> - Individuals traveling to Korean to attend the IETF meeting > do not need a visa, as they are traveling to attend a > non-profit conference. They can stay in Korea up to 30 > day for such purpose and for tourism. Ah, okay, this makes sense now, because there was a slight language issue with the person I spoke with (I hesitate to mention it since I am a typical American and am only monolingual, but it's relevant here). The individual I spoke with said several times that if you "paid them money" (referring to the organization) you needed a visa, but I think based on the context he really meant "non-profit". So this agrees with Sam's information and what you found out. > - If you travel to Korea for business purposes, such as > meeting customers or other business purposes, then a > visa is needed. Right, there was no confusion on this issue, but this one clearly doesn't apply. > - This applies only to private U.S. citizens. Government > employees and citizens of other countries need to contact > their local Korean embassy for a determination in their > case. Ken, in your case, if you are a government employee, > you will need a visa. Luckily, I'm not, so that doesn't apply here. > - Another consideration concerning visa. People attend > IETF meetings as individuals, not directly representing > their company -- and clearly a private individual traveling > to attend a nonprofit technical meeting clearly does not > need a visa. Well ... this really depends on what you mean by "representing", I think. Certainly the _theory_ at the IETF is that people are supposed to be attending the meetings as individuals. I've certainly seen a number of cases where an individual was clearly representing a company rather than theirself. But I think it's a fuzzy line if your employer pays for your trip and your salary while you're at IETF. Sure, in the IETF context, they may be just their as theirself. But it sure would look like they were representing their company to a third party (say, the South Korean government). --Ken