They are flying to Costa Rica again!

Mon, 11/23/2020 - 12:18 - 
Iris

Travelers who have postponed their vacation or those of you who would like to travel to Costa Rica in 2021 can already have a look at suitable flights. The following airlines are currently operating flights again to Juan Santamaria International airport in San José ( SJO):

  • Iberia and Lufthansa
  • Air France from/to Paris
  • KLM from/to Amsterdam
  • Copa airlines from/to Panama City
  • British Airways from/to London
  • Edelweiss from/to Zürich
  • Air Canada from/to Toronto
  • American Airlines from/to Dallas and from/to Miami
  • Avianca from/to El Salvador and from/to Bogota, Colombia
  • Alaska from/to Los Angeles
  • United from/to Newark and Houston
  • Aeromexico
  • Jetblue from/to New York and Fort Lauderdale and Orlando

Travelers from EU, UK, Canada, USA and other parts of the world are allowed to enter Costa Rica by air since November 1st. However, you do need to comply with the following measures:

Travel Restrictions Costa Rica

  1. Fill out the electronic epidemiological health pass form, named the "Pase de salud". This needs to be done per passenger, so also for minors traveling with you. You then receive a QR-code which you need to show the Costa Rican authorities upon arrival at the airport. The form is available in English and Spanish: https://salud.go.cr
  2. Be able to proof that you have a travel insurance which guarantees coverage of medical expenses and additional lodging expenses in case of becoming ill with the COVID virus while in Costa Rica. Please read our previous blog post to know the exact minimum amounts of coverage which are mandatory: https://www.yugentours.com/en/blog/travel-restrictions-yugen-destination... that proof of a negative PCR coronavirus test is currently no longer required (it was at the time of publishing the above blog).
  3. Follow all safety protocols at all airports, such as wearing a mask in all indoor spaces. This video shows which protocols are to be respected at SJO airport upon arrival and upon departure: 

What if I have a stopover in Panama City?

In case you stay in transit and do not enter Panama, it is not obligated to undergo a PCR test. If you do leave the airport and enter the country, you do need to present PCR coronavirus test results at Panama airport, which are no older than 48 hours or you will have to take the test on the spot ( 50 USD, results within 30 minutes). If you make a stopover in any other airport, please check the procedures of that specific airport. 

Important travel advice

Always contact your travel insurer concerning the mandatory, minimum coverage requirements imposed by the Costa Rican government and make sure to comply: https://www.yugentours.com/en/blog/travel-restrictions-yugen-destination...

Also, please always check with the airline of your choice about your options in case flights are canceled again due to COVID19 before and while on holiday, what is insured then, and so on…

 

What does your country say?

Aside from the Costa Rican regulations you also need to look at the travel advice of your own government. Belgians can consult the website of the Belgian government where Costa Rica (and almost every country in the world) is indicated as a red zone: https://diplomatie.belgium.be/nl/Diensten/Op_reis_in_het_buitenland/reis...

Dutch citizens can consult the website of the government of The Netherlands where Costa Rica is indicated as an orange zone: https://www.nederlandwereldwijd.nl/landen/costa-rica/reizen/reisadvies

Please note that when traveling abroad at this time, you may have to go into self-isolation when returning to your home country. According to your personal situation this may be a problem ( can you work from home or not, do you have children who need to go to school or not, can you stay home for 10 days and have someone deliver your groceries outside your house....).

 

Medical precautions

Always check with your local immunization authority, travel clinic, public health facility or personal physician. We recommend consulting your doctor well before departure. If he / she recommends certain vaccinations, you may have to receive more than one injection spread over a number of weeks or even months. Moreover, the current guidelines can always change without prior notice and depend on the country you are traveling from. 

At this moment we do not know if it will be mandatory to get a COVID vaccination or not. It is important to stay tuned about the latest developments. For example, Costa Rica also has renowned specialists investigating the possibility of injecting antibodies produced by horses, based on the elaborate knowledge they have about making antidote to treat venomous bites.

Let's look at numbers

In order to illustrate that there are sometimes huge differences between “red zones” we are providing the recent numbers of November 22nd:

 

  Belgium Costa Rica
Total of known Covid19 cases 556 904 129 418
That is 1 in 20 1 in 38
Deceased 15 522 1608

 

In order to correctly interpret these numbers, one should take into account the number of tests executed, the average age of the population, etc. However, it seems to be a logical fact that less people are becoming infected in more scarcely populated areas. Costa Rica is about 2,5 times Belgium in size but it only has about 5 million citizens, whereas Belgium has over 11 million. So you have a lot more places where you will meet few or even no people in Costa Rica.

This is also very clear in Portugal. In Alentejo, a province which is about the same size as The Netherlands but does not even have 800 000 inhabitants (The Netherlands + 17 million) there are “only” 5057 known cases of Covid19. You can drive around for days in this region without meeting anyone. The isolated Azores now count 761 corona cases (often people who came to visit family and brought the virus).

To travel or not to travel?

It is not my goal to encourage mass tourism at this point (or at any other time), but I do want to show that there can be enormous differences between “red zones” indicated by the Belgian government, or between orange zones indicated by the Dutch government, and so on. A common world map, with the same color codes attributed to the same countries on a worldwide level, in consensus, is currently missing. This means we all get different travel advice, making it hard to keep up with every constantly changing regulation and impossible for travel agents like myself to give one clear advice to everyone.

Nevertheless, it is obvious that hanging out in less populated places is not less safe than staying at home if you live in a crowded area. Of course, you always need to follow the health safety regulations, wherever you go and wherever you are, such as wearing a mask, washing your hands, keeping a distance and so on.

Hope and perspective are extremely important in these dark and short winter days. Dare to look forward to a 2021 in which the virus will be tamed and you will finally be able to take that flight. Be ready for a fantastic holiday and inform yourself already at your airline and insurance company.

Do not hesitate to contact hello@yugentours.com in case of questions.

Stay safe, go yugenstyle,

Iris

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