Travel Warnings Offered by E-Mail

The State Department is making travel warnings available by e-mail. You can sign up by visiting the Web site https://www.state.gov/www/list servs.html and asking to be added to the DOSTRAVEL list. A spokeswoman said that the e-mails, as well as travel warnings on the Bureau of Consular Affairs’ Web site, https://www.travel.state.gov, are updated daily.

The State Department still offers this information via recorded message at (202) 647-5225, but it may be updated only every other day, the spokeswoman said. The department’s fax-back service, at (202) 647-3000, has been inoperative since late December; it is expected to be repaired this month.

The bureau’s Web site, where travel warnings have been posted since 1996, is the most popular way for people to get that information. It gets more than 8 million “hits” per month, the spokeswoman said; the fax line serves about 9,000 per month and the recorded phone even fewer. For die-hards, there is still snail mail: Write the Office of Overseas Citizens Services, Bureau of Consular Affairs, Room 4811, Department of State, Washington, DC 20520.