One of my favorite places to travel that is within easy travel distance from where I live in USA is the Dominican Republic. Basically every beach there is incredibly beautiful and although I wouldn't really consider it to be budget, there are some less expensive options that are a few hundred meters from the beaches.
The DR has been a bit topsy turvey as far as Covid restrictions are concerned in that they never really disallowed travel to and from the country, but going there wasn't necessarily a wonderful experience because of all the rules that were in place. Between the bars and restaurants going through phases of not being allowed to be open in what seemed to be arbitrary time-frames and also the strange and rather pointless seeming curfew, it wasn't really the best place to go.
As of the 18th of February, 2022 all restrictions have been completely removed from the entire country.
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In a way the DR could be seen as a financial leader as far as the Caribbean is concerned because although they were already a really popular vacation destination especially with Americans, they had more relaxed entry requirements than other nations and saw a net increase in tourism as a result. The best numbers, in fact, that they had seen in nearly 30 years.
The news of all remaining restrictions was delivered to me by a friend who lives there and she has informed me that this extends not just to vaccination, quarantine, and PCR testing being unnecessary, but all mask mandates have also been removed completely.
President Luis Abinader made this announcement after the country had seen a steady decline in cases despite remaining "open," which was a move that received harsh criticism from other countries, most notably the United States, which encouraged their population to not travel to the island nation considering it a very high risk country.
While I am not trying to turn this into a Covid discussion it does kind of make you think a little bit doesn't it? How is it that countries that never had closed borders experienced essentially the same case rates and deaths as everyone else? It's almost as if those regulations never really had an impact on anything at all.
For people who love to travel like I do, this is hopefully a sign of other countries that are going to follow. At the moment, the most relaxed countries as far as Covid is concerned in this part of the world are The Dominican Republic, El Salvador, and Mexico. All of these countries have seen massive boosts to tourism without any noticeable massive spread in the virus.
The President has said that it is now up to individuals to look out for their own health and still encouraged the public to be vaccinated although it is not required of locals or of visitors.
I for one am hopeful that other countries are going to follow suit but at the same time hope that nothing bad happens because of this. I think that after 2 years of global control, it might be time for the world to lighten up a bit, and open back up.