Border Disaster
The week my “plan” turned into a four-day transit-area test
In 2021, we thought we were done.
We were set up in Georgia: apartment, banks, residence cards, our stuff in-country. We’d executed a US exit and “came home” to Tbilisi—confident we were stepping onto stable ground.
Instead, I got denied entry.
And to make it worse (and more instructive), this wasn’t a one-off. I was denied entry to two countries within 48 hours.
Denial #1: Albania — when “the website said yes” isn’t clearance
I was headed to Albania to spend two weeks with family. Albania’s public-facing information suggested that if you were married to an EU citizen (my wife is Dutch) and could prove it, you could enter.
But I was traveling on my Commonwealth of Dominica passport.
At the border, the interpretation was simple and final: Dominica passport holders require a visa. The nuance I thought I could rely on didn’t matter. The border had one view, and it was the only view that counted.
Border outcomes are not adjudicated by websites. They’re adjudicated by the person behind the counter, using the rule-set that applies to your exact documents in that moment.
Denied in Albania, I rerouted back toward Georgia—via Istanbul—thinking, “Fine. Home base. Regroup.”
Denial #2: Tbilisi — the same airport, same destination… different document
Thirty days earlier I had entered Georgia on a US passport with a PCR test. This time, on my Dominica passport, the entry rules were different.
Entry requirements were passport-specific; my document set triggered a vaccination requirement.
I didn’t know that. I didn’t test that assumption. I didn’t even think to test it.
That sentence is a masterclass in how the world actually works.
A residence card felt like a key. In practice, it was just another piece of paper in a stack—helpful, but not definitive.
Then they took my passport.
No receipt. No paperwork. No process you can appeal in real time.
They told me they’d give it back when I was allowed to enter somewhere. The border police handed it to the airline. And just like that, you’re in a different reality:
- You can’t “choose.”
- You can’t “pivot.”
- You can’t “work the problem” the way you do in normal life.
You wait.
Four days in transit: the hidden cost is loss of control
The international transit area is fine when it’s what it’s designed for: a few hours between flights.
It is not designed for overnights.
Sleeping is hard. Showers aren’t a given. The lights never really let you rest. And the deeper thing is psychological:
You have no control. You have no options. You can’t leave.
When people talk about global mobility, they picture freedom—laptops, lounge access, smooth borders, optionality.
This was the opposite: mobility reduced to a narrow corridor of permission.
And my wife and I were now scrambling to solve a problem that never should have existed: find a country where we could legally be together for more than 90 days, long enough to regroup and think clearly.
The scramble: how bad decisions get made
Here’s what “scrambling” looked like:
- Emergency search for a new landing pad (Serbia → Montenegro)
- A rushed residence application (Montenegro)
- Rushed rentals and surprise real estate buys
- A cascade of choices made under stress, simply to regain a sense of “being back on track”
This part matters because it’s where the damage compounds.
When your plan gets blown up, you don’t just lose the plan.
You lose your timeline. You lose your sense of control. And if you’re not careful, you lose your judgment—because you start optimizing for relief instead of truth.
That was me.
We had left the US believing we had our answer. Then the answer vanished. I was eager to have an answer again—something stable, something certain.
Pushing for certainty in a moment that demanded patience only made us more off track.
The bug report: what actually broke
This is the part aspiring geoarbitrage people need to hear without flinching:
The failure was not Dominica’s fault. The failure was not Georgia’s fault. The failure was mine.
My “stack” had a bug:
- An uncommon passport
- Untested assumptions (“If X worked last month, it will work this month”)
- No supporting paperwork team to reinforce border outcomes when the passport didn’t stand on its own
If you don’t, you’re playing a different game.
And almost nobody talks about the real rule of that game:
Border crossing is a team effort
A passport is one player. A residence card is another. A visa can be another. Proof documents matter more than you think.
Your “document team” is the difference between a smooth entry and a high-stakes argument at a counter where the other side holds all the power.
For me, the missing piece was obvious in hindsight:
My Dominica passport + Georgia residence card + proof of address wasn’t a strong enough team in that moment.
A stronger supporting document—an EU residence card, a robust visa stamp, even supporting letters and proofs—could have changed the conversation.
Not guaranteed. But it would have given me tools.
The core principle: A/B/C plans beat hope
If you only have one plan, you don’t have a plan.
You have an assumption.
Global resiliency isn’t fear. It’s responsibility in a world that changes fast.
And the baseline move is simple:
Have an A, B, and C plan for where you can reliably be.
That includes your documents—not just your destinations.
My practical playbook now
High leverage options include:
- A residence card from a widely recognized government (EU is the obvious example)
- A second passport that plays well in the region where you actually plan to live
- A credible visa that upgrades how you’re viewed (a US visa can unlock entry in many places even when your passport doesn’t)
This is low cost and high impact. I keep a folder with:
- Proof of address / housing
- Return tickets / onward travel
- Bank letters or account proofs when relevant
- Marriage documentation when it’s part of the legal basis
- Screenshots or saved emails that confirm entry rules (when you can get them)
Do not assume you’ll have signal or time to “pull it up” at the counter. Bring it.
Pre-verification matters. It’s the cheapest layer of defense.
But treat it like intelligence, not clearance. The border is the decision point.
For location decisions: don’t mistake “week 1 excitement” for reality.
Get the rails set up—residence, banking, housing—and then live there long enough to know what you actually bought. Four months tells you truths that seven days can’t.
When your plan gets torpedoed, your nervous system will beg for a new “answer.” That urge is dangerous.
Stabilize first. Get safe. Get together. Get sleep. Reduce time pressure. Then decide.
Because rushed decisions made under stress don’t put you back on track. They often lock in a new kind of error—bigger, more expensive, harder to unwind.
The image I can’t forget
On the flight back to Istanbul, I remember seeing my plan like a ship hit by a torpedo—exploding, breaking in two, and sinking.
That’s what untested assumptions feel like when they meet the border.
A question for you
If you’re building a geoarbitrage life, ask yourself this:
Where are you currently “one document change away” from a bad week?
If you don’t know the answer, that’s not a reason to panic.
It’s a reason to do the adult thing:
Map your vulnerabilities. Build redundancy. Test the stack.
Hope is not a strategy.
A/B/C plans are.
