Notes and trip reports from the Travel Tracker team, plus a quick reference on visa-free, visa-on-arrival, and e-visa travel for Bangladeshi passport holders.
Travelling on a Bangladeshi passport
Visa-free (NVR) countries
A Bangladeshi passport alone lets you travel to 42 countries with no visa of any kind:
Asia (6): Bhutan, Cambodia, Maldives, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Timor-Leste
South America (1): Bolivia
North America / Caribbean (11): Bahamas, Barbados, British Virgin Islands, Dominica, Grenada, Haiti, Jamaica, Montserrat, St Kitts and Nevis, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago
Oceania (8): Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Micronesia, Niue, Samoa, Vanuatu, Tuvalu
Africa (16): Lesotho, Gambia, Burundi, Cape Verde, Comoros, Djibouti, Guinea-Bissau, Madagascar, Mauritania, Mozambique, Rwanda, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Togo
Visa on Arrival (VoA) countries
These countries let you collect your visa at an approved point on arrival, without any prior application:
Asia: Maldives, Bhutan, Nepal, Timor-Leste, Sri Lanka
Africa: Cape Verde, Mauritania, Burundi, Comoros, Guinea-Bissau, Madagascar, Rwanda, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Somalia
South America: Bolivia
Oceania: Tuvalu
A Visa on Arrival typically requires a valid passport, a recent passport photo, the applicable fee (card or cash), your flight ticket and hotel reservation, and a travel itinerary. It's usually issued within about 10 minutes at the airport, and is generally valid for 14 to 30 days depending on the destination's own rules.
e-Visa countries
An e-Visa works like a normal visa but is applied for and approved entirely online, with no need to queue at an embassy or submit physical documents:
Asia: Bahrain, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Malaysia, Myanmar, Qatar, Tajikistan, Vietnam
Europe: Albania
Africa: Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Republic of the Congo, Ivory Coast, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Guinea, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, Sao Tome and Principe, South Sudan, Togo, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe
North America / Caribbean: Antigua and Barbuda
South America: Suriname
With a valid Bangladeshi passport and the right visa, there are 161 countries in total open to you as a traveller. (Source: visaguide.world; requirements change, so confirm the current rule for your destination before booking.)
Trip report: Maldives - a tale of a thousand islands
The Maldives is a nation of roughly 1,200 coral islands grouped into 26 atolls, of which only about 200 are inhabited. Some islands are developed purely as private resort islands - overwater villas, beach villas, and the kind of scenery that draws travellers from across the world for a getaway of a few days to a few weeks. Our own stay took in three days at a resort's beach and water villas, followed by two days on a more local, budget-friendly "guesthouse island" for a very different, equally beautiful side of the country.
The water is exceptionally clear, with coral reefs breaking the ocean swell well offshore so that a calm lagoon forms close to the beach - shallow and safe enough to wade and swim in even for non-swimmers. Locals on the guesthouse islands were mostly warm about island life over city life in Malé, describing days spent fishing, swimming, and boating, and evenings around a fire grilling the day's catch.
Budgeting for a Maldives trip: flights from Dhaka typically run 35,000-45,000 Taka return. Staying on a local/guesthouse island can bring daily costs down to around 5,000-6,000 Taka for room and board. Resort beach villas commonly run 8,000-20,000 Taka per night, water villas roughly 40,000-150,000 Taka per night, and overwater villas with a pool upwards of 450,000 Taka per night at the very top end. Meals are typically 700-1,200 Taka per person at mid-range spots, though a single meal on some private islands can run 20,000 Taka. As a rough guide, a full Maldives trip can be done from around 50,000 Taka on a tight budget, or run into several lakh Taka at the luxury end - it depends almost entirely on which island and villa type you choose. Most travellers stay 2 to 5 nights per island, with the more budget-conscious sometimes staying up to 20 days across multiple islands.
World's highest rainfall: Mawsynram, Meghalaya
Mawsynram, a village in Meghalaya, holds the Guinness World Record for the highest recorded average annual rainfall - around 11,871 mm a year. Locals there use a traditional woven-cane umbrella called a "knup", worn over the body rather than held, which lets villagers keep working through the monsoon. If you're planning a Meghalaya trip during the rainy season, it's worth carrying a sturdy umbrella or rain cover as a backup - conventional umbrellas do not hold up well to the volume of rain in the area.
History note: the Kolkata-London bus route
Between 1957 and 1976, a company called Albert Travel operated what was, at the time, the world's longest scheduled bus route - roughly 32,669 km from Kolkata to London, taking about 50 days end to end. The route ran through Kolkata, Benares, Allahabad, Delhi, and onward through north-west India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Austria, and West Germany to Belgium and finally England, with sightseeing stops (including the Taj Mahal) and shopping stops in cities like Tehran, Kabul, and Istanbul along the way. A fully inclusive ticket - accommodation and meals on board included - cost around £145.