Travel to Spain?

Sorry. Your guess is as good as mine.

My guess is probably open, but if the virus takes hold again, this will be more likely to be in the winter or after major holidays such as Christmas. New virus variants maybe an issue, but we don’t know.

Will you still have to wear masks in public? Will there still be social distancing? Again, no one knows.

It should be safe, otherwise it´ll be a disaster for the economy and for tourism (that accounts for 13% of GDP of Spain, in some areas it´s the base of the economy, i.e. the Canaries or the Balearics). The current plan of the government is to have around 70% of the population by end of summer 2021, which may be possible...or not. By the end of the year 100% of the population are expected to be fully vaccinated. Currently, the incidence of the virus is going down quickly and the restrictions are "softer" every week. Easter is expected to be a complete disaster for the tourism industry...but expectations for summer are high.

Again, who knows...

As soon as it opens, I’ll be going. Its infection numbers have come way down and have been fairly stable the past week. Madrid region still has the highest number of infections. It would be nice if they came down more. The 70% vaccinated by the end of summer Mike mentioned is dependent on a number of factors. Some Spanish news outlets say it’s possible, others are less optimistic. The end of the year prediction is probably more realistic.

The U.K. isn’t going to have all adults fully vaccinated by the end of the summer and Spain is way behind us at present. It maybe possible, but they will have to speed up significantly.

Christmas was a disaster for the Canary Islands, as infections rocketed in the new year. Brits etc couldn’t go there at this time, so it was mainland Spaniards causing the issue. This may happen again once places are opened up to tourists. We just don’t know.

While one could discuss whether the UK approach is better than that employed in Spain and the US, the fact is that the UK has administered more than 5 times as many vaccinations as Spain. Adjusting for population, the UK has administered over 3 times as many vaccinations as Spain: 34.65 vaccinations per 100 people vs. 10.08.

No, that's not what the data reflects. As the title on this webpage says, it's counting total vaccinations, not the number of people fully vaccinated. The US figure, for example, is 27.82 per 100 people. It would not be possible for us to have fully vaccinated 27.82 people per 100, because that would take about 182 million doses even if no one was only half vaccinated. The US has only distributed about 123 million doses, and not all of those have been used yet.

I don't mean to be pedantic, but for people hoping to travel this year, it's important to keep up with the current situation regarding vaccinations as well as infection rate.

https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&time=latest&country=ALB~AND~AUT~BLR~BEL~BIH~BGR~HRV~CYP~CZE~DNK~EST~FIN~FRA~DEU~GRC~HUN~ISL~IRL~ITA~OWIDKOS~LVA~LIE~LTU~LUX~MLT~MDA~MCO~MNE~NLD~MKD~NOR~POL~PRT~ROU~RUS~SMR~SRB~SVK~SVN~ESP~SWE~CHE~UKR~GBR~VAT~USA~CAN&region=World&vaccinationsMetric=true&interval=total&perCapita=true&smoothing=0&pickerMetric=totalvaccinationsperhundred&pickerSort=desc

Well, I've re-booked our self guided bike trip for October this year. Speaking to my tour company, they have been in touch with their partner in Spain. Right now, it sounds like Spain plans to open for non essential travel for EU citizens in June... then by mid September to everyone else. Baring any resurgence of the virus, it sounds like they plan for tourists in 2021 . We've paid NOTHING so far for the trip, except taxes on our FF miles airline ticket (which I bought insurance for). Hotels are pre-booked but all with the possibility to cancel one day before scheduled arrival. The tour company said that 30 days before our trip, we will know if we can go or not. Hubby and I have both had both Covid shots, so waiting to hear if we will need a Vaccination passport of some kind, but in the mean time I laminated our vaccination cards to keep them safe should they be needed. We are ready to travel this year if we can, if this doesn't happen, we'll just reschedule for 2022 !

Good news:
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/travel/news/spain-joins-greece-in-plans-to-welcome-tourists-from-may/ar-BB1eriDV?MSCC=1608126108

This would be fantastic! Our d is in Spain and we haven't seen her in over a year. We are both vaccinated and hoping this is true!

I believe that Spain is looking only at allowing European visitors in the first instance.

Yes, Spain will probably allow American tourists to enter the country in 2022.

Yes, in 2022, Spain will probably be medically safe for American tourists to visit, especially if vaccinated.

When American tourists are finally allowed to enter, the risk in terms of the pandemic, will probably be the same as the previous month, the the politicians will probably just finally get tired of enforcing the restrictions and lockdowns and/or give in to demands to restart the tourism industry.

In theory, if they allow American tourists to enter, but the rules are not right, that would be the same thing as travel being off limits. Examples of the rules not being right include: requirements to quarantine in a hotel for a certain amount of time, museums and sights being closed or off limits to Americans, museums or sights restricting capacity so much that you wouldn't be likely to get in, museums or sights operating on significantly reduced hours, requirements to waste a portion of a day returning to an office to get retested for the virus, early nightly curfews, public local or long-distance transportation not operating or operating in a significantly reduced way, and so on.

In theory, if Spain allowed American tourists to enter right now, there probably would not be any more medical harm to you or the locals compared to visiting Mexico right now. The reasons Mexico is allowing American tourists to enter now, while Spain does not, has to do with politics and the European Union wanting to give the appearance of "controlling" or "mitigating the spread" of the pandemic.

Edit: My trip to Spain was supposed to be in October 2020. I already got a refund and I already bought new tickets for October of this year, 2021.

So how soon do you think Spain will reopen for US citizens? I'm hoping for early July.

Mike L. I agree with your comment:

When American tourists are finally allowed to enter, the risk in terms of the pandemic, will probably be the same as the previous month, the the politicians will probably just finally get tired of enforcing the restrictions and lockdowns and/or give in to demands to restart the tourism industry.

But as far as, the part about Mexico vs Spain, being about "appearances", as cynical as I am, I think it might be better said that Spain and the EU are more interested in protecting the health of their own citizens than in making wealthy Ameircan travelers happy, than Mexico. Mitigating and controlling the spread of the virus are actually worthy goals.