Travel advisories are government issued warnings about certain countries that have current issues whether it be terrorism, health, civil unrest, crime, kidnapping, natural disaster or similar.
They have different levels which vary from basic precautions when travelling, to advising against all travel.
To see the list of travel advisories, visit your governments travel advice page. All countries have one.
For example, here are the government travel advisory pages for: UK, USA and Canada. Your government will update the advice which can differ compared to other countries.
You will see a list of countries and the warnings for each country which you should always check before planning a trip overseas.
The UK, for example, advises against all travel to Turkey and Egypt. This is just two examples as there are many other countries they advise you do not travel to. Again, these can all be found on your governments travel advisory page.
Sometimes they warn against “essential travel only”. This means that you can only travel there if it is urgent family or business commitments. Even then, you should only really travel if you cannot reschedule it, such as a family death.
You might wonder, what happens if you decide to travel against your governments advice?
If your government is warning against all travel to a country and you decide to travel anyway, your travel insurance will not cover anything!
You should not travel to places that have warnings against all travel.
If you have a trip booked and the government issues travel advise saying do not travel to that country, you will be able to get a refund from your tour operator.
If you are travelling to a country that is near to an affected region that has a travel warning, you won’t be able to cancel and get a refund if you don’t want to travel just because it is close to an affected region.
Governments don’t want to issue these warnings, but they do for our own safety. You should follow their rules for your own safety.