If you plan to visit both Lebanon and Syria, fly into Lebanon. You do not need to get a Syrian visa beforehand to cross this border, and it only costs $16.

Baalbek

Coming from Syria, the visa options at the border are a free 48-hour transit visa and $17 tourist visa. Evidently, precise wording matters. If you ask for the "free 1-month tourist visa," that's what you get. If you hem and haw and say you're not sure how many days you want to stay, you will be charged for the $17 tourist visa. You cannot opt for the 48-hour visa and exchange it in Beirut as I foolishly hoped... I was charged the full $17 when leaving the country.

Lebanon is much more expensive than the surrounding countries. Expect to spend around $30/day even on a budget.

Lebanese lira are WORTHLESS. Try to get as much changed out as possible before leaving the country.

A student ID is also essentially worthless, supposedly. Lebanese sites and museums do not provide student discounts... but I got discounts by simply asking for them.

Visa information may no longer be valid after 2005.

Best Way to Get Around

There is no "best way," there are only "ways." Traffic is painfully slow and the options are confusing.

Beirut has a spiderwebby nightmare of a minibus system, and if you only have a few days, you will not learn the routes. The only method I grasped was constantly asking about my final destination. The bus drivers and other passengers generally knew where I should transfer.

Some minibuses have set prices of 500LL (approximately 30 cents) to drive to a bigger intersection. Buses I took from this intersection often involved bargaining. I didn't really understand the rules.

Taxis are worse. There are service taxis (for groups going along a set route) and regular taxis, and sometimes it's hard to tell which one you've chosen. The drivers are definitely making the rules up as they go along, and there's no good way to stop them. There's a tendency to suddenly forget how to speak English once you are in the taxi, or possibly they were pretending to know English before... whatever the driver's ploy, you lose money or lose your way.

Still, the city is not particularly pleasant for walking so one of these methods must be used...

Byblos' port

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