The type of interaction international visiting scholars has with their academic hosts plays a key role in the success of academic visits. However, few studies have focused on this visiting scholar-academic host interaction. The study uncovers and explicates three different ways international visiting scholars experience their academic interaction with their faculty hosts, namely alienating, facilitating and mentoring. The study offers practical suggestions on how to improve visiting scholar-academic host interactions to make scholarly visits more successful and fruitful. The findings fill a gap in the literature by articulating the different ways of experiencing the interaction between international visiting scholars and academic hosts.