Southeast Asia Travel Warnings

Southeast Asia Travel Warnings

Some guests, and prospective guests, are occasionally bemused as to which areas of Southeast Asia we can take you too and which we can’t and why. Well, frequently so are we. Firstly, as a UK-licensed tour operator, we’re obliged to follow British Foreign Office travel advice, so, it depends upon whatever Southeast Asia travel warnings the FCO (Foreign and Commonwealth Office) sees fit to issue at any given time.

The legal implications are somewhat complex but suffice to say that ignoring said Southeast Asia travel warnings raises significant insurance problems for All Points East. Additionally, UK passport holders travelling with UK travel insurance policies may well find them invalidated if they ignore FCO travel warnings. In so far as it is compulsory for our guests to have personal insurance cover before they are accepted on to a tour, then we can’t ignore that either. (The key term in question being, ‘all but essential travel‘.)

Although there is substantial correlation between the FCO site and warnings issued by say the US, Canadian, Australian or Western European governments, there are slight differences from country to country and destination to destination.

If we understand the system correctly, then Foreign Office staff who update the travel advice section take their leads from the respective local embassies, so, for instance the Thailand section relies on information issued by the British embassy in Bangkok. London-based staff can’t be expected to have a grasp of the intricacies of local geography and politics and local embassies are logically considered to have access to more detailed and current on-the-ground info.* That’s all very well in theory but bear in mind that Thailand covers a similar surface area to France, includes some 76 provinces (plus Bangkok metropolitan area) and in addition to their downtown Bangkok site, possess just three additional consulates in Chiang Mai, Pattaya and Phuket. (*Apparently, the FCO also has UK offices in Milton Keynes and East Kilbride.)

A few years ago we found ourselves chatting to a British chap on Twitter about UK travel warnings for Sukhothai in central Thailand. The warnings related to floods which had affected the area several months earlier and we pointed out that since the floods were long gone and local commerces undoubtedly needed business to help recover from the damage incurred, then the travel warning was both extremely outdated and at best irresponsible. Although we didn’t realise it at the time, the person we were tweeting turned out to be the no less than the British ambassador in Bangkok. He did subsequently thank me for my input, agreed with my point and said he’d address the issue ASAP. We can’t recall his exact words but to paraphrase him, he said they had limited and often overworked staff in an office in Bangkok and lacked the aforementioned accurate, up to date, up-country info.

It’s a reasonable assumption that FCO travel warnings for Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia etcetera work in the same manner. In our experience the warnings are generally issued very promptly but can then sit there on the travel advice site for ages; often years after the initial event which incited the warning.

Taking Malaysia as another example, the FCO site currently publishes a warning against all but essential travel to any islands off the north or east coast of Borneo’s Sabah State due to a risk of kidnapping by Abu Sayyaf. We would imagine that this Southeast Asia travel warning was originally issued in April 2000 when a group of European tourists and Malaysian workers were kidnapped from a popular diving resort on Sipadan Island. We’ve scoured the internet for subsequent incidents but as far as we can see, (although we’re not guaranteeing this), most incidents appear to concern locals with the majority of foreign citizens being, for instance, Indonesian crew on fishing boats. While piracy in the waters off the southern Philippines is still clearly an issue, it is in many parts of the World and Southeast Asia, including the Straits of Malacca and Gulf of Thailand.

The Malaysian government has protested to US and UK authorities on several occasions, pointing out that some 4 million tourists safely visit Sabah each year. While being kidnapped by Abu Sayyaf bandits isn’t an ideal end to your diving holiday, how many tourists get run over in KL or die in motorbike accidents in Koh Samui every year? Actually, precise figures are very hard to find but one article we found claims 324 Australians died in Thailand in the year 2023 to 24. (Perhaps Southeast Asia travel warnings ought to concentrate more on not going swimming while inebriated, not riding motorbikes without helmets or not overdoing the Viagra in Pattaya? Frankly, Filipino terrorists pale into insignificance.)

Cambodia

At present, the FCO map of Cambodia sees a 50 kilometre wide strip, along its northern and western borders with Thailand, shaded in orange. That’s the dreaded ‘all but essential travel’ colour with the map having been updated on July 26th 2025 in response to the outbreak of a border clash between the two countries on and around July 24th. While posturing and verbals persist, shooting doesn’t, so the warning justification – updated on 4th October – which identifies “the spread of an escalating dispute along the border”, is simply false. (Furthermore, the fatal incidents took place in remote areas of the northern border.) Rather ironically the FCO site also goes on to warn that landmines are still to be found in border areas. Well they should know as the British government helped fund and train Khmer Rouge soldiers to lay said mines back in the 80s. (See our recent Western support for the Khmer Rouge post.)

