Thursday, 10 October 2024

Giving Kabul A Miss This Year

Dear traveller, the British Government cares for your well-being. To keep you safe from harm, His Majesty’s Government's Foreign & Commonwealth Office has prepared a list of areas around the world you should avoid.
You’ll find these on the website of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, along with detailed travel advice for 225 countries and territories around the world . That’s just about all of them — except the Vatican because Popetown is deemed so safe it requires no travel guidance at all, just turn up with rosary beads and you will be fine.
Some nations are specific for Brits, Iran comes with the warning that: 'British travellers face greater risks than nationals of many other countries due to high levels of suspicion about the UK' though to be fair those suspicions are quite rightly grounded in decades of British meddling in Iranian affairs but most are true for non-Brits as well of the more iffy nations to avoid with your suitcase.
The warnings come in four flavours with you will be fine to a bit dodgy in parts, only go if you REALLY have to and 'Are You Nuts?? Turn Back Now!!!
So where does the British Government say we can go but avoid the unsafe bits? That would be Algeria,  Armenia, Azerbaijan, Chad, Côte d'Ivoire, Cameroon, Ecuador, Egypt, Ethiopia, Georgia, Indonesia, Iraq, Israel, India, Myanmar (Burma), Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Togo, Turkey and Venezuela although unhelpfully the Foreign Office doesn't tell us in which parts of the particular nations to avoid.
The next level is against all but essential travel, and they mean only if you got no other choice and they are Angola, Bangladesh, Brazil, Ghana, Kenya, Kosovo, Mexico, Malaysia, North Korea, Peru, Thailand and Ukraine.
The top level advice of don't even go there unless you have Life Insurance and a funeral plan sorted are Afghanistan, Belarus, Haiti, Iran, Lebanon, Libya, The Occupied Palestinian Territories, Russia, Sudan, Syria, South Sudan and Yemen.
Hopefully one day no countries will be on the UK Governments shit list and we can go where the hell we like but for now, it will be a while before any of those countries covered by the top markings get a visit by any members of the Royal Family, so silver linings and all that.

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