Nowadays, our ability to travel internationally is controlled by two factors: the country of your departure and passenger’s immunization records.  The world is artificially divided into COVID-safe countries (often colored green or amber) and unsafe or risky countries (often painted in red). What countries are on what list is decided by health/political officials in each country, and changes bi-weekly. Criteria for managing that list are not universally agreed on. For example, the latest list makes travel from Brazil to the US possible while travel from Brazil to Europe is restricted. It is important to keep in mind that any current travel restrictions are not driven by citizenship of a traveler but by his/her country of departure.

Second factor controlling travel today has to do with passengers themselves. Regardless of where the journey began, travelers are divided into vaccinated and unvaccinated groups. Those who can show proof of full vaccination (defined as 1-2 jabs by approved vaccines) are free to travel with minimal (mask requirement) or no restrictions. On the other hand, the unvaccinated passengers are required to show proof of a negative COVID test in order to obtain a boarding card, and in some countries must self-isolate for 5-10 days upon arrival.

Today’s winners are the vaccinated travelers arriving from green and amber countries.  For that group travel is “back to normal.” Right or wrong, unvaccinated who plan to travel internationally are required to submit additional arrival/locator forms, are subject to pre-departure (and in some cases post departure) testing, and in some extreme cases may be required to self-isolate (from 5 to 10 days) in the country of arrival.