This page is a directory. It does not give you travel advice. It tells you where to get travel advice, and it points you at the official government and international sources that boomer travelers should consult before booking and again before departure. Boomeropia’s editorial coverage describes trips as they are today; this page describes where to look when the situation in a country changes faster than a magazine article can be republished.
Before you book, before you go
Two checks happen at different points in a trip. The first is before booking, when the question is whether the destination is currently one you can travel to safely. The second is two or three days before departure, when the question is whether anything has changed since you booked. The sources below split roughly along that line. The advisory and travel.state.gov pages are best checked at booking time and again before departure. The customs and TSA pages are most useful just before you fly. The medical pages are useful at booking time, with one final check at the vaccination clinic several weeks before you go.
And before you go, see our Travel Health Insurance page for the medical-coverage side of pre-trip planning.
United States: primary
For U.S. citizens and residents, the U.S. Department of State is the canonical source on safety, security, and entry requirements abroad. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention covers health. Customs and Border Protection covers re-entry into the United States.
U.S. Department of State, travel.state.gov. The country-specific travel advisory pages on travel.state.gov describe the current safety and security situation in every country in the world, with a four-tier scale from Level 1 (exercise normal precautions) to Level 4 (do not travel). The page for each country also covers entry requirements, health requirements, and local laws and customs.
- Main travel page: https://travel.state.gov/en/international-travel.html
- Country information index: https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/international-travel/International-Travel-Country-Information-Pages.html
- Travel advisories list: https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/traveladvisories.html
- Emergencies abroad: https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/international-travel/emergencies.html
Smart Traveler Enrollment Program (STEP). STEP is a free service that lets the nearest U.S. embassy or consulate contact you in an emergency, send you security alerts, and help family or friends reach you if something goes wrong. Boomeropia’s strong recommendation: enroll before every international trip, even short ones, even to countries you have visited before. STEP does not replace the advisory check, but it is the layer that lets the embassy find you if the advisory changes mid-trip. - STEP enrollment: https://step.state.gov/
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, travelers’ health. The CDC’s Travelers’ Health site is where you confirm vaccination requirements, find recommended (not just required) vaccines, and check the current health situation for any country on your itinerary. The CDC Yellow Book is the clinician-grade reference, useful when you want more detail than the country pages provide. - Main travelers’ health page: https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel
- Destinations list: https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/destinations/list
- Yellow Book: https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/yellowbook
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). CBP covers what you can bring back into the United States. The pages below cover duty-free exemptions, what must be declared, and the agricultural restrictions that surprise most returning travelers. - Travel main page: https://www.cbp.gov/travel
- U.S. citizens returning: https://www.cbp.gov/travel/us-citizens
- International visitors to the U.S.: https://www.cbp.gov/travel/international-visitors
Transportation Security Administration (TSA). TSA covers what you can carry in your bag, what the PreCheck and Global Entry programs offer, and current airport security procedures. - Travel main page: https://www.tsa.gov/travel
- TSA PreCheck: https://www.tsa.gov/precheck
National Hurricane Center. For cruises, active-adventure travel, and any Caribbean or Gulf Coast trip from June through November, the NHC is the authoritative source on tropical weather. Check it at booking time and again in the seven days before departure. - NHC main page: https://www.nhc.noaa.gov
National Weather Service. For U.S. domestic road trips and any outdoor itinerary, weather.gov is the right place to look at forecasts and active watches and warnings. - NWS main page: https://www.weather.gov
United Kingdom: secondary
For U.K. citizens and residents, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office’s foreign travel advice is the equivalent of the U.S. State Department pages, with country-by-country safety and entry information. The site is fast, current, and has a country-by-country breakdown that includes entry requirements, local laws, and natural-disaster advisories.
- Foreign travel advice (country index): https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice
- Sample country page (Italy): https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/italy
Canada: secondary
For Canadian citizens and residents, Global Affairs Canada publishes country-specific travel advice and advisories through travel.gc.ca. The site also covers entry requirements by country, including the visa-free entry privileges for Canadian passport holders, and emergency contact information for Canadians abroad.
