FCO Travel Advice Explained

Most of us have experienced it. You’ve booked your adventure, you're excited, and you're gearing up to go. You've even started sporting your new hiking shoes to wear them in. Then along comes the words you didn’t want or expect to hear: a travel warning or travel alert has been placed on the destination you’re about to head to.

Is this instantly bad news for you? No, only if the FCO advice is ‘against travel’.

But what exactly do the different types of travel advice mean? We explain the three advisory levels as specified by the UK's Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO).

Search foreign travel advice for a specific country or territory.

The FCO has issued a special travel advice following the outbreak of coronavirus (COVID-19).

Understanding the different levels of FCO Travel Advice

The FCO bases its travel advice on information from a number of sources (such as local knowledge from the UK embassies abroad). The level of detail may vary from place to place according to the amount of information available.

When you visit a country page on the FCO website, there is a map of the country which can be green, yellow or red (although different parts of a country can have different colours). This is what the different colours mean:

Green: There are no warnings
However, as the purpose of the FCO travel advice is to provide objective information, it is still recommended to read the travel advice.

Yellow: The FCO advises against “all but essential travel”
According to the FCO: “Whether travel is essential or not is your own decision. You may have urgent family or business commitments to attend to. Circumstances differ from person to person. Only you can make an informed decision based on the risks.”

Red: The FCO advises against “all travel”.

Although it is uncommon for an entire country to have a warning, some countries have red areas close to international borders or in regions where there may be cases of terrorist threats, coups, civil unrest or natural disasters.

Please remember that, as per the FCO guidance, each individual trip is different and each person has their own very different view of what an acceptable level of safety means for them. The FCO always tries to make objective judgements and will advise against all or all but essential travel only when the level of risk is judged to be unacceptably high.

But...

...you are in safe hands!

World Expeditions has been operating adventures across the globe for 45 years and, during that time, we have experienced and overcome many natural and man-made adversities.  We have well-developed and tested risk strategies for these very occurrences, utilising information from reliable sources and local knowledge on the ground.

Your safety and that of all our travellers has always been at the core of everything we do. The rise of misinformation has made making informed decisions tougher than ever before, so we encourage you to get in touch if you want to learn more about how safe it is to travel to a destination you are considering and to do your own research with credible sources.

Published on 17 March 2020.