This article provides up-to-date information on travel advisories, travel restrictions, and any changes to our tour schedule or itineraries related to the current Coronovirus event.
As of 23 March 2020:
For your safety and the safety of our staff, tour operations have been suspended through 23 June 2020. Our in-office staff is still working tirelessly to manage this situation and respond to emails and messages but tour operations for individual trips are officially suspended.
For more details on specific trips suspensions, please click here.
Peace-Of-Mind Matters
Please remember in the rare case your trip or flight is disrupted, you may switch your tour date or postpone your trip at no charge with Backpacking Tours up to 14 days before your tour is set to begin. This will hopefully not be required but should provide some peace-of-mind so you know we have you covered if plans do change.
We suggest bookmarking or saving this resource to check for updates.
Advice from our team
If you have already booked a trip with us or have an imminent departure to any overseas location, it is simply too early to say whether your trip is guaranteed to run as scheduled or if your flights will be interrupted, rerouted, or canceled.
And again, please remember in the rare case your trip is interrupted, you may switch your tour date or postpone your trip at no charge with Backpacking Tours.
We also suggest keeping a close eye on the latest advice from the World Health Organisation and European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.
More information from your specific Foreign Office website:
Let’s be honest
Life has been and will continue to be affected by the Coronavirus. Likewise, life will undoubtedly go on. This is not to say throw caution to the wind and is not intended to lessen a serious situation but let’s all take a collective breath and a step back for our own out sanity’s sake.
While it is very important to take extra precaution to protect yourself and others around you during this time, the fact remains:
- The chance of getting the virus remains low in most places.
- The health effects on 18-35 year old groups (you, likely, if you are reading this) are similar to the common flu.
- Doom-and-gloom headlines have forced airlines to slash prices to keep operations running.*
*A sliver of a silver lining
Flight prices are being cut across the globe. Long story short: If you can deal with the anxiety of booking flights in this uncertain situation, you could save quite a chunk of cash on your flights and your trip overall.
What does my travel insurance cover?
Find insurance information and insight from industry experts and travel insurance providers.
More helpful information on travel insurance and current flight prices.
So, should I just stay home?
The situation remains fluid and there is no one-size-fits-all answer. It is uncertain whether booking a holiday at home rather than going abroad would be safer or more likely to go ahead as scheduled. We advise taking into account the most current information available to you and making a decision based upon that information.
If we are to put life on hold during this ongoing situation, how long do we hit pause? This is the question we will all need to answer in the coming months and our hope is that this article provides useful information to assist you in making your decision.