- Travel.gc.ca main page: https://travel.gc.ca
- Destinations: https://travel.gc.ca/destinations
- Air travel (entry and exit): https://travel.gc.ca/air
Australia: secondary
For Australian citizens and residents, Smartraveller is the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s travel-advisory service. Smartraveller assigns a four-tier advice level to each country, from “exercise normal safety precautions” through “do not travel,” and publishes clear guidance on insurance, registration, and what to do if things go wrong overseas. The Australian government has stronger regional blocking than most other government sources on this page; if the live site does not respond, the Wayback Machine snapshot at web.archive.org is current.
- Smartraveller main page: https://www.smartraveller.gov.au
- Wayback snapshot (live site blocks most non-AU networks): https://web.archive.org/web/2025/https://www.smartraveller.gov.au/
International health and safety
The World Health Organization publishes travel-advisory and outbreak information at a global level, independent of any single country. WHO is the right source for emerging outbreaks and for the international-standard classification of disease risk, useful when a country’s own health ministry is slow to publish or when you are looking at a destination whose health reporting is thin.
- WHO travel advice: https://www.who.int/travel-advice
- WHO emergencies overview: https://www.who.int/emergencies/overview
- WHO health topics, travel and health: https://www.who.int/health-topics/travel-and-health
U.S. embassies, by destination
Boomeropia covers destinations across Africa, Antarctica, Asia, Central America, Europe, and South America. The U.S. embassy website for each destination is the most direct way to find entry requirements, U.S. citizen services, and the embassy’s own security messaging for the country. The list below covers the destinations Boomeropia has published coverage of; if your trip is to a country not on this list, the country-specific advisory page on travel.state.gov is the canonical U.S. government entry point.
- Japan: https://jp.usembassy.gov
- Vietnam: https://vn.usembassy.gov
- Italy: https://it.usembassy.gov
- France: https://fr.usembassy.gov
- Greece: https://gr.usembassy.gov
- Iceland: https://is.usembassy.gov
- Canada: https://ca.usembassy.gov
- Costa Rica: https://cr.usembassy.gov
- Argentina: https://ar.usembassy.gov
- Chile: https://cl.usembassy.gov
- Ecuador (including Galápagos): https://ec.usembassy.gov
- Morocco: https://ma.usembassy.gov
- Australia: https://au.usembassy.gov
- United Kingdom: https://uk.usembassy.gov
Schengen and EU entry
For trips that cross multiple Schengen-area countries in a single visit, the European Commission’s visa policy page is the right starting point for understanding the 90/180-day rule, short-stay visa requirements, and the European Travel Information and Authorisation System (ETIAS) that is expected to come into force for visa-free travelers in the coming years.
- Schengen visa policy: https://home-affairs.ec.europa.eu/policies/schengen/visa-policy_en
- EU travel information for citizens: https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/travel/
What Boomeropia does not do (disclaimer)
Boomeropia does not run a real-time travel-advisory feed. Boomeropia does not interpret the data on any of these pages for you. Boomeropia does not assume responsibility for the accuracy or completeness of any government’s travel information. The sources on this page are authoritative for the citizens and residents they serve; the right source for you is the government that issues your passport or your country of residence.
How to use this page
A working pattern for boomer travelers planning an international trip:
- Read Boomeropia’s editorial coverage of the destination to understand what the trip actually involves.
- Open the U.S. Department of State country information page (or the equivalent for your passport) and the CDC travelers’ health page for the destination. Confirm no advisory change since Boomeropia’s article was reviewed.
- Confirm vaccinations and any health-related entry requirements well in advance. Six to eight weeks lead time is a safe baseline.
- Enroll in STEP (or the equivalent registration program for your country) before departure.
- Re-check the advisory and weather pages in the seven days before you fly.
- Read our Travel Health Insurance page before you buy a policy.