|
I'm an American citizen and visited Iran back 2017 with no problems. I was nervous about getting questioned but surprisingly, it turned out to be one of the smoothest border crossings I've ever experienced - when entering Iran and the US I literally got no questions at all. (Getting an Iranian entry visa as an American without a government minder was bit trickier, but I was also pleasantly surprised by how smoothly that went - they even wrote me a check to reimburse me for a priority processing fee that didn't end up being necessary, which was a first). That said - 2017 was, in retrospect, a pretty easy time to visit Iran, and I wouldn't risk it now given the events of the last few months. But I very much hope to be able to go back. I can confirm what several others here are saying - Tehran is a cosmopolitan, fascinating city, and Iranians are wonderful, on the whole. Some of the biggest surprises for me were 1) the religious and cultural pluralism on display - I saw Zoroastrian temples, synagogues, and plenty of churches (with the prominent exception of Bahá'i, who are forced to live in the shadows). Not to mention that the vast majority of Iranians I talked to about religion were on the atheist-agnostic spectrum, although they participate in religious holidays and customs in much the same way that my lapsed Catholic family did when I was growing up. 2) How much Iranians like American culture, and how connected they are to it by friends and family who live in the US. I knew this from before, of course, but it was surreal to be, say, talking to an older couple in a tiny provincial village and end up discussing their favorite taquerias in Orange County (that really happened to me). Or the kids in a mall who insisted on taking a bunch of selfies with me when they found out I was from the US. Anyway, I found the whole trip to be extraordinary and came away from it convinced that, on the level of culture and society if not our current governments, Americans and Iranians are natural allies. I hope for a future where that can happen. |
The irony here is that if you weren't American, this trip would have cost you visa-free access to America.