There are those who misguidedly believe that not only should sport and politics never mix, travel and politics shouldn’t ever coexist either.

Fat chance. As the world has witnessed with international sport over the decades, the notion that it and world events can be separated has proved historically risible, and now we witness overseas travel becoming markedly more politicised.

US President Donald Trump, like Basil Fawlty, is a hotelier with thinly disguised hostility towards his guests.Credit: Aresna Villanueva

Nowhere is it more starkly illustrated than what appears to be the weaponisation of tourism for political purposes by the Trump administration and its facilitators, who appear to be Googling overtime in search of any criticism of the president and his policies.

This article, and others I’ve written critical of US treatment of tourists under the Trump administration in my role as travel editor of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, will likely render any visit by me to the United States a risky proposition.

I’m not complaining. For me, it’s no loss. It’s still a wide, wonderful and mostly welcoming world out there, and word has it that our far more rational Canadian friends could do with a little Antipodean love in the form of a holiday there.

So forget about yours truly, and consider the recent case of a reader of the Traveller title of the above publications.

Only a few hours before the departure of his flight earlier this month to visit his daughter in the US, Australian Bruce Hyland received notice from American immigration authorities that he would not be permitted to enter the country. This news came after having been approved to........

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