This article was published in the September/October 1993 issue of The DX Magazine. It contains additions and corrections.

   I know many people will ask why would one need a guide to visit a place anyway. The answer is that one does not necessarily needs a guide to visit any place, but is good to have one. I went to many countries without any guides and I saw many interesting things. However, with adequate prior information I could have seen much more and better use my time and money.
   The second question that may come up is why should one read a guide to a place he’ll never visit. The answer to this one is that is fun to learn about far away places, people, customs, even if one does not intend to go there. On the other hand, hey, one never knows ...
   Last, but not least, once one paid for a magazine – and I assume that it was done – the smart thing is to read every page of it, so go ahead, get your money’s worth.
   I was born in Romania, I lived there for the longest and unhappiest 35 years of my life, and since I left and settled in the U.S., I went back several times. If I ever had the slightest symptom of homesickness, going back to see the places where I lived, worked, and wasted my time, it cured it completely.
   The dirty and deteriorated government-owned buildings; the long lines to buy various food items; the envy and animosity of the people against outsiders who can come and go any time they please; the awareness that a visitor is under constant scrutiny by the agents of the secret police; the fact that friends and relatives are pressured to spy and submit written reports on what the foreign guest did or said, and especially what kind of questions he/she asked; could not place Romania on the ten most wanted list for a pleasant and carefree vacation, not even close.
   Why did we go there several times? Because taking clothing and other goods to our families we left behind was the best way to help them. Many of the packages sent to them through the mail never arrived to their destinations.
   The laws and rules governing visitors were stringent; they were not allowed to stay overnight in private homes, except with immediate relatives; they had to stay in hotels where the rates for foreigners were 4-5 times those for local citizens. The hotel rooms had listening and in some cases viewing devices installed by the secret police. The foreigners had to register at the local police stations the first day of their arrival.
   For many years foreigners had to exchange for every day of their stay a certain amount of their hard currency for Romanian money, at the official rate which was much lower than the open market would yield.
   These, and other similar circumstances, were characteristic not only for Romania but, with slight differences, to all east European countries. With the break-up of the Soviet Union and the abandonment of the socialist principles by most of its former satellites, the situation has changed drastically. In December of 1989, a popular uprising, combined with a coup d’etat, took place in Romania, and that made a big difference. The powers of the secret police were curtailed; Westerners are not automatically considered spies and saboteurs; they are not obligated to exchange their hard currency; the audio/visual surveillance in hotel rooms supposedly was discontinued, people can travel freely abroad and they are not afraid anymore to invite foreigners to their homes or places of work; visitors can lodge any place, with anybody who invites them.
   These and other similar improvements in human relations opened wide the door for visiting YO amateurs. However the hotel rates are still 4-5 times what a local has to pay and many of the informers and collaborators of the former secret police, are still around even among the radio amateurs, but most of them are known and they can’t do any harm.
   A few suggestions for one who contemplates visiting amateurs in other countries may be helpful. First of all, any trip has to be well prepared by reading as much as possible about the places one is going to visit. The public libraries offer plenty of books, even if they are not quite up to date, describing the places of interest. Then, a traveler has to compile a list of good contacts in every place on his itinerary, with names, addresses, and phone numbers. Letters have to written months in advance, establishing dates for meetings. The amateur radio operators have the great advantage in being able to gather the necessary information and set up tentative schedules right on the air.
   Lately with the widespread use of the electronic mail these contacts and information gatherings can be very much speeded up.
   ARRL has a Host Exchange Program that lists many hams in the U.S. and abroad willing to meet foreign amateurs; however I did not have any luck with those I tried to contact.
   In case of Romania I recommend the following steps:
1. try to contact the ones you had QSO with;
2. get names and addresses from the latest Callbook;
3. write to those you hope to meet and give them your travel schedule;
4. get some leads from those who have been there recently;
5. ask the Romanian Federation of Amateur Radio (P.O.Box 22-50, R-71100 Bucharest, Romania or via E-mail: [email protected]) for suggestions, but don’t be surprised if you don’t receive any answer.
If one wants to go through some expenses and the hassle of carrying overseas extra luggage, the best gifts I can think of would be technical literature: ham magazines and books published by ARRL. I struggled hauling along 15 handbooks, each weighing five pounds, and it was not an easy task, several other ARRL manuals, back copies of QST, 73, CQ, catalogues, etc. For books and magazines there is no customs duty. Seeing the faces of those who received those books and magazines, and the great interest and excitement they showed when they paged through them, made my effort pay off.
   I did not take along any larger piece of electronic equipment, such as a transceiver because I knew that those are subjected to duty. I don’t mind spending some money for the benefit of my fellow amateurs, but paying customs duties is like paying sales taxes; I hate both of them from the bottom of my heart.
   The only large piece, in size, I mean, was a 14-AVQ vertical antenna. Some of its parts, like the traps, fit in one of my suitcases. I tied the longer tubes together and attached to them a fishing reel. On my arrival to the Bucharest International Airport, a guy in a fancy uniform circled me and my luggage for a while and finally asked me with authority:
   “What are those tubes for?”
   “Aha!” I said to myself, “This is a remnant of the old guard.” But to him I answered with all due respect, “For fishing!”
   The guy in uniform circled me a couple of more times and asked suspiciously, “Why are made of aluminum?”
