Photo: hamza ali shatnawi/Shutterstock

US State Department Lifts ‘Do Not Travel’ Advisory for International Travel

United States News
by Eben Diskin Aug 6, 2020

On March 19, the US State Department issued a Level 4: Do Not Travel advisory to American citizens, warning them not to travel abroad. Now the government is lifting this advisory amid international improvements in public health and progress fighting COVID-19.

According to a note from the State Department, “with health and safety conditions improving in some countries and potentially deteriorating in others, the Department is returning to our previous system of country-specific levels of travel advice (with Levels from 1-4 depending on country-specific conditions), in order to give travelers detailed and actionable information to make informed travel decisions … We continue to recommend U.S. citizens exercise caution when traveling abroad due to the unpredictable nature of the pandemic.”

Replacing the Level 4 advisory will be more individualized recommendations for countries, based on their specific public health situation. Although the US government is no longer warning citizens to avoid all international travel, they do still advise an abundance of caution. The State Department may still advise against travel to countries with high rates of COVID-19 transmission, like India, Brazil, and Russia.

By no stretch of the imagination does this mean travel is returning to normal, being that one of the highest risk countries in the world is the US. Many nations still have travel restrictions in place against US tourists, making international travel incredibly difficult.

Discover Matador