The_Hero_of_Men wrote:***JP*** wrote:Well I don't believe in those pricey so called marriage agencies. The only advice I can give to you guys and I have mentioned it on other posts is to take time and research in a internet search engine for the local dating sites of the countries you guys want to go to. Some of the sites will not give you the ability to translate to English but there's always google translate. That is the method I used and that is how I joined a local lithuanian site to meet my fiancee. Ukraine also has that alternative to facebook also and I have read here that some men have met women on that site too. I think the website is called VK. Those sites like anastasia and a foreign affair which are the most popular ones are nothing but a huge scam. Just do a little bit of research and you will find alternatives that are not gonna rip you off. Those popular so called marriage agencies also have been notorious for editing your emails so if you send a girl your personal email or instant messenger info they just block it because they want you to keep the pay to read and pay to send email of theirs.
What are some of these alternate "off the beaten path" marriage agencies and romance tour companies?
You aren't paying attention...
VK is the Slavic alternative to Facebook -
http://vk.com/
I have an account on VK but haven't found a concrete way to attack it, so I haven't used it yet.
Lucky Lovers is a site I have used, others have used successfully -
www.luckylovers.com
Elena's Models is highly regarded -
www.elenasmodels.com
For Latin America, I use
www.latineuro.com
The only alternative is to DIY (DO IT YOURSELF).
AFA works with local marriage agencies, this infrastructure was already in place. I knew a woman who's mother ran one of these, not online and not for Western men, it was a local agency for local people. Most of the sites listed on formerly Jim's White List are in fact local agencies in Russia or Ukraine, usually outside of the major cities like Kiev or Moscrow/St Pete.
You can go into Russia or Ukraine and most of these agencies will work with you at a much reduced cost, usually only a couple of hundred dollars to meet as many women as you want inside the system.
If you really wanna go off the beaten path, go into the 'Stans or deep into Russia where only the brave go. Eduard's service is expensive but he's completely out of the agency loop, he finds women on sites like VK for his customers. You need to read or speak Russian however, Google Translate doesn't do that great with Russian yet.
You can also look for sites in Mexico, Uruguay, Colombia, etc, I have found a few just keep looking.
Done right, you'll save thousands, but you're still going to have to pay for at least one round-trip plane ticket besides your own. Law Jackson 2 Tours, One Return Trip; Mark Davis 1 tour, 2 Return Trips; My boy Nate 1 trip to Russia (no tour, met online, interracial forum). He sent for her when his K1 was approved (this happens more often than you think).
At min it will cost you one round-trip to see her (doesn't matter where) and if agreed one one-way ticket for her. If she's not from a EU member state or the UK, you're going to have to pay for K1 (self filed about $700). If you want to live in her country, then much of this is moot, but if you want her to meet your family at some point, you need to get her status cleared up and you'll need to apply for a Green Card (I-485 I believe) which is I think about $300.
So it will cost you at least $2400-$2500 if she's from a restricted country (FSU, South America, Caribbean). If she's from an EU country you can work out who pays for what, that's the advantage of a woman from a vastly more mature economy. That's not to say you can't find a woman from a middle class background who earns Western levels of income its just not likely.
One of the often not talked about themes is you are using your economic advantage to find these women, they are not going to have as much money as you do in most cases even if your broke by Western standards.
Just to give you some hope, my friend Nate was a student when he met Dinara who was also a student (exchange) from Russia. They never met in person until he took a trip to Russia where she had returned once her student visa ran out. They used MSN and Skype extensively during that time. There was a point where there was a misunderstanding and they briefly broke up (after he returned to the US). They sorted that out and decided to get married. He filed for K1, when it was approved he sent for her, she's been in the US since that point (2009), they married in a small wedding with just his family and a few friends, it was not expensive. They recently returned to Russia to have another wedding/reception just for her family and friends.
I will have a Skype interview with Nate and possibly Dinara his wife on my blog, I will keep you posted when that happens.