Planning a Trip

Visitor Information

Good tourist information on Venezuela is hard to come by. The country's Ministry of Tourism (MINTUR) was formed in 2005, in order to either directly replace or oversea several other rudderless bureaucracies. However, they offer precious little in the way of information or help geared towards individual travelers. Your best bet is to search the Internet, contact the nearest Venezuelan embassy or consulate, or deal directly with hotels and tour operators working in Venezuela. Some useful websites:

http://lanic.utexas.edu/la/venezuela: The University of Texas Latin American Studies Department's database features an extensive list of useful links.

http://think-venezuela.net: Think Venezuela is perhaps the best all-around general tourism site on Venezuela.

www.embavenez-us.org: The website for the embassy of Venezuela in the United States has current information and a small section of links.

www.laguia.com.ve: Although this site is in Spanish, it is a direct link to the country's online phone directories, featuring both Yellow and White pages.

In Venezuela -- MINTUR (tel. 0212/208-4511; www.mintur.gob.ve) is the national tourism ministry. Its main office, located at the intersection of avenidas Francisco de Miranda and Principal de La Floresta, is open weekdays during business hours. The staff can give you a basic map and some brochures for hotels and attractions; however, they are not really geared to serve as an information source for individual tourists.

Your best bet for tourism information in the country are the established tour agencies, including Akanan Travel & Adventure (tel. 0212/715-5433 or 0414/116-0107; www.akanan.com), Cacao Expeditions (tel. 0212/977-1234; www.cacaotravel.com), Lost World Adventures (tel. 800/999-0558 in the U.S., or 0212/577-0303 in Caracas; www.lostworldadventures.com), and Natoura Adventure Tours (tel. 0274/252-4216; www.natoura.com). Most bookstores and many hotel gift shops around the country stock a small selection of maps and useful books on Venezuelan history, culture, and tourism, some in English.

Telephone Dialing Info at a Glance

Venezuela's phone system features a standardized system of seven-digit local numbers, with three-digit area codes. Note that you must add a zero before the three-digit area code when dialing from within Venezuela, but not when dialing to Venezuela from abroad.

To place a call from your home country to Venezuela, dial the international access code (011 in the U.S. and Canada, 0011 in Australia, 0170 in New Zealand, 00 in the U.K.), plus the country code (58), plus the three-digit Venezuelan area code (Caracas 212, Isla de Margarita 295, Mérida 274), plus the seven-digit phone number.

To place a local call within Venezuela, dial the seven-digit local number. To call another area within Venezuela, you must add a 0 before the three-digit area code. For information, dial tel. 113; to place national collect calls, dial tel. 101.