This story is getting picked up all over the place so apologies if you already read it elsewhere. Last week three young guys from Texas were sent back to the Lone Star state after arriving in Dublin, Ireland for a backpacking trip. Their offense? No address for the place where they planned to stay and no demonstrable money on hand (apparently immigration officials wanted to see bank statements).

Anyway, the whole incident resulted in major media coverage in Ireland and now the guys are being showered with offers for free hotel stays, interviews, and even an ad campaign on the Emerald Isle. Apparently those in the tourism biz are a little upset that their potential “customers” were treated so rudely and they’re trying to make up for it.

Admittedly the 3 men hadn’t done a lot of planning for their trip:

We learned it the hard way. We recognize now that we were less prepared than we should have been.

Then again, I suppose I’ve been guilty of this myself too. A few years back my brother and I planned to meet in Europe for an epic trip through Germany, Italy, and France. The only hotel we booked ahead of time was for our first night in Mainz and beyond that we basically winged it (which, in hindsight, was pretty stressful). To top it off my brother didn’t even have a passport with him which meant our transportation options were pretty limited. Fortunately we didn’t run into any snags but that’s probably just because we were lucky.

But what if these guys had planned to spend their nights outdoors as they truly “backpacked” across Western Europe. Is that allowed? Judging by immigration officials’ response, it isn’t - unless you have a fat bank account

Related posts:

1. Backpacking in Texas
2. 100 Favorite Hikes in Texas
3. Urban camping for deals

Tags: ireland

This entry was posted on Friday, July 10th, 2009 at 9:41 am and is filed under backpacking, travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.