New COVID Guidance Updates

That is how I have understood it as well (UK still closed to Americans).

The other day, Boris said they are considering opening up to Americans by the "end of the summer" whatever that means. I'm hoping they get their act together by October.

Yes, you will have to quarantine plus pay for Covid tests.

Sorry if you thought that the U.K. was likely to be opening up, but I don’t think that any forum posters based in the U.K. have ever thought that this was likely to happen. With infection rates exceeding 50,000 a day (the highest since January), who would want to come here? Hospital admissions and Covid deaths are starting to increase.

Most people I know think we will be back in lockdown before September.

Hi Frank, I think it's more about the US getting its act together. As long as we have so many anti-vaccine people driving down the vaccination rate and raising the Covid rate countries will continue to say no thank you. I am not saying that Britain has it's act together, but rather that both countries have to be in a good place. It's not like they can allow in people from NY and not from say, Arkansas. :(

That is correct, Denise.

In fact it is getting worse. Last night France was put (on its own) onto an "Amber Plus" list which requires all arrivals to 10 day quarantine. We had been told that UK double vaccinated returnees from France and all of the EU would be able to return to the UK without quarantine. At 8:30 last night with zero notice that changed to all returnees from or through France would be 10 day quarantine, regardless of UK double vaccine. Effective on Monday.

You have to be prepared for the rules to dramatically change on a moments notice - or less.

Thanks everyone for your input. I knew we were “living on the edge” by not canceling yet but my husband is in Stage 5 kidney failure and he really wanted to go to Scotland prior to having to go on dialysis. It’s too difficult to travel internationally on dialysis. He is on the kidney transplant list and we are looking for a living donor but the process can take awhile - 3-5 years without a volunteer donor.

I have really enjoy reading the forum posts while planning our international trips. It’s great that so many travelers provide helpful input and information to fellow travelers and post trip reports. We don’t take tours other than day trips so I have searched for and read country specific posts to help build out our itineraries to different countries.

Thanks,
Denise

remember that England and Scotland have similar but different requirements and restrictions. When it is the time you may want to consider flying into Edinburgh.

Oh Denise I am so sorry about your situation. We all want to travel, but you and your husband have a profound reason for wanting to do so sooner rather than later. I just hate this.

Oh Denise, I can really relate, as my husband is also facing some serious health challenges. We have two planned/wished trips that we postponed from 2017-2018-2019 and never would have guessed last year that in summer 2021 we'd still be dealing with the pandemic.

Just throwing out an idea: if you truly want to make it to Scotland this August, would you be able to build the extra time into your schedule to quarantine upon arrival? Of course it would add to the expense of your trip. You would also be wise to fly directly to and from Edinburgh or Glasgow so you won't have any complications of having been on the ground in another country (not even England; yes it's all UK but Scotland and England have been implementing somewhat different Covid regulations). You've probably already considered this, but FWIW.

I wish you and your husband all the best!