One of the downsides of having a Sri Lankan passport is the hassle in obtaining a visa to travel, and this is no easy task. When we decided to travel to Europe in 2016, I was not employed, up to our noses in debt and no prior savings at all. I know what you must be thinking, then why in this world did we want to travel? Well, we had spent our days traveling to Malaysia and Singapore in the past years and this time we decided we needed a change and a break from our hectic lives. It started as a group trip but ended up being just myself and Milzer (aka the husband).

Since we had never traveled to Europe before I contacted a few travel agents, none of whom provided any help or any words of assurance. So I took matters into my own hand. This is a great story that I am not going to get in to with this post. This is simply to give you some tips on creating your own cover letter for Schengen visa.

Tip 1:

Address the correct person and the embassy address NOT VFS address. VFS is a visa processing centre which accepts the application on behalf of different embassies.

Tip 2:

Try local terms, if you are applying from let’s say the French embassy, do not address as sir/madam try to use Monsieur/Madame. This is not mandatory or even mentioned anywhere its simple courtesy and honestly putting a bit of an effort.

Tip 3:

Keep it relevant, well organised and short. Ensure you have your letter divided into paragraphs with each flowing smoothly into the other. Always start by writing the reason for the cover letter, YES they do know why you are writing it but that doesn’t mean you have to be sloppy.

Best order would be:

1. The reason for the letter and reason for travel.
2. Countries/country you are going to travel and the reason for applying from a particular embassy.
3. The people you are traveling with, their details and why they are accompanying you.
4. How you are financing the trip and your employment details in short.
5. State that you understand the rules of this visa and you have no intention of staying back.

Tip 4:

Be honest, don’t try to show things you don’t have or try to write it according to someone else’s’ letter. Always check punctuation, spelling and include a great closing.

There are no hard and fast rules to these letters, but the letter that I used was sufficient and got us the visa from the Italian embassy. I did a lot of research prior to actually doing the letter which I have consolidated into 4 simple tips. Hope this helps you, adventurous travelers, out there.

If you do want your letter, written by me please follow the link below:

https://www.fiverr.com/chavindiemendis

Until next time,

Chavi..