I'm now in Texas. Crossed at Brownsville/Matamoros; there were a few questions to which the answers were fairly obvious, like "how are you going to support yourself while you're in the US", to which the answer is "with my own money": no problems.
Yee-haw! etc.

__________________
Simon

London-Cape Town 2004-06
Buenos Aires-Vancouver 2008-10:
http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/tstories/fitzpatrick

Steve,

I applied for the B2 tourist 10 year visa, when I was still in England before I left.
Probably due to the countries I've visited before, I was asked to come in for an interview. The paperwork I was given indicated I needed to have all kinds of evidence prepared for this interview.

This included evidence of finances for the trip, evidence of social and family ties (that would prove beyond reasonable doubt that I would come back home to the UK), and various other tripe.
So I worried a bit, got all this stuff together and went for the interview, expecting cavity searches, polygraph etc.

The guy interviewing us was nice as pie. I figure I'm put in their low risk category, young, white, employed etc.
So they didn't even look at half this stuff, asked what bike I was going to ride, and stamped the bits of paper.

So I would say just apply now and get it done. You might not even be called for interview, and if you are it'll be a lot lot easier and simpler than you're probably expecting.

Plus, I know of at least one person that got the 90 day visa, then rode into Mexico for 4 hours, and came back with another 90 day stamp. This was about 3 weeks ago. In theory this isn't allowed, but he had no worries at all.
I really think for most of us it's very easy, and they're not going to class us as high risk, and they're not going to give us a hard time.

I got an extended visa before arriving last year. This meant for me a large cost because I had to go for a personal interview 2000km away, so add airfares, hotel and booze cost etc.

The information they want is extensive if you are between the ages of 14 and 45, because that is your normal age for an active bad boy I guess.

A VWP for 90 days should not be an issue, but you WILL have to fly to Hawiai or somewhere else if you need to renew it. I would not trust the fact that others have been let in again after passing a land border, I would plan on the worst situation, not the best.

__________________
www.travellingstrom.com

I just used this link to do the application for a friend and I had to pay $ 14 USD. I suppose it has been mentionned in some other thread if this is something official as I could read under THE TRAVEL PROMOTION ACT OF 2009.

"On March 4, 2010, President Obama signed into law the Travel Promotion Act (TPA) of 2009, Pub. L. No. 111-145. The Act directs the Secretary of Homeland Security to establish a fee for the use of the ESTA system, comprised of $10.00 for each VWP applicant receiving authorization to travel to the United States and $4.00 for the processing of the ESTA application. Applicants who are denied authorization to travel to the U.S. under the VWP will only be charged $4.00. The fee may only be paid by credit card..."

I hope this is not another scam (I hit the wrong link sometime ago and I was made paid $ 45 USD when it was supposed to be free of charge).

Can you guys confirm there is now this $ 14 USD charge as something official?

__________________
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KncXg_VOkj0

Yes, $14 is the current official charge. Not a scam (well, that depends on how you look at it ). It went into effect September 8, 2010.
Here is a link to how the US Embassy in the UK is spinning this :
Is there a fee to register under ESTA? Visa Services, U.S. Embassy London

.

__________________
Japan touring information