Jenbel

My 'avoid' list is relatively short. I try to avoid the US, because charging me to go there so they can pay for advertising to encourage tourists (alledgedly) and then fingerprinting me like a criminal proves to me they don't actually want me to visit so I'll take my tourist dollars elsewhere thank you. But I'll make exceptions for work related trips and fare errors (it is FT afterall )

I would have avoided Burma. Like someone else, not so sure about that now. I'd probably avoid Zimbabwe and Sudan - more for personal safety reasons than any deliberate 'I disapprove of them'.

PTravel

Your considered and thoughtful response is noted.

Who is Dr. Sheldon Cooper?

kipper

^ Let's not get this sent to OMNI/PR.

mandolino

What happens there that doesn't happen in other countries nearby?
Would you go to South Sudan (independent since July 2011)?

Not picking on you but I find some of these personal vetoes baffling.

invisible

Ouch, and you are living 50 miles away from Caltech?

Anyway, here...

This, again...

PTravel

Well, that explains it -- sort of. I don't watch network television (except The Amazing Race), so I know nothing about either the show or the character. I read the Wikipedia article; the only commonality I see between myself and the character are our IQs.

crabbing

arizona.

after "papers please" passed, i have refused to go, and warned the foreign-born half of my family (who are US citizens) not to go. i do my best not to have any connection with the state.

stifle

LHR, LGW, MAN, LCY, STN, BHX, BFS, GLA, and EDI are all fitted with millimetre wave scanners. In the case of the first three, they are in all terminals. However, there is only one machine per checkpoint and in most cases the scanner is normally used on people who beep the nearest WTMD, in lieu of a hand search.

There are no medical exemptions in the UK including for such things as rotator cuff injuries; you must take up the position to the best of your ability. Children are also not exempt from scanning, although they will where feasible be allowed to hold a parent's hand while being scanned. (There is anecdotal evidence that people who have a visible injury such as an arm in a sling will not be selected however.)

Backscatter scanners have been phased out in the UK and I understand that all the MMWs in use are of the "gumby man" variety, rather than having someone in a remote viewing booth.

Passengers declining to be scanned will be offloaded from their flight and may be escorted off the airport.

It is believed that there is an exception for passengers who are in transit and inadmissible to the United Kingdom (e.g. due to needing a visa); such passengers will be patted down in lieu of being scanned if they repeatedly refuse to be scanned. This appears to be relevant only in LHR terminals 3 and 5 (north/main transit checkpoint) at this time.
Don't they offer to stamp a piece of paper instead of your passport in Israel? If not, many countries allow you to hold two passports at once if you say you frequently travel to places requiring visas so that you can have one passport in an embassy and one with you, or one passport for Israel and one for Libya/Saudi/etc.

orthar

No longer true as Israel has stopped stamping, instead they give out a small piece of paper

mandolino

Thanks stifle. I've been through all those UK airports but didn't notice any such scanners.

I do work in the energy sector but have two passports.

celle

I was born in the Sudan and lived there until I was 7 years old. Back then, it was treated as part of the British Commonwealth, being an Anglo-Egyptian Condominium, and was mainly administered by Britain. Nowadays, few people remember that, and the Sudan was classified by George W. Bush as being part of the "Axis of Evil".

Although I was registered as British by birth, my place of birth has been the cause of some anxiety for me when I travel, particularly when I enter the USA.

I've retained a smattering of Arabic, which surprised some people when I visited Egypt.

I have no desire whatsoever to go back to the Sudan!

MSPeconomist

Your list omits personal safety concerns, such as the publicized rapes in India.

Maybe extradition agreements and practices should be explicitly listed in light of the Snowden case.

Child custody laws and enforcement probably fall under legal, but it's a distinct issue for some people.

celle

Re fingerprinting: In April, I was on a cruise that terminated in Japan. I was secretly (and quietly) rather amused at the number of US citizens on that cruise who protested vehemently at being fingerprinted by Japanese immigration.

Some had no idea that the US also fingerprints incoming "foreigners" and one woman, when I gently told her, answered, "But we're not foreigners."

I've been to several of the countries mentioned in this thread as "no go" for various posters - Sudan, India, Zimbabwe, Japan, Malaysia, Korea, Russia, USA, UK. I'd prefer not to go back to some of them, but I'm glad I've been, because they all enlarged my experience of life.

horsewithnoname

If I avoided every country that had a law that bothered me, I'd have to move off-world.

For transit, the main one I like to avoid is the US, due to the lack of a transit, and the generally miserable immigration/security process. But as a practical matter, that just means transiting Canada instead, which may not be much of an improvement.

So I guess if one has multiple passports, one of which does not allow visa-free travel to the UK, one can just show them that one, and hope they don't find the other?

DesertNomad

I had a holiday in the Sudan a few years ago. Three of us hired a 4WD and spent 2 weeks wandering around from Khartoum to roughly 100km south of the Egypt border. It was one of the best trips I have ever done. I'd definitely go back.