(this question is based off something I heard in passing a while back)
Suppose that you travel to Africa for whatever reason. Maybe you’re going to pick up your money directly from the Nigerian prince who emailed you.
While you’re there, you have a medical emergency. As you’ve generally been in good health, you forgo the repatriation insurance when you book your trip. While you’re there, your appendix ruptures. You’re too sick to fly home, so you have to have surgery while you’re in Africa. Or pick the medical malady of your own design.
Having to pay for that surgery really takes a bite out of your finances. So much so that you can no longer afford to fly home (for the purposes of this question, assume you’re staying with a friend or whatever).
You try the Embassy. You try the Consulate. Both offices tell you that you are essentially shit out of luck. You contact the Red Cross. You contact Amnesty International. Those organizations tell you they will only help if it’s politically motivated, or rioting is occurring.
You don’t have any friends or family who can help out with the purchase of a plane ticket.
What options do you have? Is the American government just going to leave you there? I’d think some politician would trip all over themselves in an effort to get you home. It seems like a custom made way to pick a few votes in election season. Show that the government DOES care about its citizens.
But what can you actually do to get back to the USA?
Can’t answer for your lot, but this is not that unusual for UK citizens. They generally end up broke in Majorca or some other holiday spot, miss their plane home and their passport gets stolen while they are in hospital.
The local consulate will issue them with a temporary passport and lend them enough money to get home. Once there, the loan, and the charges for the help they get, is treated like any other debt.
I am in tears within my eyes as I write this, having been stranded alone and helpless in a hospital in Botswana. I need an emergency surgery of the utmost emergency, but do not have the money to pay for it. I beg you please to be the compassionate soul that I know you are and please to be sending me cash or money order care of…
I got sick while traveling along in rural Thailand and spent 2 night in the hospital getting treatment. Total cost - $65. My hotel room the night I got out of the hospital cost less.
Some countries won’t let you in without a return ticket for reasons like this. If you were in harms way, or otherwise in danger I can see some politician arranging for you to get home. But not because you ended up broke and slightly uncomfortable.
I worked with a guy who scraped up some money and went on a trip to Europe with his buddy. He spent the last of his cash buying a plane ticket to London. He was deported back to the US. I’d assume that most countries in Africa would operate much the same way, or welcome you to your new home. Probably not much gray area involved.
Most countries demand proof of a return air ticket or a ticket onward, or a ticket by some other means of transport, to even admit you into the country. They may also demand evidence of financial resources. If a visa is required, you may be required to provide evidence that you have purchased a return ticket as well as financial resources before you are issued one.
In the past you might have a problem with a ticket being stolen, but with e-tickets this wouldn’t be an issue if you had ID. Also, most tickets are non-transferable, so you couldn’t sell it.
If you are truly stranded, and there is nobody to send you money, the US Embassy will loan an American citizen the cost of a ticket to the nearest port of entry.
I know an American who got an airplane ticket home about 20 years ago from the U.S. Consulate … but they kept his passport until the debt was repaid.
If you’re referring to my friend Johnny, his passport wasn’t stolen in hospital – it was taken as a prank by his English mate while Johnny was sleeping drunk in the airport departure lounge, missing his flight.
I would expect it would be through one of the Nigerian immigration offices. Don’t know how seriously Nigeria would take in deporting an American back home for overstaying their visitors visa. But it may be worth a shot.
X-Rays, diagnosis, meds, two nights in the ward, and all my food at Koh Samui Hospital totaled $65 US in 1995. I paid in cash. I walked out of the hospital with my travel bag, grabbed a pick-up cab at the end of the driveway, went to the beach and picked the nicest looking hotel I could find. The night with food cost about $80 IIRC. That was 3x-4x the money I’d spent on lodging before I got sick with pneumonia.
I’d just spent 6 weeks trekking in Nepal, my friends headed home and I headed to the beach by myself for a week. No one back home knew where I was nor was I expected to contact them until I was in Bangkok and ready to head home. I spent my time reading the collected short stories of Roald Dahl, which kept me significantly distracted from the lizards on the walls, the smokers on oxygen, and the fact that no one except the few nurses that spoke English knew who or where I was. Good times.
I’ve met a few people who didn’t have enough money to get back during my travels. Some had been tricked by scam employment agencies that brought people over but later withheld their promised ticket home.
The majority could probably get the money together between friends, family and credit. But between independence, humility, and a general sense of adventure, they preferred to try to make it on their own. I’ve also known a few people who were genuinely stuck- mostly people from other developing countries.
The people I knew bounced between low-visa-fee countries, working odd jobs and freeloading. It’s often not too hard to pick up work teaching, bartending at backpacker bars, or running the odd scam. Some pick up friends or lovers that are happy to share food and shelter with someone in exchange for some good stories and companionship. Some found legit jobs.
Some people get deported. The problem is that once you get deported, you can end up on that country’s “do not admit” list forever. So people try to move across a border before they get to that point.
After back packing around Asia for over a year, I pretty much ran out of money in Bali.
I had bought a one way ticket to Bangkok (via Honolulu, Tokyo and Hong Kong). At the time Thailand allowed people to enter the country without an onward ticket.
I didn’t have enough money for a ticket back to California, but I had just enough to get me to Taiwan. I ended up staying there about 6 years teaching English at private schools and eventually a University.
Technically, I’m not sure Thailand has ever allowed that. It’s just that they never check.
I once met a couple of Brits who were here because their wives were stationed at the embassy in Bangkok. They told me some pretty audacious stories of broke guys walking into the embassy demanding to be sent home at British government expense. I think embassies will help coordinate with families back home. The US Embassy will, I have heard, send you home but then hold onto your passport until you can repay the ticket.
And how did you survive that?