[Abn1965]

Hi,

I was just wondering what appropriate attire is for the embassy appointment? Do women need to wear a dress, or would nice pants and a sweater set be ok?

Thanks.

Amy

[LucyLuMyLuv]

There is no need to wear a dress. I wore khakis and a nice top but the day I was there many people were wearing jeans!

[Kesti]

...but no jeans

[slaikta]

There were people at the embassy who dressed up but a number of others who were extremely casual. Given that the embassy workers in the window could only see us from the bellybutton up I probably could have shown up in my boxers!
I wouldn't sweat this issue at all. The entire embassy experience was very easy and no big deal. My wife wore khakis and a casual long-sleeved shirt and I wore khakis and a turtle neck. However, I doubt anyone but noticed but us!

Good Luck

[Devora]

A couple other resources for input on this question:

The guatadopt.com travel guide has a detailed explanation of Guatemalan norms about dress.

Also, if you do a search on the forum using the keywords "wear AND culture" you'll find some other threads about this. One of them "What is acceptable attire in Guatemala?" was started by SummerV and it has a variety of opinions with some good discussion about the whats and the whys. If you do a search just using "clothing" you'll get a lot more threads that talk about this and you can see what people have said before.

Have a great trip!
Devora

[nannyisme2004]

I just got back yesterday from Guatemala. The Embassy appointment was easy. We were in and out in two hours. But it was really hot! Wear comfortable clothing. I put all my items in a large ziploc bag and they didn't have to search my bag I guess because they could see through the bag. But we tried to bring in two large bottles of water (only size we could find at the time) and they wouldn't let us.

Laurie