Here’s Where You Can Travel With an American Passport Right Now

Hope you like summer in the Balkans.

As far as the world outside the borders of the United States is concerned, America is not doing a great job with containing the spread of COVID-19. 

There’s no better way to illustrate just how limited a US passport—once one of the most coveted travel documents—really is than with the following image created by Twitter user “Indica” in mid-July.

The map was based on this article published by the New York Times.

Here are the cold, hard facts: As of the beginning of August 2020, just 28 countries are permitting American passport holders to travel visa-free, and some still insist on a 14-day quarantine once you get there. Most Caribbean islands are good to go or soon will be, and in Europe, a US passport will get you into Serbia, Croatia, Ukraine, Kosovo, and North Macedonia in addition to a few smaller nations. 

The following chart published by Statista tells the depressing story.

Statista writer Felix Richter explains:

[As the] chart, based on data from Johns Hopkins University, illustrates, the trend of daily new COVID-19 cases has taken completely different trajectories for the U.S. and the European Union. While cases in the U.S. started surging in mid-June, the outbreak appeared to be under control in the EU.

Four weeks into the reopening of its borders to international travelers, the European Union is also seeing new infections rise again – a painful reminder that the pandemic isn’t over just yet.

With that rising number in the EU, however, it may not be such a bad thing if travel is so limited. Until a reliable vaccine is found, the answer to stopping the coronavirus pandemic really may just be staying home. 

Or working from one of those Caribbean beaches—Barbados, the gorgeous island that gave us Rihanna, is taking all visitors right now and you can stay for up to a year. 

Stocking up on the sunblock and making the move might just be worth it.