Category Archives: Travel

Portugal removed from ‘green list’ of Covid travel destinations

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No countries added to England’s quarantine-free holiday register as seven moved from amber to red

Portugal has been taken off the UK’s “green list” of destinations from which people can return to England without having to quarantine. The government has said the threat of new Covid-19 variants means that less restricted travel could jeopardise domestic unlocking.

No countries were added to the green list, but seven more – Afghanistan, Bahrain, Costa Rica, Egypt, Sri Lanka, Sudan, and Trinidad and Tobago – were moved from the amber list to the red list of nations to which almost all travel is barred, the Department for Transport said.

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Work is where your laptop is: meet the globetrotting digital nomads

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Worldwide shift to flexible and home working in pandemic has led to rise of new kind of backpacker

Samantha Scott does not miss her daily commutes in London, particularly “the dread of having to wake up and get on the tube, and heading into work sweaty and flustered. I’m still waking up at 6 or 7am, but I’m able to go for a walk on the beach before I start work.”

When she and her partner Chris Cerra arrive with their luggage in a new city, they can easily be mistaken for tourists. But they are part of a new generation of “digital nomads” who hop from country to country to live and work.

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Outback camel trek: one woman’s 5,000km journey across Australia

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After working with camels for five years, 32-year-old Sophie Matterson decided to embark on an epic trek across Australia, with nothing but the animals she had come to love for company. She trained five of them to carry her provisions before beginning a 5,000km coast-to-coast walk from Australia’s western-most point in Shark Bay, Western Australia, to the eastern-most point in Byron Bay, New South Wales

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Britons should not be holidaying in Spain yet, says UK minister

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Anne-Marie Trevelyan urges people not to travel to country on coronavirus amber list ‘unless you have to’

Britons have been urged not to travel to Spain after the country opened its doors to tourists from the UK.

Spain has lifted its restrictions on holidaymakers from the UK but the business minister Anne-Marie Trevelyan has urged people not to go there unless there is an urgent reason.

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It’s cold and wet, but Scarborough is a beacon of normality for families

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The weather couldn’t dampen spirits as the Yorkshire resort’s hoteliers and guests celebrated the return of domestic travel

The sky was overcast, a chill wind blew in from the sea, and everyone was wearing coats. But for four-year-old Caitlin and two-year-old Jim, there was little to complain about – they were on a beach and they were building sandcastles.

For their parents, Lindsay and Jim Roger, a week’s holiday in the North Yorkshire seaside town of Scarborough was a blessed relief. Lindsay is a nurse who has been working on Covid wards, while Jim works in construction. As key workers with young children, lockdown has been difficult but they were “really pleased” to be able to travel again. “It’s just nice to get out and nice to see the sea,” Jim said. “It makes such a change from the house and the garden.”

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Down at heel Black Sea resort pins its hopes on Russian staycations

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The seaside town of Anapa hopes foreign travel ban will bring holidaymakers back

It is not yet peak season on Anapa’s Black Sea coast so there is still space to spread out on its sandy beach, the pride of a resort town that may be one of the best chances many Russians get to visit the seaside this year.

Wander through the streets beyond the waterfront and you’ll find a sprawl of knick-knack shops, amusement and water parks, shashlik stands and carnival games that make up what is, this year, Russia’s resort of last resort.

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Spain to drop Covid restrictions on British visitors from 24 May

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Spanish PM says negative test not needed even as Boris Johnson warns against travel to amber list countries

Spain will allow British holidaymakers into the country without the need to provide a negative Covid test from 24 May.

In a move aimed at restarting the country’s battered tourist industry, the Spanish government has announced that visitors from the UK will be free to enter Spain “without restrictions and without health requirements”. The same applies to visitors from Japan. All arrivals are still required to fill out a health form.

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Scott Morrison fends off calls to reopen border as medical association urges ‘plan for 2022’

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The prime minister concedes the government has to ‘step up’ the vaccination effort as the AMA says it’s time to put a date on reopening

The prime minister, Scott Morrison, is fending off mounting pressure to reopen Australia’s borders sooner than next year, as the peak medical association joins calls for a “plan for 2022” that would see the country reopen to the rest of the world.

Following last week’s budget, which assumed that Australia’s borders would remain closed until mid next year, the Morrison government has faced a barrage of calls from business, the university sector and from within Coalition ranks for a swifter reopening of borders and a bolstering of quarantine facilities.

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‘The beginning of normality’: Algarve welcomes back British tourists

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Unemployment rose by 70% in the past year in the Portuguese region most reliant on tourism, so locals are delighted to see Kevin Rushby and today’s other arrivals

The mood at Faro airport was buoyant. Camera operators and photographers jostled to take pictures of smiling tourists, perhaps not as many as hoped, for but more are on the way. João Fernandes, head of the Algarve tourism board, was there, too, greeting arrivals while his staff handed out face masks, hand gel and sprigs of lavender.

“I feel good,” said Fernandes. “The British tourists are a very big part of our economy. In 2018 half of the passengers coming through this airport were from the UK. They stayed for six million overnights out of a total of 16 million for international visitors. And on our golf courses, 83% of visitors were British or Irish.”

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Fake Covid vaccine and test certificate market is growing, researchers say

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More than 1,200 vendors operating in the UK and worldwide, offering false documents for as little as £25

A hidden pandemic market advertising fake vaccine and test certificates for as little as £25 has grown exponentially, with more than 1,200 vendors in the UK and worldwide, researchers have found.

