India travel and visa information

Location: 
The wedding will be in Coimbatore, India. This is Prabha's hometown.
Coimbatore is a city/metro area of about 2 million people.
Coimbatore is located in the state of Tamil Nadu.

For most of you, your airport of arrival to India will be Chennai, Bengaluru or Mumbai. These are are the big cities in India offering a wider choice of international air connections. And, then you will connect to Coimbatore.

There are a couple of direct international connections to Coimbatore Airport - from Sharjah and Singapore.

Our recommendation is to look for flights arriving to Chennai or Bengaluru. These airports are convenient and provide easy connections to Coimbatore (~1 hour flight). The added advantage of flying via Chennai/bengaluru is that you can avail of the e-visa option of applying for Indian visa (see section below).




India visa: 
American citizens will need a visa to enter India.  There are two types.

A traditional visa requires you to plan farther in advance and send your passport to the Indian consulate, but it allows for you to enter to any airport in India (including Coimbatore, where the wedding will be).

 An e-visa is the electronic version of a visa.  You do not need to send your passport, but you cannot apply for this visa until closer to your US departure date and there are 16 certain airports that accept an e-visa (NOT Coimbatore).   Last time, we entered through Chennai and Jen used an e-visa.

Click on this link for all details on Indian visa application.

So, in terms of which visa to get, it depends a bit on your flight plans.