(CNN) — Bathed in the faint light at the end of the once seemingly endless pandemic tunnel are visions of trips that reunite us with loved ones or take us to some blissfully new environment.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is still urging Americans — even those who have been vaccinated — not to travel, although a recent uptick in the number of passengers screened at US airport checkpoints indicates that people are traveling again in greater numbers.

So in many cases, we may be getting ahead of ourselves. But there is no doubt that interest in traveling and making future plans is picking up — raising lots of questions about how to safely navigate the new travel landscape.

Each country has its own tangle of rules and restrictions, so almost any trip will require deep pre-travel research.

Here’s what you need to consider as the pandemic eases:

Even if I can travel, should I?

Restrictions vary widely across the world, and for many people it is possible to travel…