Easily Find Out Which Countries Are Open with This Sherpa Map

Figuring out which countries are open for travel can be confusing and time-consuming when the pandemic hasn’t been over in 2022. Travel has once again become uncertain as the new and highly contagious Omicron variant of COVID-19 spread like wildfire across the globe. Countries also impose different kinds of travel restrictions to react to the new variant, while some still remain the way it was since the beginning of the pandemic. It can be challenging to keep yourself updated on the rule changes countries impose that could change within months or even weeks. I will share you a handy map tool I like to use to easily check out which countries are open for tourism.

Turkish Airlines “Map of Travel Rules of Countries”

Turkish Airlines provides an easy-to-use map tool (powered by Sherpa) that highlights a country’s travel restrictions such as:

• Vaccination requirement
• COVID testing requirement
• Quarantine requirement
• Visa requirement
• Other entry form(s) requirement

The maps comes with handy filters like:

• Citizenship (passport)
• Color code to signify level of COVID related restrictions
• Vaccination status

Where Can Americans Travel to in 2022?

Americans already have strong passports to begin with the ability to travel visa-free on 186 countries. Many countries are still open to them despite having a lot of COVID cases in the US. Let’s do an example with the map tool. A fully vaccinated US citizen can enter countries that are colored dark green, light green, and yellow. For the best experience though (unless it can’t be avoided), I would avoid countries that are colored yellow as that indicates a multi-day quarantine requirement.

Countries colored light green would require a negative PCR test 72 hours at most before the departure. But, some countries like Turkey doesn’t require a negative COVID test if you can prove that you’re fully vaccinated. The reason why it’s not dark green is because there’s a low chance that you’ll be randomly tested for COVID once you arrive in Turkey. So, make sure to click on the country on the map for more details on theentry requirements and its rest of.

Citizenship Matters

Your citizenship, or rather, the passport you carry is what truly matters outside of COVID-related restrictions for tourism purposes. One caveat to the map tool is that it appears to confuse your passport and the location you’re flying from. If you hold multiple passports, then you can certainly take advantage by using the right passport for your destination(s).

Let’s say you want to enter Kazakhstan as a fully vaccinated US citizen. As of the time of this post, US citizens cannot enter Kazakhstan unless they have diplomatic reasons or have direct families living in the country.

Here’s where the limitation of the map tool lies. As pictured, I made it so that a US passport holder flying from Turkey is allowed to enter Kazakhstan, which isn’t true. However, it’s true that fully vaccinated Turkish citizens can fly to Kazakhstan with a negative PCR test 72 hours before departure at most. Direct or transit flight makes no difference in entry requirement during the pandemic. Let’s also say you’re a US citizen who plans to be in Turkey for a couple of months and decide to go to Kazakhstan. You still won’t be able to do that until Kazakhstan opens its borders to American tourists.

Make sure to be aware of this map’s quirk. It may be better to just ignore the “From” tab and focus on the “Passport” tab to get the more accurate information out of this map.

Of course, it should be advised to cross-check with your country’s embassies for the most accurate and up-to-date travel restrictions and not rely 100% on this map even though its data points out to the embassies’ links.

Conclusion

The map tool that Turkish Airlines provides is my first go-to tool to check which countries are open for travel in 2022. Another use I like to do is to get ideas on award travel redemptions on flights and come up with realistic strategies that reduces my chance of speculating when a country will open for foreigners with tourism purposes like Japan.

Make sure to be aware of the “From” tab quirk that confuses your nationality and your flight location. Remember, only your nationality, or your passport matters when it comes to entry, and not where you’re flying from. Also, double check the information you get from the map with information provided by your country’s embassies.

At last, understand your own risk tolerance while traveling during the pandemic. Just because a country is open for travel, that doesn’t necessarily match with the level of risks, and always come up with a Plan B if something goes wrong during your travels.