In the time it takes you to book a flight and find a stunning hotel, your eligibility to visit, and any tests or vaccination proof you might need, could change. That’s the bad news. The good news is that Google is now making it super easy to keep up to date, and you hardly need to do a thing, to stay right on top of it all.
In fact, if anything changes, the news will come right to you.
Google has launched an incredibly useful tool, which allows you to keep tabs on the official entry policies for international travel to each country, and by using it, dreams of a trip abroad might be feel too far fetched after all.
Google Destination Alerts
It’s all rather easy. You Google search for a query like “(insert country) flights” or ” (insert country) hotels”, and Google displays a little warning sign, showing you what’s needed to get there. But that’s not all.
In that same box, you can enter your email address, and if a change in policy or entry requirement is announced by authorities, Google will send you an email directly into your inbox, in a timely manner.
IATA already offers a brilliant tool for checking the most up to date restrictions and airlines are getting better at briefing customers about what’s needed prior to flight, but neither are on top of the game of proactively letting you know of changes. Right now, that’s on you.
You could check IATA’s World Map of travel restrictions today, and they could change tomorrow without you knowing. That’s why Google is a game changer here. You may need to scroll down briefly to find the alert, but it’s there, and if you’re logged into Gmail, one click will trigger notifications for you. Let’s take Greece…
The alert gives you a broad stroke look at current requirements, which can help gauge your decision making as to whether it’s worth going, if you’re cool and comfortable with what you’ll need to prove or provide – and all that jazz.
Since few things are infallible in life, it’s still worth double checking with official country tourism websites, or cross referencing the updates against the IATA World Map, but it’s going to make keeping up so much easier, and less manual. Google’s tool is based off of the most official resource it can find, so it should be updated regularly.
Travel is supposed to be fun, not grinding manual effort before you even take off!
As keeping up with changes to covid-19 testing needs, quarantine requirements (if any) and proof of vaccination gets easier, planning trips will too. Don’t be afraid to dream far and wide, as travel safely rebounds. With updates flying directly into your inbox with just one click, there’s no need to panic in the days before travel.
HT: Frequent Miler
I’ve pulled this up both on my phones and my laptop and it doesn’t show an area to put an email address for an alert
I stand corrected, it works for hotels but not flights