Here are the countries where you can travel without quarantine …. if they let you in

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• Andrew says:

  3 Jul3 July 16:47

  I see the FCO still advises against travel to the Vatican City, suggesting that a visit to Rome would mean you couldn’t visit St Peters without invalidating your travel insurance.

• Matt says:

  3 Jul3 July 16:50

  Does the transit restriction basically put Qatar Airways out of action? Or is it only a problem if you actually enter Doha?

  • Rob says:

    3 Jul3 July 17:58

    You CAN’T enter Doha at the moment. Logically you should be OK but the wording, if you follow the links I provided, specifically says that if you transit somewhere you must quarantine. The word ‘transit’ seems fairly definite – they could have said ‘stopover’ if they only meant to include people taking a short break on the way back.

    • Matt says:

      3 Jul3 July 19:19

      Another nail in the coffin of my next QR trip then!

      • Lady Londost says:

        3 Jul3 July 19:37

        If you stay airside though I dont think you count as having entered a country. Trouble is, though, the location will have.people resident in the location daily coming airside from landside to work so you may be taking a risk even if the airport allows you to stay airside while transiting (some dont).

        • TimS says:

          4 Jul4 July 07:12

          Likewise you could be in close contact with (or touch something touched by) someone who is transiting from a place not on the permitted countries list. Hence the reason that you still have to self-isolate if your transit country is not on the list.

          It does make a mockery of Australia & NZ being on the list though as most flights would transit via excluded countries (ME3, Malaysia, Singapore etc). HK appears to be the only common gateway country back to the UK from Australia & NZ at the moment.

• A. J. says:

  3 Jul3 July 17:01

  “if you have previously returned from a country on the list below, you can end your quarantine on 10th July”

  Is this explicitly stated in the announcement? Or just a “common sense” interpretation?

  • Rob says:

    3 Jul3 July 17:57

    It was in the press today from an unnamed Government spokesman.

• Alex W says:

  3 Jul3 July 17:09

  When you say insurance will be valid, could that exclude Coronavirus? I.e. you would be covered if you tripped and broke your ankle but if you got Covid while abroad, possibly not covered depending on your policy?

  • Rob says:

    3 Jul3 July 17:56

    Yes, it would exclude coronavirus if your policy does not cover pandemics. Twisted ankles are now ok!

• Anon says:

  3 Jul3 July 17:43

  The Netherlands ‘strongly recommends’ UK arrivals to self-quarantine. What does this mean? It’s not enforced?

  • Rob says:

    3 Jul3 July 17:54

    No, it’s not apparently. I was talking to someone the other day who was travelling back and forth at the moment, and I may even go over myself in a week or so.

    • Harry T says:

      3 Jul3 July 21:43

      @Rob I’ll be staying at the W Amsterdam from 17th to 19th July – would like to buy you a socially distanced beverage if you’re so inclined, to thank you for all your hard work on this site over the years.

      • Rob says:

        3 Jul3 July 22:32

        It won’t be that late as we’re off on hols on 18th.

  • RussellH says:

    3 Jul3 July 21:47

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/02/no-kissing-amsterdams-red-light-district-reopens-after-coronavirus-shutdown
    🙂

• Aceman says:

  3 Jul3 July 17:50

  So just to be clear, if I arrive back into the uk ON July 10th from Spain, I’m now exempt?

  • Rob says:

    3 Jul3 July 17:54

    Yes.

• BB says:

  3 Jul3 July 18:02

  What a fiasco to not include Sweden. Especially when the UK is essentially following the same contagion model.

  • Nick_C says:

    3 Jul3 July 18:11

    Sweden’s current death rate is 2.56/million
    The UK is 1.61/million
    Portugal is 0.53/million

    Everywhere else in Western Europe is below 0.33/million.

    What is a nonsense is to impose quarantine on holidaymakers returning from the Algarve, when the flare up is Lisbon, which the British bucket and spade mob tend not to visit.

    Our oldest allies are upset, and rightly so.

    https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&time=latest&deathsMetric=true&dailyFreq=true&perCapita=true&smoothing=7&country=GBR~SWE~PRT~FRA~ESP~ITA~DEU~IRL~CHE~DNK~BEL&pickerMetric=location&pickerSort=asc

    • Lady London says:

      4 Jul4 July 13:50

      Interesting that it looks like Sweden’s infection rate is 7x the UK’s. But their death rate is only 2x ?

      • Rob says:

        4 Jul4 July 14:21

        It’s a young country and there have been no lockdown restrictions, so the youngsters have been out and about (and getting infected) whilst the elderly have been keeping out of the way as per Government advice.

• Andrew L says:

  3 Jul3 July 18:05

  We have a trip to Madeira booked with Jet2 on the 20th July, which has not yet been cancelled. As Madeira appears on list 2 does that mean that a 2 week quarantine period still applies upon return?

  • Jake says:

    3 Jul3 July 19:26

    Yes, but Jet2 isn’t necessarily obliged to cancel the flight/holiday or offer you a refund because of the quarantine. At least, that’s the expectation at the moment.

  • Ron says:

    3 Jul3 July 20:20

    We have a trip booked to Madeira in Aug. I hope Portugal will be added to the first list by then, so we don’t have to be quarantined when we’re back. Not sure why the first list doesn’t include just Azores and Madeira like the second list does. Madeira seems to be COVID free at the moment.

    • Andrew L says:

      3 Jul3 July 20:38

      They’ve had no deaths in Madeira, so seems strange that a completely out of control country, like the UK, wants to quarantine you on your return. The world has gone completely bonkers!!

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