US State Department Travel Advisory --- United Kingdom --- Level 3: Reconsider Travel

These are the latest rules for entry to the UK. The US is considered an amber list country. You must follow the rules even if you have been vaccinated.

https://www.gov.uk/uk-border-control

Glasgow and Moray in Scotland still have very high rates. When things were relaxed a little yesterday, they were kept under tighter restrictions than the rest of Scotland - due to the Indian variant. Where they will be in a month nobody knows.

Being vaccinated has no relevance to international travel to the U.K. as it’s all about testing.

Cases of the Indian variant have tripled in a week and there are suggestions that the full opening up in June will be postponed after lockdown. Scotland will act harder and more rapidly than England if the last 14 months is anything to go by. Scotland are reviewing their list of red/amber/green countries every 4 weeks as opposed to England reviewing every 3 weeks. Things can change rapidly.

The border between Scotland and England only opened up a couple of weeks ago.

If you’re travelling to England, what you need to do depends on where you have been in the 10 days before you arrive. If you have been in a country or territory on the:
green list - you must take a coronavirus (COVID-19) test on or before day 2
amber list - you must quarantine in the place you’re staying and take 2 COVID-19 tests
red list - you must quarantine in a hotel and take 2 COVID-19 tests
You must follow these rules even if you have been vaccinated.

Excerpt of info found in the link form the 1st post

Thanks all!

I just visited the Scottish Government "Coronavirus (COVID-19) protection levels: what you can do" website and saw that they will not be relaxing the "Protection Levels" throughout Scotland as much as I had hoped given our planned trip 6/28/21 - 7/13/21. For example, Edinburgh (City of) Level 2 - will remain at Level 2.

Can any of you offer additional guidance before I bail out and pull the rip cord on this trip?

Thanks.

that is correct Hank. The First Minister was quite clear.

Better luck next year.

Thanks.

Hank,
Sorry about your trip to Scotland this month! We have a trip to Scotland all buttoned down for August 20, 2021. We are trying to decide when to cancel all of our reservations. I’m considering 30 days out - July 21 - to avoid cancellation fees.

Keeping my fingers & toes crossed that Scotland lifts restrictions in July!

Denise

when the UK government extended England restrictions through at least 19 July on Monday, yesterday the Scottish First Minister announced that Scotland has extended their strict restrictions until the same date, 19 July. They had been due to end in Scotland on 28 June but now won't.

Numbers of cases in Scotland up to last weekend have tripled. I haven't followed Scotland's numbers again this week, but UK as a whole are continuing their rocket-like rise, doubling every few days.

Neither of these announcements affect the Red/Amber/Green Light scheme for entry into the UK. US and Canada remain Amber which means 10 days of quarantine and 3 or 4 PCR tests for those who would be admitted. These are reviewed every 3 weeks and the last time Portugal and others were moved from Green to Amber, a few moved from Amber to Red, and zero moved up.

I have until 28-Jun-21 to cancel my Airbnb for a full refund. Is there any chance that the USA will achieve Green status between now and then? I'm guessing its futile to hope for this.

Thanks

Hank as an Edinburgh resident can i just you know of other problems that face both locals and visitors.
Pubs, restaurants cafes etc are all very limited in how many customers they can have, booking is required for many places especially for evening and weekends. many places are only opening limited hours ,my favourite places are only open Thursday -Sunday and even on Thursday and Fridays don't open till 4pm, lots of other places with similar hours, menus and drink lists are greatly reduced.
Tourist sites have to be pre-booked and time slots given for the majority of places and again they are opening limited hours.
Public transport though getting much better is still not at the level it was pre covid.
you will be required to give name and phone number in most places or have the CheckInScotland app and have to scan the Qr code, for many places you enter .
It is very difficult to be spontaneous and everything you do has to be planned,even a walk out with some of my friends (the Auld Gits) that we do on a regular basis has to be planned so we can go to pub for a drink and a meal afterwards but even then we are limited in that we can only have a max of 6 people from 3 households indoors, so 4 of us from 4 households can't meet up together for a meal indoors.
So many hoops and hurdles to jump over or through and you have to consider is it worth it.

Gus

I appreciate your input. I cancelled my Airbnb and flight reservations yesterday. We were really looking forward to this trip. We will try again next July.

Thanks

tough time for all of us.I took early retirement last September with plans to do a fair bit of travelling but done nothing, not even been able to do much travelling within my own country due to restrictions .

just announced today by Scotland's First Minister that travel from Scotland to parts of England, especially in and around Manchester, is off limits.

Gus

I retired in January 2020 with the same plans. Thought this would be behind us by now.

Nigel

Thanks for the update.

The best way to stay informed about your potential destination is to enroll in STEP: https://step.state.gov/step/. The US government recommends this.