Every few months for one reason or another, my wife and I end up in the US. We just spent a weekend in Florida, for a wedding. We weren’t in Miami, rather north, near the border with Georgia.
I noticed with my wife, for the first time in a long time, the immigration process was somewhat unpleasant. In the past, we show a British passport proof of a hotel and a return ticket. do The fingerprint thing and be in our way in a few minutes. This time not so much. It wasn’t the third degree. But there is a series of questions that had to do with a reason for our visit, what our best I would call politically motivated questions. Honestly, in 30 years of travel it was the first time ever such a thing happened.
We returned two days ago, and both of us looked at each other and agreed the future travel to the US should be minimized, if not entirely canceled. The trip overall was unpleasant. When people heard a British accents disparaging comments were made more than once. We were not feeling very welcomed. Granted, we were not staying in a part of Florida. It was very touristy. Still, it was a first for both of us again, in 30 years of travel, I have no memory of such hostility anywhere on the world.
The reason I mentioned this, is that I’m white I’m older I’m rich, and I was treated terribly. Not to sound like an entitled jerk, I’m the kind of guy that no immigration officer should have a problem with. Or a couple, we’re not legal immigrant. And yet, Americans of all kinds felt more than happy to insult us. Maybe it’s something to do in Florida, maybe it’s something in the water.
The truth is, I’ve been flying to United States for many years. And I can say, the place is changing, and not in a good way either. It’s important to say this, because when we flew to the United States 10 days ago, the flight to Miami on British Airways was half empty. Half empty flight during the holiday season to the United States. At the very least, this is unusual. I can just imagine that my Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese friends probably receive an even less pleasant reception when travelling to the United States. It’s like the entire countries given up.
So, where do you go from here? Well, I had two trips planned to the United States before the end of the year. Both have now been canceled, I informed our Contacts that they are more than welcome to fly to United Kingdom. it’s not so much that we’re boycotting the Americans, Is that frankly we don’t wanna go there.
Will we miss Vail next year? Sure, a little bit, but there’s plenty of other place to go skiing. It’s not like the rest of the world is not interesting. America used to be easy, now they’re making it hard. We’ll just go elsewhere.
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