covid-19

For more than a year I've been thinking to write about my "corona" adventures.

Apparently, I was waiting for this topic to lose its relevance, but it is only getting more complicated and gaining new features.

First and foremost: you can travel!

Second: be careful!

Yes, now it is much more difficult, but still, many countries are open to tourists.

* To make it easier for you to search, at the end of the article there is a list of the most convenient and informative sites, where there's the data on restrictions, the borders reopening and closures, and internal rules in different countries of the world are collected.
We ourselves use them regularly.

Please note that the countries that have direct flights and the countries where tourists are allowed to enter are two completely different lists.

Air travel can only be available to residents of those countries or their relatives, diplomats, or humanitarian workers.
While tourists can get to some states without a direct flight, with connections, for example, in Istanbul.
By the way, connections without leaving the international zone of the airport are allowed in almost all countries, they do not even (in most locations) need coronavirus tests.

Another thing is that you need to be very careful with transfers, say, in Europe since there are still widespread lockdowns, flights are often canceled due to low occupancy of the planes.

➕ There are not too many tourists, everything is just for you, you can take pictures without other people, there are always free rooms in hotels, tables in cafes, and no queues - a paradise for a sociopath and an ordinary traveler.

➕ Discounts, cheap hotels, tickets, entertainment - in order to attract those few who are not staying home and keep themselves afloat, many hotels, amusement parks, airlines make good discounts.

➕ A special love of local residents in touristic cities - they have no work without tourists, so you are like a raindrop in a desert for them - they are ready to absorb you completely.

Even when you don't really do cash for them, because you are an experienced traveler who eats a three-course dinner for $3 for two, they are still very glad to see you. Thank you for coming.

➕ Clean streets. People produce trash. Not all of us, of course, but even 5% is enough.
And 5% of 100,000 and 1,000 are completely different numbers.

➖ Masks, face shields, sanitizers from head to toe, temperature measurements at every step, entrance to the store on odd and even days, quarantines, curfews - sometimes, of course, annoying, but in general you quickly get used to it.

Under masks, people are still the same, active people still want to communicate, but frankly, I like wearing a mask (everywhere, except for hot countries).

➖ Excessive disinfection - when a girl on an airplane has used a whole bottle of sanitizer for an hour and a half flight - this is too much, she did not touch anything and still sanitized her hands every 3 minutes.
Why do they spray your shoes at the store entrance?
Why do they pour alcohol on my money, passports, and food?

➖ Cities are dying. Everyone suffers without tourism, people have been without work and without prospects for a year.

Many cool places have closed down, being unable to withstand the desolation.
People sit at home, and cities look like haunted labyrinths.

➖ Many attractions are closed or have limited visitors. It is impossible to plan anything, everything can suddenly open and just as suddenly close.

Seize the moment.

➖ Tests: on international flights, domestic flights, on interstate and interprovincial travels, or just in case.

This procedure is not cheap, plus there is a very high demand for it.
In some countries, it is now easier to recover, to do an antibody test once, and then travel with it.

By the way, you can just show a positive one, which is more than two weeks old, but less than six months. That works in some countries too.

➖ Transportation: you can forget about land borders, international airports work only in capitals, plane tickets are more like lottery tickets - you never know if they will be canceled or not, the rules are constantly changing within countries, different provinces either increase the level of danger, then lower it, this changes the rules of transportation, curfews and the necessity to take tests.

➖ For those who have a limited vacation: it is not guaranteed that you will come back home on the right day.
The previous point was just about that.

We haven't watched any news for the last six months. They press too much with their numbers. But at the same time, you must always be aware of what's happening in the world.

So, we have collected links to various sources and interactive maps that we use ourselves:

Please be responsible travelers!

Follow the rules of those countries, regions, cities to which you are traveling.

The universal rule is: "Do not drive anyone wild."
You can hate masks and not understand the need for all the precautions, but you need to respect the locals and their laws.
Then all doors are more likely to be open for you and you will be greeted with a wider smile in different countries.

And, of course, don't travel if you are sick.