Damascus Blog

The advisories say no.
The airport is open.

Since December 2024 Syria has a new government, issues visas on arrival, and has commercial flights into Damascus. Every major Western government still advises against all travel. Both of those are true and this site does not pick one.

Travel advisories are national policy, not a description of reality, and Syria is the sharpest current example. The UK updated its against-all-travel advice on 2 September 2026 and Canada says avoid all travel, while Turkish Airlines flies into Damascus, the Syrian embassy in Washington reopened in April 2026, and independent travellers are visibly going. This site collects what is actually known rather than resolving that tension, because it is not ours to resolve.

The reading list

Link-out only. Governments, institutions and primary data, not tour operators.

The situation now

Start here, because it governs everything else.

  1. Syria travel advice

    UK Foreign Office · Advisory

    The current official position, updated as things change. Blunt about consular support, which is effectively none.

  2. Human Rights Watch

    Monitor · Reporting

    Continuous documentation of the conflict and its aftermath. Read for what is actually happening rather than what is being announced.

If you go anyway

Some people will, and pretending otherwise helps nobody. What follows is what it actually costs you, with nothing softened. Advisories are written for citizens of the issuing country and carry different consequences depending on your passport, but the practical realities below apply to everyone.

  1. Syria travel advice

    UK Foreign Office · Advisory

    Against all travel, reaffirmed 2 September 2026. Read the consular section specifically: the practical meaning is that if something happens, no government is coming.

  2. Syria travel advice

    Government of Canada · Advisory

    Avoid all travel, dated 1 September 2026, applied uniformly with no regional exceptions. Useful as a second national opinion, and it lands in the same place as the UK.

  3. Syria travel advice

    New Zealand government · Advisory

    A third national view. Reading several is the point: they are separate policy judgements, and where they agree you are looking at consensus rather than one country's politics.

  4. OSAC

    US State Department · Security reporting

    The Overseas Security Advisory Council publishes granular country security reporting aimed at organisations operating in difficult places. More specific than a consumer advisory.

  5. Syria situation reports

    ReliefWeb / UN OCHA · Situation data

    Humanitarian situation reports updated continuously by the agencies actually working there. The closest thing to a live, unsentimental picture of conditions by region.

  6. International Crisis Group

    Analysis · Analysis

    Independent conflict analysis. Better than news coverage for understanding who controls what and why that shifts.

  7. Sanctions programs

    US Treasury OFAC · Legal

    Sanctions are the practical obstacle most people underestimate: cards do not work, transfers are blocked, and some transactions carry legal exposure depending on your nationality. Check before assuming your bank is the problem.

Who gets your money

Tony Wheeler's question in <i>Bad Lands</i>, and the one worth sitting with. Tourist spending is not neutral: it reaches guides, drivers and guesthouse owners, and it also reaches whoever controls the permits, the hotels and the checkpoints. In Syria that calculation changed in December 2024 but did not disappear.

  1. International Committee of the Red Cross

    ICRC · Institution

    The organisation with the longest continuous presence through the war. If you want to give money to Syria rather than spend it there, this is a more defensible route than a tour.

  2. UN OCHA

    United Nations · Institution

    Coordinates humanitarian response and publishes where need actually is. Useful for judging whether a region is recovering or still in crisis.

  3. Human Rights Watch

    Monitor · Reporting

    Continues documenting abuses under the new government as it did under the old one. A change of regime is not the end of the question.

The city itself

Damascus is far older than the state it now sits in.

  1. Ancient City of Damascus

    Wikipedia · Reference

    The walled old city, the Umayyad Mosque, and the layers underneath. A World Heritage site, and on the danger list.

  2. Damascus

    Wikivoyage · Guide

    Volunteer-written and unusually candid about conditions, because nobody is selling anything.

  3. UNESCO

    UN agency · Institution

    Heritage designation and the damage assessments for Syrian sites. The body that lists what has been lost.

  4. ICOMOS

    Heritage body · Institution

    The advisory body on cultural heritage conservation, including reporting on sites damaged by conflict.

Reference

  1. Syria

    CIA World Factbook · Reference

    Standard-format country data, useful for scale and demographics.