Is anyone making plans to go to (or via) Syria now the civil war has calmed down‘?

I have a plan to go, but nothing firm. I'd prefer to come in from Turkey if the border opens (not sure when that is likely to be) as I don't want to pay for the grossly overpriced ferry from Turkey to Lebanon. That said, I imagine they will either stop or drop their prices to a reasonable cost once the Turkish border does open, which could facilitate making a loop trip from Turkey.

The situation with the SDF being integrated into the government is not clear and the trip I really wish to make is down the Euphrates to Iraq. The river currently divides government-held and SDF territory, so it's not clear If that area would be open to travellers.

That said, the majority of the country's attractions are further south and west, so this might not be an issue for some.

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EurasiaOverland a memoir of one quarter of a million kilometres by road through all of the Former USSR, Western and Southern Asia.

Interesting thanks. I think the border is open as Syrians are returning and being encouraged by Turkey who took them in. There may be restrictions on who can cross. Do you have a reliable source on the status of the border?

You’re right about the ‘good bits’, plenty of travellers going to Iraq. I may be going to Beirut next month, if I can I’ll go to Damascus and try to get a contact who can advise on travel in from Turkey.

A friend of mine, a Polish freelance journalist, tried to get into Syria at the Bab al-Hawa crossing a few weeks ago (a couple of weeks after the regime fell). The Syrian border posts were empty, but the Turks were only letting Syrian nationals in. Even Syrians who had naturalised to an EU country were not being allowed through without a Syrian passport/refugee document. I have not heard of any change to this situation.

It would be my third trip to Iraq to check out the last parts of the west (Anbar Governorate) which I have not yet visited, so I'd only really be interested if I thought there was a good chance to get into Iraq from Syria along the Euphrates

I made a trip to Syria pre-war and was thinking to go back, purely for transit reasons, in 2022 but really preferred to keep my Syrian experiences pre-war. In the end, logistics changed and I didn't need to make the transit.

The same friend above recently flew to Beirut and got into Syria without issue. But I'm also reading of a flare up of cross-border fighting between the remains of Hezbollah and some factions in Syria in the Bekaa Valley area, so for crossing the border I would be looking at the main Beirut-Damascus crossing, or sticking close to the coast.

It's worth checking the Facebook Middle East Overland group as there are already people travelling in Syria. I doubt anyone has tried the Syria-Iraq border though. Travelling through Jordan to Iraq should be simple.

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EurasiaOverland a memoir of one quarter of a million kilometres by road through all of the Former USSR, Western and Southern Asia.

Good advice. On the Facebook group a couple got turned away from every Turkish border for a different reason each time and never made it into Syria. I'll keep tracking it. I assume it's easy to travel from Syria into Turkey for coming back.

The Turkey-Syria border has been closed for many years, only humanitarian aid was allowed through. I have not seen any indication that non-Syrians are allowed to enter Turkey from Syria. So I would certainly not make that assumption.

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EurasiaOverland a memoir of one quarter of a million kilometres by road through all of the Former USSR, Western and Southern Asia.