As you know I'm not only a passionate knitter but also a very avid traveler. Since my last trip - to Montenegro - was now already more than three months ago (not counting Berlin because Germany is my native country so this is technically just a home visit) I was already looking forward to planning the next adventure.
For a long time we had already been looking into visiting Iran and this has been one of my all-time favourite travel destinations. Now that the economic sanctions were being relaxed and the overall political climate seemed to have calmed down a little we heard from several friends that travelling in Iran was amazing and actually not too much of a hassle in spite of visa requirements and restrictions on dresscode, etc.
We did some research on the internet, talked to some friends, bought a guide book, started the visa application procedure and decided to go ahead with the booking when we find some ridiculously cheap tickets for direct flights to Teheran. I was super excited! Of course, there had to be a catch though...
Only a few days after we booked out tickets, Thomas sent me a link to a news article by e-mail. The headline was "US tightens visa rules for certain Europeans". I skimmed through the article quickly but didn't really give it a second thought. The US changes its visa policy. So what - I'm not planning on going to the US anytime soon and even if I do, surely it doesn't concern me?
But when we started discussing it in more detail it turns out that we were very unlucky indeed: The US's change in visa regulations to "prevent terrorism" meant that anyone who has been to Iran (as well as Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan) in the past six years or has double nationality of any of these countries cannot get an ESTA anymore. In practice that means that whenever we'd want to go to the US, even if it is just for a layover to travel to another country (as I did for example when I went to Peru last year), we would have to apply for a US visa including all the cost related to it and a personal interview at the US embassy with the risk that the application could be rejected.
Urgh!
While this didn't bother me too much personally, Thomas could get some problems because he potentially has to travel to the US and Canada later this year for work. It seemed like a lot of hassle with uncertain repercussions for "just a holiday". I was so angry!! Why this change in legislation? And why now?? Of course we didn't have travel insurance either so we knew that the money for the tickets would be lost if we decided not to go. After long discussions, we decided to cancel our trip.
Despite all this, there is a silver lining to it all. You're probably thinking "How's that possible after she has been going on about this for three pages?" but yes, we were in the end incredibly lucky in our misfortune. A couple of weeks after we decided to cancel our plans I received an unexpected e-mail from the airline, saying they had cancelled their entire flight connection to Teheran including the trip that we had booked. Would we prefer to change our booking or rather have a full refund?
In the end, this was the best solution we could have wished for: it basically confirmed our decision (as we would never be able to find equally cheap tickets for the same time period with another airline) and we had a full refund of the flight tickets that we thought we had lost! I'm still gutted that we don't get to go to Iran but we promised ourselves that we WILL go one day, hopefully without the harassment of the US authorities.
Now just to decide where to go next... and in the planning department we're back to square one.
For a long time we had already been looking into visiting Iran and this has been one of my all-time favourite travel destinations. Now that the economic sanctions were being relaxed and the overall political climate seemed to have calmed down a little we heard from several friends that travelling in Iran was amazing and actually not too much of a hassle in spite of visa requirements and restrictions on dresscode, etc.
We did some research on the internet, talked to some friends, bought a guide book, started the visa application procedure and decided to go ahead with the booking when we find some ridiculously cheap tickets for direct flights to Teheran. I was super excited! Of course, there had to be a catch though...
Only a few days after we booked out tickets, Thomas sent me a link to a news article by e-mail. The headline was "US tightens visa rules for certain Europeans". I skimmed through the article quickly but didn't really give it a second thought. The US changes its visa policy. So what - I'm not planning on going to the US anytime soon and even if I do, surely it doesn't concern me?
But when we started discussing it in more detail it turns out that we were very unlucky indeed: The US's change in visa regulations to "prevent terrorism" meant that anyone who has been to Iran (as well as Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan) in the past six years or has double nationality of any of these countries cannot get an ESTA anymore. In practice that means that whenever we'd want to go to the US, even if it is just for a layover to travel to another country (as I did for example when I went to Peru last year), we would have to apply for a US visa including all the cost related to it and a personal interview at the US embassy with the risk that the application could be rejected.
Urgh!
While this didn't bother me too much personally, Thomas could get some problems because he potentially has to travel to the US and Canada later this year for work. It seemed like a lot of hassle with uncertain repercussions for "just a holiday". I was so angry!! Why this change in legislation? And why now?? Of course we didn't have travel insurance either so we knew that the money for the tickets would be lost if we decided not to go. After long discussions, we decided to cancel our trip.
Despite all this, there is a silver lining to it all. You're probably thinking "How's that possible after she has been going on about this for three pages?" but yes, we were in the end incredibly lucky in our misfortune. A couple of weeks after we decided to cancel our plans I received an unexpected e-mail from the airline, saying they had cancelled their entire flight connection to Teheran including the trip that we had booked. Would we prefer to change our booking or rather have a full refund?
In the end, this was the best solution we could have wished for: it basically confirmed our decision (as we would never be able to find equally cheap tickets for the same time period with another airline) and we had a full refund of the flight tickets that we thought we had lost! I'm still gutted that we don't get to go to Iran but we promised ourselves that we WILL go one day, hopefully without the harassment of the US authorities.
Now just to decide where to go next... and in the planning department we're back to square one.
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