This sounds encouraging....

Hey Ken. No paywall. I was able to view it. Looks like some great destinations there. If our September Greece/Italy adventure falls through we might harvest some sites from this list. Thanks.

Sadly, I've never been to any of those places, and many of them seem like great destinations. I don't know how much they will appreciate the many Forbes readers coming from COVID hotspots like the US and western Europe to take advantage of their no-quarantine policies. With his usual care, Ken suggests that "no quarantine" may apply only to EU residents, but the article has no such qualification.

And I'm curious about how the article describes infection data. For example, Corfu has "up to 50 times fewer people infected than in the most affected European countries," whatever that means. Maybe just that a small island has many fewer cases than Italy. Or, Croatia has "up to 20 times fewer infected people per million inhabitants than in other European countries." Now we're talking about rates per million. And what does "20 times fewer" mean -- five percent?

Now we're talking about rates per million. And what does "20 times fewer" mean -- five percent?

Speaking as a statistician and person who sometimes understands probability and rates, when I see things like this, I immediately think "baffle them with bullshit". % increase or decrease is often not very clear, unless you can see the numbers. And if you go from 2 to 1, that's a 100% reduction.

"20 times fewer"

For every $100,000 Dick has, Peter has $5,000.

Well, by me a reduction from 2 to 1 is a 50% reduction. But just last night I commented to an editor friend of mine about journalistic sloppiness where numerical concepts are concerned, and the example I gave was of the "20 times fewer" sort. I do assume they mean Croatia has only 5% as many cases per capita as some other European countries. That comparison is accurate if they are looking at France, Italy and Spain, but of course Germany is doing a lot better than those three. The UK's current-totally-infected data is not available at my source, the Worldometers website.

I've been to quite a few of the mentioned places and liked them, but I won't be going this year.

Except that going from 2 to 1 is a 50% reduction. Going from 1 to 2 is 100% increase.

That IS encouraging. Any glimmer of hope and positive information is so very welcome right now. And I’ve only been to 2 of the places, both capitol cities, but each was more than 15 years ago. When it’s safe to travel, there’s a lot out there.

Going places that aren’t on just about everybody else’s Top 10 List is a way to appreciate interesting destinations without so much of a crowd. Thanks for the link, Ken!

I’m curious on how anyone would get to these places, considering that flights are pretty much halted and booking engines that I checked don’t offer any flights that are even remotely reasonable. Also, if they let you in , what about coming back? Specifically, non European country return?

Glad to see other people are as annoyed by the "20 times less" wording -- unless you're dealing with negative numbers. One time less (100% less) than anything is zero. How hard is it to say "one twentieth of" ??

Interesting that the article didnt mention that Montenegro claims to be the first COVID free country in Europe. I've been suggesting here for a while (actually just wild guesses) that the old Non EU Soviet Bloc countries might be the first to open. Not being tied to the EU gives them the autonomy to shape decisions more individually. Looks like that might be the case. Good for me cause I love the region

I’m curious on how anyone would get to these places, considering that flights are pretty much halted and booking engines that I checked don’t offer any flights that are even remotely reasonable. Also, if they let you in , what about coming back? Specifically, non European country return?

Assuming you are returning to the US you would have no problem. The travel "ban" never applied to US citizens.

I see decent flights to Europe in mid-July.

….mid September looks pretty good. In search's over the last few months I've been getting around $2400 - $2600 CDN for Premium Economy on Lufthansa to Greece and back from Italy a month later. This morning it's showing as $2100 CDN.

Will a foreign airline comply with CDC or WHO, especially on the trip to Europe?

Please bear in mind that these people are more interested in getting your business than worried about your health. I myself have a Spain/Portugal trip this October which I will be cancelling. I am prepared to wait a year and see what happens.

How is this different than any other travel promotional content? Their reason for being is to get travel back up and running and to make potential visitors feel safe (using their own cherry picked criteria of what constitutes the "best" and "safest"). Given that the pathology of COVID-19 hasn't changed one bit, I wonder why these places with lower incidence seem to take no precautions (no quarantine periods) with potential visitors from higher incidence countries...the virus spread through global travel networks in the first place. Being asymptomatic doesn't prevent one from being potentially infectious (spot temperature checks at an airport won't flag those people who have the virus but are not sick yet, since they can be in the very early stages of incubation at that point and show no signs).

"European Best Destinations is a travel website developed to promote culture and tourism in Europe. In partnership with the participating tourism offices and the EDEN Network we promote a better understanding of the wealth, diversity and quality of European destinations."

Please bear in mind that these people are more interested in getting
your business than worried about your health.

Worrying about YOUR health is your personal thing.

Worrying about THEIR health is their personal thing.

Lets assume every society is doing the balancing act to the best of their ability based on their unique circumstances.