Teenage German tourists deported from Hawaii over ‘suspicious’ hotel booking
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Not that this justifies the response of the US, but the phrasing is ambiguous. Wonder if they mean this in the sense of, they had booked accommodations for some but not the entire of their trip, or if they mean, they had booked none at all so their entire trip was open.
Backpackers commonly book no accommodations ahead of time. I've done that plenty.
Arrive at airport. Get cab. Drive to hotel number 1 and ask about room. Drive or walk to hotel 2 and ask about room. Repeat as often as desired. Return to hotel with best deal.
I can't count how many times I've done this, having zero specific plans about where I am going to stay. Sometimes I just take the first hotel and then on the next day go look for something better. This is totally normal backpacker behavior.
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I honestly kind of feel bad for Hawaii TBH. They need to gather the courage to secede and declare independence. Most of them voted Democrat, and as a chain of islands right smack-dab in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, they deserve better than to bear the consequences of all this insanity far away.
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Still Tax fraud and visa fraud. Works like this in most countries.
Not that I agree with these extreme measures. Most of Europe doesn't care but still: as ilegal in the US as it would be if an American tourist did the same in Germany.
Like if I work for Intel and I'm on travel visa, I can't answer some emails or do a zoom meet with my team for updates or something?
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One bonus - they won't be spending any more money in the US.
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Both of you are crazy. I'd never book a trip anywhere without the accommodations secured several months in advance. If I had to deal with the stress of finding the perfect hotel after I've already arrived at my destination, I'd probably have a panic attack.
Doesn't have to be the perfect hotel. Slept in a repurposed restaurant kitchen for ~5€ one night in the Taiwanese countryside. Damn I miss being 20.
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One bonus - they won't be spending any more money in the US.
I don't know who needs to hear this but -- DON'T COME HERE. The only thing these morons will listen to is money.
Please collapse the tourism industry.
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Both of you are crazy. I'd never book a trip anywhere without the accommodations secured several months in advance. If I had to deal with the stress of finding the perfect hotel after I've already arrived at my destination, I'd probably have a panic attack.
But that's not backpacking. It's a journey without those limits to allow you freedom to change your mind.
I didn't do it much but when I backpacked I tended to avoid public transport (hitch hiking) and would often just sleep in a city park or railway station. Different times now but it was part of the journey
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It's not in this article, there were plenty of others posted where it was mentioned.
Could you perhaps share one?
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Sorry that was from a different article. Same incident.
Curious, that article mentions that "The incident was first reported by Ostsee-Zeitung, a major German daily newspaper." and links to this article.
That original article contains the following passage:
Teil der Reisepapiere waren die von ihnen unterschriebenen Verhörprotokolle. „Da standen Sätze drin, die wir so gar nicht gesagt haben“, sagt Charlotte Pohl. „Die haben es so hingedreht, dass wir zugegeben hätten, dass wir illegal in den USA arbeiten wollen.“
Part of the travel documents were the interrogation protocols signed by them. “There were sentences in there that we didn't say at all,” says Charlotte Pohl. “They twisted it so that we had admitted that we wanted to work illegally in the USA.”
Yet usatoday only reports the allegations, not the denial.
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Someone as a tender spot.
Says the guy crying over the word "pigs" like a PETA-member
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Both of you are crazy. I'd never book a trip anywhere without the accommodations secured several months in advance. If I had to deal with the stress of finding the perfect hotel after I've already arrived at my destination, I'd probably have a panic attack.
My children, at the time ages 20 and 22, backpacked around Europe. They stayed at hostels and didn’t have reservations. (Their favourite was Amsterdam. Scotland was a close second!)
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Says the guy crying over the word "pigs" like a PETA-member
There's another unnecessary organization. And an evil one, at that.