After UK ministers announced the return of overseas holidays – with travellers required to show proof of negative tests, and vaccine passports on the horizon – the Guardian has also learned that anti-vaxxers and people arriving in Britain from poorer nations make up a significant number of those buying forged pandemic paraphernalia.

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Booking a holiday outside the UK? Here’s what you need to know

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British travellers face challenges this year not only from the Covid crisis, but also the effects of Brexit. Here’s the lowdown

Holidaymakers in England, Scotland and Wales have been given the green light for trips abroad. Travel is restricted to a small number of countries but the early signs are that they are proving popular with those desperate for a change of scene – this week Tui announced it would be putting on bigger planes to meet demand for trips to Portugal. Bookings for flights to the island of Madeira rose by 625% straight after the green list of countries was announced, according to the website Skyscanner, while demand for Gibraltar leapt by 335%.

For most people, this will be the first trip abroad since the UK’s post-Brexit transition period ended. Here’s our guide to booking a trip in the time of Covid and after the time of the EU.

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US airline chiefs add to pressure for transatlantic travel to restart

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American, Delta and United bosses join BA and Virgin Atlantic in saying US-UK vaccination levels mean routes should reopen

Major US airlines have weighed in alongside UK carriers to urge the reopening of transatlantic travel, calling on governments in Washington and London to arrange a summit as soon as possible.

The airlines said safely reopening borders was essential for economic recovery and asked the nations’ leaders to meet before the G7, and take a decision with sufficient time for airlines to plan and restart services.

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‘Green list’ guide: the countries travellers from England can visit

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The government has revealed the destinations to which quarantine-free holidays will be allowed

The government has just announced its green list for quarantine-free international travel into England. The countries on it are Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Brunei, Iceland, the Faroe Islands, Gibraltar, the Falkland Islands, Israel, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha, and Portugal, including the Azores and Madeira.

Related: England’s traffic-light system for foreign travel: all you need to know

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Covid travel rules: ‘green list’ of destinations announced for England – video

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Turkey, Maldives and Nepal are expected to be added to a red list while Israel will be among the green list countries, the UK transport secretary, Grant Shapps, announced.

Popular travel destinations France and Spain were not included in the green list announced on Friday, but Shapps assured there would be a review every three weeks.

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Heathrow’s bid to raise charges to cover £2.6bn Covid costs rejected

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Airport’s plan not in the interests of consumers, says Civil Aviation Authority

Heathrow’s request to increase airport charges to recoup £2.6bn lost during the pandemic has been rejected by the UK’s aviation regulator.

The Civil Aviation Authority’s consumers and markets director, Paul Smith, described the plan as “disproportionate and not in the interests of consumers”.

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The city my grandfather used to call home no longer exists – except in our minds

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After his death, I wanted to know more about his life, and the city that made him and very nearly killed him

Every Hanukkah through my childhood, if I was visiting my grandparents’ Liverpool home, my Grandpa Oskar told me the exact same story. With a pickle on his side plate – my grandma serving up his favourite dinner of latkes, vusht (smoked sausage) and eggs – he’d recount the night during this very Jewish festival in 1937 that his family – our family – fled for their lives from the Nazis.

The preparations for their escape might have been secretly in motion for weeks, but the first he knew of the plan was as it was happening: he arrived home from school to be told he and his brother were going on a trip that very December night. They’d be travelling with their mum; their father – my great-grandpa – would meet them on their journey. It was only later that he’d learn their destination was England, a new permanent home for our family, now refugees.

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Walking around Menorca: my lockdown project is never staying still

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Having ‘washed up’ on the island due to travel restrictions, our writer finds joy in hiking the Camí de Cavalls coastal trail and swimming in secluded coves

I’m walking along a sandy path through a forest high above the flashing kingfisher-coloured coast. It smells of hot pine and wild rosemary. The sound of bells deep in the wood stops me in my tracks. Have I finally lost my mind, after months of piloting solo through the pandemic on this small island far from home?

From between the trees step a herd of cows, as if from a child’s picture book, caramel coloured, soft noses, liquid eyes and each with a collar from which a large bell swings. Mystery solved, I pick up my water bottle and keep going.

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Add India to UK travel ban list to stop Covid variant, urges scientist

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Indian coronavirus variant has potential to ‘scupper’ lockdown easing, says professor of immunology

India should be placed on the UK’s “red list” for travel after the discovery of a new coronavirus variant, according to a leading scientist.

Prof Danny Altmann, from Imperial College London, said it was “mystifying” and “confounding” that those flying in from the country were not required to stay in a hotel.

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‘This is all we could get’: Dutch tourists arrive in Rhodes for locked-down holiday

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In experiment organised by Dutch government, travellers will have to take regular Covid tests and are barred from leaving resort

A regime that might, in more normal times, resemble a boot camp has been happily embraced by 189 Dutch tourists who traded lockdown in the Netherlands for eight days of voluntary confinement at a Greek beach resort.

In an experiment devised by travel industry experts determined not to lose another season to Covid-19, the tourists arrived on the Aegean island of Rhodes on Monday as part of a test run to see if safe holidays can be arranged during the pandemic.

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The UK needs a robust border policy, but right now we can’t see if it is working

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Analysis: it is incredibly challenging to scrutinise the system because data on movement is so opaque

The official response to coronavirus at the UK border has been problematic from the start. It was not until February this year that the government introduced mandatory hotel quarantine – some 11 months after coronavirus was first recorded the UK – despite it being used in countries such as New Zealand from the off.

Even now with stricter requirements for arrivals in place, critics say the current border policy is seriously lacking. Reports claiming as many as 8,000 tourists a day are arriving in the UK have significantly fueled those concerns.

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