Latvia drops all Covid-related entry requirements!

While this is not a country that I have ever really considering traveling to because it is kind of difficult to get to, I am happy to see another domino in the Covid pile fall. Latvia has become the 26th country to drop all Covid entry requirements. You do not need proof of vaccination, a PCR test, any sort of quarantine or anything else. If you qualify for a visa - and most countries do - you can go to Latvia and this is just amazing to me.

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Now I have no experience traveling this country but know a few people that have been there. For the most part they say that the country is budget-friendly but the language barrier makes it difficult to accomplish many of the things in the country outside of the major cities. The good news is that the capitol of Riga is very manageable and relatively inexpensive, but don't expect it to be as cheap as other backpacking destinations.

Latvia also has very long and rather brutal winters so this can be a bit problematic. This could be considered and undiscovered gem though because the country is rich in history and culture and has some pretty amazing castles that can be visited.

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I absolutely love these sorts of attractions and there are dozens of them in Latvia and many of them are completely free-of-charge to visit.

As far as a daily budget is concerned, Latvia isn't exactly cheap. According to various economic websites and simple searches on booking sites you can expect to be spending around $30 - $40 per day while visiting. This is not what I would consider "budget" but everyone is different in what they consider that word to mean. In a general sense, backpacking tends to be a lot more expensive almost anywhere in Europe, so the truly stingy backpackers like me tend to avoid the continent altogether.

Despite the fact that I do not consider Latvia to be budget, I am excited anytime that another country decides they have had enough with restrictions related to Covid and rather than tweak them, the completely eliminate them. There are certain countries in the world like the USA that will say that these countries are making a terrible mistake but seeing as how there isn't a single country on the planet that has been able to stop the spread, I don't think that anyone should be passing judgement on other countries and how they decide to handle it.

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_{these places are lovely, but according to friends of mine that have visited they are quite spread out and without your own rental car or a massive taxi budget, they can prove quite difficult to visit}

At the beginning of all of this when just a handful of countries were dropping entry-requirements they started off as quite poor countries like Dominican Republic, Mexico, and El Salvador. The powers that be in the would could point the finger at these countries and say something rude like "they are doing poor people stuff" but when countries like Ireland, England, Iceland, Norway, and many others start dropping their entry requirements as well, this excuse can no longer be used.

Most of the talk about how these countries are signing their own death sentences has disappeared because for over a year the WHO and CDC were "scolding" Mexico about their policies but other than a dramatic increase in tourism revenue, nothing really changed. There was no widespread infection or death, despite the media's best efforts to pain exactly that sort of picture.

I applaud Latvia for joining the list of what I consider to be sensible countries. Now we just have to sit and wait for the other 160 or so countries to join in.