Since March, Coronavirus has devastated the world. Millions have gotten sick, hundreds of thousands have lost their lives, and entire economies have been shut down. In just a matter of weeks, entire countries completely locked themselves down and closed their borders to visitors.
For the first time since probably World War II, travel — an industry that relies on human movement and employs 10% of the global workforce — completely stopped.
As the months have rolled on, we’ve seen some countries re-open……and then return to lockdown, while other destinations are doing well and have reopened to (some) tourists.
And that process creates a lot of questions. There are a lot of variables and rules are constantly changing.
How do you know which countries are open? How do we find out new visitation rules? Will travel insurance apply during the pandemic? What is flying going to be like? Are hotels and hostels safe? What attractions are open? Should you even travel now?
To help you figure out what to do and where to find information, I created this post to get the ball rolling. (Note: This post will be continuously updated as more information becomes available. Its last update was November 16th, 2020.)
What Destinations are Open?
The list of countries that are opening in the coming weeks and months grows every day. Some are opening for all international visitors, while others are opening only for neighbouring countries. Some countries, like the US, Iceland, and Bulgaria, have bans on visitors from certain countries. French Polynesia and the Bahamas are making people show a negative test result within 72 hours of their flight. Same for Austria (as long as you’re from one of 31 approved European countries). Bermuda requires a test before and twice during your visit.
On the other hand, Cambodia wants a $2,000 deposit to cover any potential COVID expenses while Albania, Turkey, Costa Rica, and Mexico have no restrictions and are completely open.
In short, there’s a lot of varying rules to sort through.
That means you’ll need to do specific research based on where you want to go if you want to travel this summer or fall. Luckily, there are a few websites that will make that research straightforward.
First, here is a helpful (but not user-friendly) map from the International Air Transport Association showing you which countries are allowing flights.
Second, The Points Guy and Travel Off Path have breakdowns on the current travel rules for virtually every country in the world. These are the best places to start if you’re looking to see what countries are open.
If you’re from the US, Skyscanner also has a handy list of state-by-state restrictions as well as restrictions by country and flight cancelation policies/information.
You can also download the travel planning app App in the Air for ongoing travel restriction updates. Their app is pretty awesome as it will let you sort airlines by what their policies, lets you know what airports are doing, and has information on health checks too.
