1. DebConf data

DebConf23 will be held at Infopark, Kochi, India, 10th September → 17th September 2023.

DebCamp is from Sunday, 3rd September to Saturday 9th September, 2023.

2. Attending

Registration is not yet open.

Planning to attend:

Nick	DebCamp	DebConf	Further travel	Registration
Noodles	No	Yes	No	✅
jmw	No	Yes	Delhi day trip on inbound	✅
bootc	No	Yes	Delhi day trip on inbound	⛔

3. Accommodation and local transport

Hotel	People
Four Points Sheraton, Kochi Infopark	Noodles, jmw

4. Travel to/from Kochi

Flying seems likely to be the only viable option. Airport codes: COK (IATA), VOCI (ICAO)

4.1. Flying

There do not appear to be any direct flights to Cochin Airport from the UK. Qatar offer flights via Doha, BA or Virgin Atlantic will both fly to New Delhi or Mumbai and use various domestics to get to Kochi. Vistara is recommended for the domestic sector.

Name	Nick	Contact	Outbound	Return
Jonathan McDowell	Noodles	noodles@earth.li	BA0135 -> UK0517 arrive 9/9 15:05	QR0517 -> BA7003 leave 17/9 03:55
JonathanWiltshire	jmw	jmw@d.o	VS300 7/9, UK885 8/9	UK886 17/9, VS301 18/9
ChrisBoot	bootc	bootc@d.o	VS300 7/9, UK885 8/9	UK886 17/9, VS301 18/9

4.2. Driving

Almost certainly impractical this year.

4.3. Railing

Rail travel from one of the major airports (e.g. Delhi) is certainly feasible, but will likely take two or more days.

5. Entry requirements

UK residents require a visa. A Conference e-Visa is available to GB nationals between 120 and 4 days in advance of expected arrival, apply at https://indianvisaonline.gov.in/evisa/tvoa.html. A letter of invitation is required plus upload of a photograph and the photo page of your passport. Allow 72 hours for issuance. This process should hopefully avoid the need to visit an embassy and send off passports for paper visas.

Partial visa applications expire after 7 days, so have everything ready to go before you start.

6. Customs

TBC.

7. Local SIMs

An Airtel SIM is recommended for good coverage, and can be bought in the airports. Online pricing implies 299INR for 1.5GB data per day. SIMs can be converted to eSIM with a convoluted SMS process, so the physical SIM does need inserting. It is not known whether eSIMs can be bought directly.

TheEarthWiki: DebconfTravel2023 (last edited 2023-08-14 16:51:26 by JonathanMcDowell)

-  ⇤ ← Revision 4 as of 2022-10-25 08:43:27 → 
  Size: 2263
  Editor: JonathanMcDowell
  Comment: Electronic applications appear open for some nationalities.
+   ← Revision 12 as of 2023-08-14 16:51:26 → ⇥
  Size: 3161
  Editor: JonathanMcDowell
  Comment: My flights changed
-Deletions are marked like this.
+Additions are marked like this.
 Line 15:
-|| '''Nick'''       || '''!DebCamp''' || '''!DebConf''' || '''Further travel''' || '''Registration''' ||
|| Noodles          || No             || Yes            || No                   ||  ⛔                ||
|| jmw              || No             || Yes            || Delhi day trip on inbound ||               ||
+|| '''Nick'''       || '''!DebCamp''' || '''!DebConf''' || '''Further travel'''      || '''Registration''' ||
|| Noodles          || No             || Yes            || No                        ||  ✅                ||
|| jmw              || No             || Yes            || Delhi day trip on inbound ||  ✅                ||
|| bootc            || No             || Yes            || Delhi day trip on inbound ||  ⛔                ||
 Line 23:
-|| Four Points Sheraton, Kochi Infopark                                             || Noodles             ||
+|| Four Points Sheraton, Kochi Infopark                                             || Noodles, jmw        ||
 Line 34:
-|| Jonathan !McDowell || Noodles      || noodles@earth.li || BA0247 -> UK0885 arrive 9/9 19:10 || UK0886 -> BA0142 leave 16/9 19:55 ||
|| JonathanWiltshire  || jmw          || jmw@d.o          || VS300 7/9, UK885 8/9 (planned)    || UK886 17/9, VS301 18/9 (planned)  ||
+|| Jonathan !McDowell || Noodles      || noodles@earth.li || BA0135 -> UK0517 arrive 9/9 15:05 || QR0517 -> BA7003 leave 17/9 03:55 ||
|| JonathanWiltshire  || jmw          || jmw@d.o          || VS300 7/9, UK885 8/9              || UK886 17/9, VS301 18/9            ||
|| ChrisBoot          || bootc        || bootc@d.o        || VS300 7/9, UK885 8/9              || UK886 17/9, VS301 18/9            ||
-Line 39:
+Line 40:
+Almost certainly impractical this year.
-Line 40:
+Line 43:
+Rail travel from one of the major airports (e.g. Delhi) is certainly feasible, but will likely take two or more days.
-Line 43:
+Line 48:
-UK residents require a visa. In recent weeks the Indian embassies have suspended online applications and a visit is now mandatory for UK passport holders. They appear to be [[https://indianvisaonline.gov.in/evisa/tvoa.html|open]] for other nationalities. Take great care when completing any forms; the slightest error will be rejected and a new appointment required, which can take weeks.
+UK residents require a visa. A Conference e-Visa is available to GB nationals between 120 and 4 days in advance of expected arrival, apply at [[https://indianvisaonline.gov.in/evisa/tvoa.html]]. '''A letter of invitation is required''' plus upload of a photograph and the photo page of your passport. Allow 72 hours for issuance. This process should hopefully avoid the need to visit an embassy and send off passports for paper visas.

Partial visa applications expire after 7 days, so have everything ready to go before you start.
-Line 50:
+Line 57:
+An Airtel SIM is recommended for good coverage, and can be bought in the airports. Online pricing implies 299INR for 1.5GB data per day. SIMs can be converted to eSIM with a [[https://www.airtel.in/esim|convoluted SMS process]], so the physical SIM does need inserting. It is not known whether eSIMs can be bought directly.