Dual Nationality -- Which Passport to Use?

I am heading to the UK in a week, for my first visit home in three years (yay!) -- only I am unsure which of my passports (UK & US) to travel on. Any thoughts on this?

Also, two more quick questions:

- Can I rent a car and drive in the UK using my US drivers license?
- Are traveler's cheques/checks the best way to handle my money? If I use my credit card to make UK purchases am I going to get screwed by the exchange rate or extra fees?

I would not use travelers checks, personally - it has been my experience that your average cashier is not versed in using them and they just cause confusion.  I usually visit a cash point and pull out a lump sum with my debit card the day I arrive.  I end up being charged a few bucks.  Credit cards will charge you exchange fees per transaction, but each card is different.

You can use either passport, but I'd use your UK one just so you can go through the quicker line

You can't enter the UK on a US passport as you'd be stamped as a visitor, which would be daft.

Vicky

- Can I rent a car and drive in the UK using my US drivers license?

Yes, you can.

If you hold both US and UK passports its easy you HAVE to take both..
You leave and enter the UK on the UK one
AND
You leave and enter the US on the US one.
Its great . you usually get the shorter lines on both sides

I don't know about the US, but if you have more than one passport, and one of them is a UK one, you must use it to enter the UK.

I don't know about the US, but if you have more than one passport, and one of them is a UK one, you must use it to enter the UK.

You must use a US passport to enter and leave the US but the same is not true of the UK if you are not planning on staying.

Actually, that's not the case in the UK.  You can legally use an EU passport, for example.

Vicky

You can't enter the UK on a US passport as you'd be stamped as a visitor, which would be daft.

Vicky

So lets do a hypothetical.....You enter the UK on your UK passport and then you get stopped in the UK by the gendarmes (got to be a little dramatic ), you then show them your US drivers license and your UK passport?

Jim, I don't understand.  This is not about entering the UK.  But yeah, plenty of people would do this.

Vicky

I presume that Jim is using poetic licence in supposing that it is possible to be stopped by "gendarmes" in the UK, but there are actually armed members of the Gendarmerie Nationale de France at the Channel Tunnel terminal in Kent.

As a matter of interest, what's going to happen in this situation if you did enter the U.K. on a U.S. passport?   If you're a British citizen you have every right to remain here indefinitely anyway.  Is it just a case of "confusing" the system?

This is something which is not clear.  It would probably depend on whether or not you actually had evidence that you were British with you.

Vicky

I think I still have a letter from a chief constable, in the UK, informing me that after checking with the Home Office he could inform me that I wouldn't have to register at the local police station.
I had come back to live in the UK for two years and entered on my US passport but I told them I was British by birth as shown on the passport. When I am thinking about this some how it doesn't make sense and since this happened almost 50 years ago maybe I don't have things straight. I do have that letter though.

We have a favorite saying that I like to use here in the US. It is "so sue me" which is what I should have said the the CC.

I think Paul you hit the nail on the head when you said you can "confuse the system"

What I am thinking, if for example, you are British and you get stopped in the UK and you show them your Florida drivers license. I hope they would except your explanation that you now live in Florida and are just visiting the UK? Knowing some cops they would want to go the rounds but  me, if I was the cop, I would tell you to keep going. It is an interesting point.

I presume that Jim is using poetic licence in supposing that it is possible to be stopped by "gendarmes" in the UK, but there are actually armed members of the Gendarmerie Nationale de France at the Channel Tunnel terminal in Kent.

Contrex, I didn't know that but I'm not surprised since they have US Customs in Canada. Strange world hugh?
I think I was using the French term for police but you probably knew that, hugh?