Interestingly, the former warning not to visit the Heart of Darkness nightclub in Phnom Penh, doesn’t appear anymore which may go some way to explaining the club’s recent decline in popularity. (We’ve never seen another travel warning relating to a single specific bar or club!)

With regards our Cambodia small group tours, it means we can not include World Heritage Preah Vihear or the Cambodian/Thai border crossing at Pailin-Pong Nam Ron in the immediate future. The former appears on our Beyond Angkor tour and the second on our Cambodia and Thailand family tour. (Never fear, there are, of course, always solutions and alternatives.)

Indonesia

FCO travel warnings for continent-sized Indonesia are at present limited to a few kilometres around certain specific, active volcanoes. While our Java and Sumatra tours pass quite close to some of the designated sites, they don’t pass close enough, so, for our purposes Indonesia presents a clean bill of health.

Laos

Tiny, land-locked Laos gets off lightly in terms of Southeast Asia travel warnings with the corresponding FCO page merely advising against travel to remote Xaisomboun Province (or Special Zone) plus a general warning about rainy season floods. Xaisomboun was the main base in Laos for the CIA and their local Hmong allies during the Vietnam war and the FCO point to purported, continued, sporadic clashes in the area. We’re unsure if the fact that very few Lao residents are aware of these issues reflects on inaccuracy, government control over the local media or a bit of both.

Border crossings between Laos and Cambodia and Laos and Thailand are operating as normal and the above warning has no implications for our Laos tours.

Malaysia

Nothing noted for West Malaysia and just the aforementioned warnings for Borneo’s Sabah State. This doesn’t apply to adjacent mainland areas such as Sandakan or Lahad Datu so doesn’t affect our Borneo tours but does explain why we regrettably can’t include options for Sipadan, Mabul, Turtle Island and the like.

Sri Lanka

We would say the FCO Sri Lanka page is blank but they can’t resist inserting a warning about drug smuggling which they helpfully point out carries a risk of arrest in Sri Lanka. (Last thing we heard, it does in the UK too.) They also somewhat pessimistically point out that “no travel can be guaranteed safe”, although we’d also point out to the FCO that no Saturday night out in Portsmouth can be guaranteed safe either.

Thailand

Two main tropes on the Thailand page. Firstly the far southern provinces of Pattani, Yala and Naratiwath and secondly the above-mentioned border strip with Cambodia. Issues in the former region have been ongoing for decades now and while the situation has calmed down somewhat, since it’s peak some 20 or so years ago, incidents, including bombings, do still occur.

With regards the latter, if the situation continues to remain calm, then in theory the warnings ought to go. Unfortunately the snail’s pace rectifications never reflect the sometimes knee-jerk reactions so we’ll have to see. The current 50 kilometre zone does seem rather unnecessary as it’s hard to envisage Cambodian forces invading Koh Chang while as a worst case scenario, their Chinese provided rocket systems have a reported range of 150 kilometres anyway.

Vietnam

We’re also happy to see that, apart from a link to an ‘extreme weather and natural disasters’ page, Vietnam also gets a clean bill of FCO health. Tropical storms hitting Vietnamese coastal areas, arrive suddenly, often cause a lot of damage in terms of falling trees and localised flooding and then dissipate as abruptly as they arrive so fortunately the FCO doesn’t see fit to issue anything other than a general weather warning.

Reading this back, there is a certain amount of cynicism around the edges but, while we take the ambassador’s point about limited staff and resources and how difficult it is to get accurate info from sometimes far-flung provinces, local people’s livelihoods may sometimes be at stake here. Not just resort or dive club owners but taxi drivers, guides, boatmen, noodle shop owners etcetera. Of course, travellers need to be made aware of genuine causes for concern, which sometimes – due to limited media coverage at home – they may not always be aware of in advance, but the all clear also needs indicating ASAP rather than several months (or years) later. For tour companies it can be a frustrating inconvenience and while the last thing we want to do is to put anyone in perilous situations, it means we’re sometimes unable to offer certain destinations we’d like to due to outdated information. Anyway, as we said, there’s always another island or an alternative plan B and usually ways around it.