Travel to the US has certainly changed, money wise

Aug 01, 2017 Letters

Dear Editor,
I read the recent letter about the chap and his US travel money woes. Things seem to have changed for travel to the USA, money-wise over the years. During the 1980s and part of the 1990s, on a UK/EU passport, I travelled annually to the USA and experienced the opposite. All my holidays were chosen from travel agents’ brochures, booked through them, and all the booking fees handed over to them. I faced no problem from the UK end, but at the US end, some Immigration staff were always surprised that I had such a modest amount “to declare”. I finally figured out why they disappeared into a room behind and then returned ‘relaxed’.
All visiting non-US citizens had to declare on their filled-in on-board form information regarding place of residence, reason for visit, length of stay, and any sum over a certain amount. So when my money declared was so modest, details on the filled-in form had to be checked, to verify what was written. The travel agents always put together the entire deal. Booking hotels was included, so accommodation checking was easy. The money I had was always for travelling by public transport and food. I preferred Brit-made goods to American, particularly clothing, which Brits found too “skimpy”, with seams falling apart easily. And I was not a “foodie”. Hamburgers with coffee, and ice cream for takeaway as afters were fine with me. It seems logical that visitors should be aware of the rules and abide by them, or else… keep away.
As a matter of interest, Brit holidaymakers dress the part – casually. When visiting poor countries, we are always advised by tour guides not to,’show off’, which is “rude and invites the wrong sort of attention”. On evenings out by pick-up coach dressing-up is OK. In 1990, I did this in Guyana, and was shocked when some assumed ‘Brit poverty’. I still flinch when I remember a ‘rough’ ex-US resident’s remark about “Whenever anyone offers me something, I always ask myself what are they after”.
The thought formed in my head “What have you got to be after”? I remained silent. I had offered to send school supplies to his wife, to help in her community work. She then invited me to spend a short holiday with them. But he was so narrow-minded, such a “misery guts”, that he could not find good in anyone or anything. I had intended to keep up the practice, but changed my mind, based on his unpleasantness. His wife and I were childhood friends, our mothers close friends.
Instead, I decided to have the local primary school repaired, attributing the gesture to my husband. I gathered the chap capitalised on this, as he and my husband knew each other as children. I then remembered the Yank operating style of “If you have it, flaunt it; if you don’t, fake it”. I did not mind. I was comfortable with this, and eventually, at the end of my holiday, left things I no longer needed for my poor country relatives and others.
Geralda Dennison

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Travel to the US has certainly changed, money wise

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