Why I Ignore U.S. Government Travel Advice — And What I Use Instead

I wouldn’t say I 100% ignore travel advice from the U.S. government, but I do whatever is 1% above that. It’s just too unrealistic. I take it with massive grains of salt and rarely follow it.

Instead, I use other sources of information for travel safety — sources that don’t act like a huge country is homogeneous.

In my quest to visit every country in the world, I learned to ignore what the State Department says and use 2 other sources instead. Let me explain why and what those are.

3 Case Studies: My Eyes Say You’re Wrong

My first inkling that the U.S. State Department’s travel advice was … let’s call it inaccurate … came when I went to Moscow with a friend. We had signed up for the Smart Traveler Enrollment Program (STEP) and logged our trip to let the U.S. embassy know when we’d be in Moscow and receive safety warnings.

Imagine my surprise when I got an urgent text message saying there was major unrest with violent mobs happening right now and to stay clear of … the exact spot where I was standing: Gorky Park. No one was bothering anyone, and no loud noises were to be heard. We scoured the internet later to see if anything had happened and found nothing. Our hostel’s staff had no idea what we were talking about and couldn’t find anything in Russian either.

Another time, I was in Istanbul when I got an alert from STEP to avoid Taksim Square at all costs because of rioters clashing with police. Hilariously, I was on a seesaw with that same friend in Taksim Square at that exact moment. Sure, there were some police around, but there was no riot.

Hilariously, the third example involves another trip with the same friend. We were in Egypt in 2014 and got an alert from STEP about police attacking protestors, multiple deaths — the whole 9 yards. It was supposedly happening in Tahrir Square. Our driver was taking this picture for us in Tahrir Square at that very moment.

My Main Issues With U.S. Government Travel Advice

Aside from my personal experiences in which the info was just plain wrong, my biggest issue with the State Department’s travel advisories is that they treat countries as a uniform whole.

Would you take seriously anyone who lumped Gladstone, North Dakota, and St. Louis, Missouri, into the same category for whether the U.S. is entirely safe or entirely unsafe? No. Every country has places that are safer than others, a consequence of many factors.

But if you look at the State Department’s Travel Advisories Map, 99% of the countries are treated as a whole. The exception is Mexico. The global map would be much more useful if other countries were subdivided that way.

The same can be said about travelers: A country isn’t homogeneous, and neither are travelers. One person’s risk tolerance may not match another’s. For example, I may be willing to take a shortcut through an alley while exploring a city alone, but my wife probably wouldn’t make that choice for safety reasons as a woman traveling alone.

While considering whether your destination is safe, make sure you’re factoring in how your personal situation affects the decision — not just the context of the country or city.

What I Use for Travel Safety Information Instead

I have 2 go-to resources for travel advice: people who live in that place and some helpful websites. Let me explain.

The best source for what’s happening in a given place is someone who’s there — not just someone who arrived there 5 minutes ago — someone who lives there. These people can tell you what the current security situation is like. How do you get in touch with them? Easy. You could ask a hotel what areas are safe in that city.

You could also talk to a fixer. Fixers, as they’re often called, make things happen. Need a driver from random Point A to random Point B in a less-traveled country? You need a fixer. Visa application is taking forever, and your flight leaves next week? You need a fixer.

Luckily, the travel website Nomad Mania maintains a list of fixers (you must be logged in, but creating an account is free). You can also ask others for fixers they’ve used in the Every Passport Stamp community. Many of these on-the-ground people will give you safety information for free. It’s in their best interests to tell you it’s not safe enough to visit, if that’s the real situation. Alternatively, they can tell you what places are safe and that you can visit — whether you hire them as part of your trip or not.

I also check the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLED) website. As the name implies, it includes information about armed conflicts and events that can affect safety and security. You can view monthly reports, data analysis, trends, and maps of mega regions like this one for Latin America and the Caribbean. Each colored dot represents a recorded incident. Clicking on it reveals what it was, the date, the time, if anyone died, and other valuable details. It should be noted that protests are included even if they are entirely peaceful. That does skew the numbers (these are the blue dots), but helps with trend analysis.

You can also export data for a particular country. Here’s an example of filtering for all incidents in Afghanistan during the past week. You can download this to understand what’s really happening in a given place.

What’s nice about the ACLED website and speaking with people on the ground is that they don’t treat any country as uniform. When I visited Afghanistan in 2022, I reviewed the ACLED data repeatedly before my trip. I also hired a fixer recommended by people I know, and we discussed which places were advisable to visit. My fixer also recommend I wear local clothing, asked my size, and met me at the airport with the items he’d purchased.

I’m not saying everyone should go to Afghanistan. What I am saying is that my trip there came after years of realizing there’s better, more accurate travel advice than what I see the U.S. State Department providing. I wouldn’t have gone to half the places I’ve been if I followed this advice, because the vast majority of the map is marked as unsafe or needing extra caution.

While less detailed, a similar website called Live Universal Awareness Map shows a feed (by most recent incidents) on the right side with a map in the center, and it feels more user-friendly. Clicking on an item on the map takes you to the report about it. At the top, there are some common maps people view. The “Select regions” option takes you to various country maps, regional maps, maps of epidemics, activity of multinational terrorist groups, etc.

Final Thoughts

“Is this place safe?” is a fluid situation in nearly any part of the world, as security events can happen quickly.

Like most people, the State Department was my first stop for travel information for a long time. Then, I started to see the information they sent me as inaccurate, especially after receiving messages that people were dying in a spot where I was enjoying a peaceful afternoon.

While it can be helpful to register your international trips with the State Department so they know you’re in a foreign country if there’s an emergency, their travel warnings aren’t the best. Instead, speaking to people on the ground and using data points from ACLED have given me a much clearer understanding.