   “They are for aluminum fishes,” I answered with a straight face, and I was happy when it was my turn to push my cart, loaded with luggage, out of the airport area.
   The customs has two sides: one for those who have nothing to declare, absolutely everybody went there; and the second for those who may want to declare something. I did not see anybody there, not even a customs officer.
   However, even on the “nothing to declare” side, there was an inspection. I was asked several times if I had any electronic equipment and I kept saying that I don’t have any. All my suitcases and boxes were tied with tapes, strings, ropes, safety belts, and some even with chains. The customs officer either did not want to bother opening them, or, impressed by my honest face, let me go without opening anything. I was lucky because I had large quantities, if not of big pieces of equipment, but of smaller parts like connectors, mikes, headsets, coax switches, filters, and computer diskettes, both blank and with programs, things I thought any ham could use. I also had a couple of 2-meter handhelds, but they were taken apart and every piece was packed separately. I also had some computer hardware, software, and books for logging and packet radio.
   I remember that years ago, before the revolution/coup d’etat, on entering Romania I was always asked the same silly questions:
   “Do you have any guns?”
   “Do you have any bibles?”
   “Do you have any pornographic magazines?”
   At least nowadays they have different fixations.
   Now, here is a caution regarding the taxi drivers of Bucharest: they are obligated by regulations to have meters installed in their cabs and they do have them indeed. The gimmick is that in all the taxis I took, the cabbies, at least half of the time, claimed that their meters were not working (they did not turn them on) and at the end of the ride they asked for three times the normal fare. However, when I took out my handheld and asked them again, miraculously they always quoted the right amount. They did not see any good reason to argue with somebody in plain clothes (remember the securitate!) brandishing a walkie-talkie.
   Another caution: do not exchange money on the streets, even if you are offered more than the official rate. You’ll wind up almost for certain, just with the memories of a painful experience. Even wearing inconspicuous clothing, unlike the flashy kind Westerners usually wear, the Gypsies spotted me right away as being a foreigner and kept offering me their services as financial consultants and exchange bankers. Again, just pulling out my good old handheld reminded the Gypsies that they have very important appointments... elsewhere.
   And here is my last caution: in Europe there is an old custom, very notable in Romania: men kiss the ladies’ hands when they meet them, and also when they say good bye. This practice is so strong that when it comes to shaking hands, a lady will subconsciously raise her hand to be kissed. When a group of hams, including the chief of the local radio club, paid a visit to another radio operator, and we were introduced to the lady of the house, everyone ceremoniously kissed her hand. I, the Ugly American, pushed her hand down and gave her just a handshake. You may do what you want, but I don’t kiss hands, especially when I don’t know where they have been.
   In every city, the most important part is finding one right person. Once this is accomplished he/she will take the visitor to other hams. In most homes I visited, both the hosts and the visitors took off their shoes and left them in a small entrance hall, just like in Japan. This is all right unless you have big holes in your socks. Taking the shoes off when one enters a house brought me back bad memories from a previous trip I took to the Far East, and I was thinking with fear, “Now comes the sushi.” Fortunately in Romania they don’t serve sushi, instead they are very insistent in offering a visitor some alcoholic beverages. During the entire time of my visit I was constantly asked, “Would you like some brandy, wine, beer, Coke, Pepsi?” As I don’t like any of these, I turned them down, politely but firmly, but the hosts just kept coming back over and over again, pushing the same drinks. Finally, to get them off my back I told them that I don’t drink because of my very strict religious believes, I said “I am a Born-again Muslim,” and I asked for a glass of cold water. This confused them very much and quite a few asked, “How come on the ‘Dallas’ TV show nobody drinks water?” “That is because in Texas the water is very expensive,” was my conclusion about the life in the Lone Star State. There were a few instances when I was already out of their apartments but the hosts kept following me on the stairs with a glass in their hands repeating, “How about a brandy for the road?” Perhaps pushing drinks on others gives them a good excuse for sampling some for themselves. On the other hand, I noticed a very strict rule: nobody who had to drive a car that day would take even the smallest amount of the weakest alcoholic drink.
   A local amateur radio license, YO/OWN CALL type, can be obtained on short notice, for a very small fee, based on the copy of one’s own home license, through the good offices of the Federation of Romanian Amateur Radio, or at one of the four district branches of the Ministry on Communications. The license entitles the bearer to operate mobile or portable, a station of a local ham, or his own rig, from a friend’s house, a hotel room, a car, or a camping place.
   My trip was very hectic because I covered 24 localities in 26 days; the trains were very hot and had no air conditioning; all the hams I visited seemed to live on the top floors of their apartment buildings with no elevators, or with elevators “temporary out of order.”
   I am not fussy about food and I consumed three times a day large quantities of tomatoes and cheeses. In restaurants I recommend 6-8 “mititei” per person, which are spicy, delicious, small, charcoal-grilled sausages.
   Spring, and perhaps the fall, are the best seasons to visit Romania, as the heat is not unbearable and the airline rates are affordable. I flew with TAROM, the Romanian airline, on a brand new Airbus; every week they have a non-stop flight to Bucharest, and two with stops in Timisoara, but their schedule changes often.  The flight was comfortable, the service was good.
   I’ve heard of people who went to see the other side of the moon; I don’t believe that going to see the other side of our globe is such an extravagant adventure, one just has to dare it.