Gary’s Q&A

Listener question & Gary’s response · Transcript passage

Robert Alan Nassif Jr asks What custom, habit, regulation, or law have you encountered abroad that seemed odd, arbitrary, or absurd?

The dumbest law I encountered was on the island of Barbados. When you fly into many countries, especially island countries, they often require you to have an outbound ticket already booked.

That is reasonable, and I’m used to that.

However, when I first landed in Barbados, I was asked by the person at immigration if I had a ticket out of the country, and I said yes. I had a ticket to the island of St. Vincent in just a few days.

However, she then kept prying. She insisted that it wasn’t enough that I had a ticket out of the country, I had to have a ticket booked to my home country.

I was detained for two hours while they debated letting me in the country.

I later met representatives from Barbados and they said that they had never heard of the law and had never heard of such a thing happening before.

I spent hours searching for this law after I left Barbados, and I eventually found something. However, it was very obscure, and it was never enforced. I just happened to be the wrong person in the wrong line with the wrong immigration officer at passport control.