Just in time for the 2008 travel season, the State Department’s dated travel Web site has been given a facelift. While some of the changes are merely cosmetic — changing the late 1990s look and feel — others are more substantive. The overall result is a better site for travelers to and from the states.
Let’s start with the major changes. Reports on current conditions in all nations are now called Country Specific Information. They were formerly known as Consular Information Sheets. Here, you can find out everything from Afghanistan’s visa requirements to Zimbabwe’s rules for visiting journalists (you have to register at least a month in advance — not that I’m planning to go any time soon).
Public Announcements are now being referred to as Travel Alerts. You can read the latest warnings about Kenya (“widespread violence, demonstrations, and looting in Nairobi”), Bolivia (“Recent protests and demonstrations have led to violent clashes, resulting in casualties and mass injuries”) and Lebanon (“there is a strong possibility for demonstrations and unrest”).
These travel alerts are a must-read for any international traveler, even though I think they’re often watered down by diplomatic doublespeak. I subscribe to all of its RSS feeds, just in case my destination turns dangerous.
The minor changes are equally important. Pages are easier to navigate through fly-out menus, and there are helpful icons for printing documents or e-mailing a particular page.
The State Department site has a frequently asked questions section that addresses some of the reason behind the recent changes.
The average traveler probably isn’t going to care that much about changing “Public Announcements” to “Travel Alerts”. What is important is that this site is a must-bookmark URL for your phone or PDA when you’re on the road.
Should you ever encounter a ticket agent who wants to deny you boarding on an international flight because your paperwork isn’t in order — and it happens more frequently than you’d think — the State Department site is the one place you can go to in order to get things sorted out.
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I just read the page on my country, the Netherlands, and I have to say that while the info is true, the wording leads to a pretty negative view, perhaps because it mostly lists warnings, and does not put them in context. A couple of examples that bothered me:
* “Several American visitors have reported experiencing excessive drowsiness, confusion, dizziness, and nausea after drinking alcohol in public areas such as hotel bars and night clubs in several cities throughout the Netherlands.”
Probably true, but again, come on people, you’re in the country of (semi)legal pot, and the world’s largest producer in amphetamine pills. Also, most people that get to deal with this, were looking for it. The Dutch (and the authorities) are very annoyed with foreigners that come to Amsterdam to play with drugs, don’t know what they’re doing, get sick and then run to their embassy crying like little babies. There’s a saying: “If you burn your hands, the blisters will hurt”, i.e.: don’t play with fire, kids. It may hurt.
* “”Some common medications are not available in the Netherlands without a prescription, and some prescription drugs cannot be mailed into the country.”
While true, it might have been nicer to just say that outside of the US, medication regulations are different than in the US. Certain common US drugs may not be available, or be available under a different name. The same goes if you go the other way. Certain medications available in the NL are not available in the US, or have a different name.
* “Confidence artists have victimized a number of Americans.” … ”’419 scams”..
Nobody has e-mail in the US? Again, this is true, but anywhere where people have access to e-mail.
* “Intercity travel by road is relatively safe in comparison to some other European countries. Nonetheless, more than 1,000 people die and another 10,000 are injured in traffic accidents in the Netherlands each year.”
It would have been nice to note that road travel is relatively safe compared to the US. A thousand traffic deaths (it’s actually eight hundred something) on 16 million inhabitants (NL), roughly equals roughly 19,000 on 300 million (US). But oh wait, in the US last year 46,000 people died in traffic. So, traffic in the Netherlands is WAAYY safer than traffic in the US. Is not what I catch from that line.
As a note for improvement, they might note that traffic safety has been improved the truly omnipresent (and hated) electronic speed cameras, and that it has become virtually impossible to not get ticketed for speeding. On the beltway of Rotterdam, they even calculate your average speed from entry to exit point by taking your pic when you get on and off. So no excuses that you were just passing someone. Doing 82 where you can do 80? Sorry, that’s €60. If you get stopped as a foreigner, you don’t drive until you’ve paid. And nobody, citizen or foreigner, leaves the country with unpaid tickets. Emigration is happy to take your cash or credit card. Actually, everybody loves the little items in newspapers, when some crook tries to go on vacation with his family and gets stopped for enormous amounts of outstanding parking, and speeding fines. The justicial collection agents are also enhancing holiday fun by visiting notorious late-payers on holidays. “Merry Christmas Sir, can we please collect that €1200 in parking and speeding tickets? Ah, no problem, we’ll take that brand new plasma screen in stead. Have a wonderful New Year”.
