Hi Mark:

Thanks for your thoughts. As I noted in the original post, I'm not particularly concerned about catching the virus - my concerns are more about travel restrictions that might arise as a result of new infections appearing in Europe or Africa.

I think I'll go ahead and book a flight, but make sure the ticket is one that permits refunds....

Michael

Wouldn't standard holiday insurance cover that sort of thing? When the volcano in Iceland erupted and stopped large amounts of air travel the insurance paid out for people that were stuck away from home (some friends were in Egypt diving and the only accomodation easily available was the dive boat they were about to get off. So they went diving for another week.)

I'm heading for Siberia, Magadan and the Stans this year. I think the question is a good one, but the answer nobody really knows. It's certainly not impossible that the virus escapes quarantine and forces many countries to take their own precautions, and in such a case, borders could close to leisure travellers. Like the OP I agree the risk of disruption is far higher than the risk from the virus itself - with an average mortality rate of 2% it's not the most dangerous thing out there (though it does seem quite contagious).

I'm tempted to call the Asian leg of my journey off for this year and instead spend some time bumbling round Scandinavia and Morocco, but TBH I've spent so much time planning this one that I'm very reluctant to cancel it. I'm not leaving until May so I'll make a decision then.

Hi Jay:

I'm not concerned about any additional costs that might be incurred, I'm concerned about getting trapped in one country in the event this virus "gets out" in Europe or North Africa and everyone starts shutting down borders.

There are worse places to get stuck in than Tunisia, I suppose, but it would be a PITA to get stuck there for a couple of months due to imposition of a quarantine by Europe or (my home country) Canada.

Michael

I don't want to criticize your attempts to be cautious and anticipate what might go wrong with your trip, but....

Following this line of thought, you'd end up not going anyplace at all. How likely is it, really, that you'll get "stuck there for a couple of months?" How likely that your home country will quarantine you at all, much less for longer than 2 weeks (as is being done now for people coming from China, based on the presumed latency period for the virus).

If determined, you can find reasons to stay at home; in fact, you could have found sufficient reasons to stay home a year ago, or a decade, or since the day you were born. These reasons are always present, and there are always people who stay home as a result...or travel only to places they deem safe. The question is, where are you going to draw the line?

More specificity than that is more or less impossible, since no one really knows, at least about this particular virus. Either go, or don't, and whatever you choose, try not to look back. Put another way, what are the likely consequences if you guess wrong about the situation in Tunisia in, say, a month? Either way, you'll come out of it ok, with or without a Tunisian vacation, with or without two weeks in quarantine on some godforsaken military base in, say, Goose Bay.

Or you'll stay home. If it were me, I'd be irritable as hell and probably lose a friend or two.

Following that line of thought, if one were to travel and then closed borders made overstaying a visa inevitable how would the authorities react?

I think under the circumstances there would not be a problem. I have overstayed visas a couple of times in the past (during my working career) due to events out of everyone's control such as extreme weather or the outbreak of war, and my experience has been that as long as you contact the appropriate authorities (police or immigration, depending on the country) ahead of time and let them know of the possible upcoming problem, they are pretty easy to deal with.

Michael

This virus is very different to seasonal Flu

It’s appears to very easy to catch and unlike seasonal flu, nobody will have any immunity against it. This means that a much higher % of the population will catch it and in mid Feb it doesn’t look as if the attempts to restrict the spread of the Disease are going to succeed.

The Kill rate of the virus appears to be in the range of 1-2% , this is much higher than seasonal flu which tends to have a kill rate of .002%

Wherever you live in the world health systems will be overwhelmed.

I would be happy to be proved wrong, but I would be cautious.

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