Coronavirus has canceled tons of foreign travel: See where you're still welcome

For decades, traveling the world with an American passport seemed to come with almost limitless privileges and entitlements. Almost all borders were open to US travelers with few restrictions.

In the bizarro world that is 2020, things have flipped. 

With the US now home to the planet's largest outbreak of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, the nations of the world are suddenly a lot less eager to stamp a passport marked "United States of America." Dozens of countries from Belgium to Botswana and even Canada (Oh, Canada! Et tu?) have temporarily banned US tourists. 

For tourists from other English-speaking nations like Canada and Australia, there are a few more options, but not many more, as a number of nations strive to fight the virus through relative self-isolation. For European Union residents, movement around Europe remains possible in most cases, whereas traveling between nations in Asia is going to be difficult for almost anyone.

All the many permutations for travel possibilities and prohibitions are now easily visualized on a single site, Covidcontrols.co. The simple tool was created by the team behind airfare meta-search site Greatescape.co. In addition to mapping pandemic trends worldwide, it also aggregates current travel restrictions in a handy format. Just enter your travel history from the past 14 days and the tool shows you where you can and can't go, and the conditions and exceptions that go along with that list. 

Although the beaches of Mexico are open for business to most people, it's still a mostly depressing look into the state of the world that might just make you want to continue to practice social distancing at home. And for now, that might be the best course of action for many of us.