* “Persons violating Dutch laws, even unknowingly, may be expelled, arrested or imprisoned. Penalties for possession, use, or trafficking in illegal drugs in The Netherlands are severe, and convicted offenders can expect long jail sentences and heavy fines.”
Pffffff. Penalties for drug related crime long? Sorry boys, that’s wrong. There are many misconceptions about what is, and what is not legal in the NL, but penalties are very minor compared to those in the US (unpleasant nevertheless).
Anyway, this is not the place to debate with the State Dept on their wording, but with information like this, I would urge everybody to take notice, but also to read things with a grain of salt. Many of the texts are very generic, which is understandable because there are a lot of countries and not every little country can get special attention. But, you do get a more negative image of a country if you only pay attention to all these warnings.
If you look at per capita numbers, in the NL, there are less people in prison, less traffic deaths, less drug addicts, less murders and less abortions than in the US. That’s not the image I get, when reading the State Dept.
So folks, when using that website: please balance this information with the positive spin of your random tourist guide. And as always, when abroad: use common sense and be careful with foreign authorities; most of them are relatively friendly, but some of them are not. And your rights are most likely different than what you’re used to.
For instance, where the NL are at odds with the US, is that the police tap phone lines like crazy, and you can be arrested only based on probable suspicion, but without being charged (see the Nathalie Holloway case for that).
I agree that the State Department reports can be problematic. I hope the next version of the site allows for some type of Web 2.0-like feedback, so that people can post their own experiences. I think that might make the site even more useful. I don’t know if that will ever happen, though. The government isn’t in the social networking business, after all.
@ Chris: Please no feedback on govt website. Do you really want scandals about press testing the govt moderation?
The govt is not in social networking. Neither is it in advertising foreign travel. But it is in the business of informing people. That includes informing travelers on the possible dangers, but it should also include giving the proper context so they are not unnecessarily scared for no reason.
[...deleted rant with predictable comments on unnecessary scaring ...]
I’d just posted about this before I saw your post — it’s interesting information but I’m torn between it and Bad Lands. While I agree with Jasper that I don’t think the state department site is the ideal location for interactivity, I think it could be a bit more realistic.
Regarding: * “Several American visitors have reported experiencing excessive drowsiness, confusion, dizziness, and nausea after drinking alcohol in public areas such as hotel bars and night clubs in several cities throughout the Netherlands.”
I went bowling last night in Atlanta, and experienced excessive drowsiness, confusion, dizziness and nausea after drinking a pitcher of beer. Should I complain to the state department about that? NO! That’s what happens when you drink too much!
Is the advice frightening or negative? My suggestion would be to try comparing it to the UK, Canada, New Zealand or Australia government travel advice for the same country. It’s interesting to see the common threads, but the differences can reveal a lot. Different governments have different resources, viewpoints and information distribution channels — it pays to have a look and compare.
Incidentally, U.S. travelers may also want to book mark the Overseas Security Advisory Council (OSAC) website or subscribe to their daily email reports. OSAC Warden Messages and other security reports pick up on issues (such as demonstrations, strikes, natural disasters and other disruptions) that don’t get included in Travel Alerts or the more general Country Specific Information pages.
Ack! Government travel advice going Web 2.0?
Contrary to popular belief, not every site can or should include community features and user-generated content. Seems to me that the whole point of government advice is that it’s reviewed, verifiable information and someone with the appropriate expertise is writing it (okay, perhaps I’m being a little idealist here). As for personal experiences, I would love to hear them too, but there’s got to be a different forum for it. Jasper’s right — it would be a moderation nightmare on the DoS website.
As for the advice being too scary… You have to know if the government didn’t warn people about something, there would be an outcry when it did happen (like people suing over their coffee being too hot).
OK, OK, no .gov 2.0. Bad idea. [white flag waving]
@ Christopher Elliot: BTW: I love all your www2.0 gadgets!
Use Web 2.0???? Gimme a break. That site is such a mess it is totally unusable! [Caveat: I do not use any Windoze nor M$ products, so maybe it is just too proprietary for Mozilla Class browsers. And, it does not pass basic tests provided by the W3C Markup Validation site:
http://validator.w3.org/
While I am not a Web programmer, when I see error references to:
http://www.microsoft.com/smarttags
it is rather obvious that it will not meet the standards of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) that develops interoperable technologies, standards, etc.
Typical case, I guess of ‘beware when the government arrives to help you.’