as soon as your plane lands.
Whilst you can purchase physical SIM cards in Venezuela, I don’t recommend this. This is not a beginner-friendly country to visit, and it is important to stay connected at all times for your safety and logistical purposes. You don’t want to mess around searching for a SIM that may or may not work.
Be Prepared for Crazy Supermarket Prices
The economic situation got so bad that some of the prices are the most ridiculous I have ever seen.
In Caracas we found a packet of crisps for US$29, a tub of cashew nuts for US$35, a box of Corn Flakes for US$22 and a tub of peanut M&Ms for a cool US$37.
Now you can find many goods for more normal prices, but Venezuela is not a cheap country. In fact it is quite possibly the most expensive country in South America.
It certainly isn’t one of the most affordable countries in Latin America.
You can find meals for under US$5 if you look hard enough, so you don’t need to pay such absurd prices. But you may get a little culture shock when you first enter a local supermarket here.
Don’t Use Local Buses
Stay away from local buses for short-term journeys. That covers inner-city buses and short-distance buses to other cities. Long-distance buses are fine to use.
In Caracas, Terminal La Bandera has separate areas for long and short-distance buses, so it’s easy to differentiate between the two.
I say this because the local buses are not safe.
Venezuela’s money shortages have led to pretty much all of the country’s transport falling into disrepair. Buses are battered and not maintained at all. I went on one in Petare with a hole in the shattered windscreen.
We considered taking a local bus from Caracas to San Fernando de Apure. We got on the bus, only to find there was a massive gash in the metal right next to my window seat, which effectively created a makeshift blade that I narrowly avoided slicing my finger on.
We got off that bus and took a long-distance one directly to Hato El Cedral (much better idea). But the local buses should be avoided for safety reasons.
Oh, and they are far more likely to be targeted by thieves. Armed robberies are less common these days, but pickpocketing still occurs.
Use WhatsApp to Arrange Long-Distance Bus Transport
Bus stations in Venezuela are chaotic and disorganised. You will turn up and find a bunch of people shouting destination names at you, with no way of telling which people and companies can be trusted.
You should find a booth with a company name on it and make sure they are going to the destination you plan to travel to.
Then you need to ask what day and time the bus leaves. But… this is Venezuela.
That means you should also take the WhatsApp number of the company, and make sure they contact you on the day of the journey to ensure the bus is actually going when it says it will.
This is because schedules often change and buses are regularly cancelled here.
Oh, and even if the bus is supposed to be leaving at say 2:00pm, don’t be surprised if it actually leaves at 4pm.
Taking a bus here can be frustrating. So make sure you are able to receive all the information you need just in case something changes.
