Which parts of Algeria should tourists avoid?

Most government advisories for Algeria use a map rather than a single verdict, and the map matters more than the headline. The zones that consistently carry the strongest warnings are the remote southern and south-eastern frontiers — the areas near the Mali, Niger and Libyan borders — and stretches of far desert well away from established routes.

Those areas are also, in practice, not places a visitor would end up by accident. They are hundreds of kilometres from any tourist itinerary, they require permits that will not be issued for them, and no licensed operator will take you.

Everything most travellers actually come for sits outside the warning zones: Algiers and the Casbah, the Mediterranean coast, Oran and the west, Tlemcen, Constantine and the Roman east, Kabylie, the M’Zab Valley, and the classic Saharan circuits around Djanet, Timimoun and Tamanrasset — the last of these travelled with an operator, a guide and permits.

Two caveats worth keeping. Advisories are updated, sometimes at short notice, so read your own government’s current map rather than a summary written months earlier. And a region being open does not make it casual: the desert is an environment before it is a security question, which is why independent deep-desert travel is restricted regardless of the political map. The Algeria safety guide goes through this region by region.