Unlike health insurance, which I thoroughly and painfully cover here, travel insurance is more straightforward — at least relatively so.
Let’s run through the obvious questions:
An ad hoc form of coverage for issues commonly related to travel. These can be medical or non-medical in nature.
This might be costs from trip delays and cancelations, theft, lost luggage and sickness or injury that occurs while you’re away from home. There’s more, but you get the idea.
Medically speaking, travel insurance is supposedly only supplemental, meaning it’s not meant to be your primary policy. In the absence of a primary, costs are covered, but how this works if you don’t have a primary policy is hard to determine. You should ask an agent for solid answers.
Peace of mind always comes with caveats.
Some policies don’t cover injuries sustained while breaking a local law. If you’re an honest person, that seems like a nonissue until you consider local laws elsewhere can be strange and
draconian. Forget drunk driving. The injuries from getting hit by a moped probably won’t be covered if you’re jaywalking.
There are lots of peculiarities baked in too. Some coverage stops above a certain elevation. Imagine you have a 12,000-foot limit on your policy and you go to La Paz, which is 11,940 feet above sea level. Slipping and falling at the supermarket will likely be covered, but if you day hike up to Killi Killi park for sunset and get bitten by a dog, sorry, Charlie.
Behavior the company deems “reckless” may also cancel coverage. SCUBA diving beyond a certain depth or snuggling a rescued tiger that becomes agitated might be prohibited.
Some countries are flat-out prohibited as well, so you won’t be able to get insurance if you want to visit. Or if you can, you’ll pay through the nose.
Bottom line, read that policy before you buy. And if you suspect you might want to participate in a certain prohibited activity, inquire about add-on coverage.
Simple answer: yes.
For one, it’s a requirement for entry into several countries and some tour operators require it to join their groups. But aside from that, protection is just good common sense.
You’re going to be in places where an ordinary day involves hazards greater than, say, commuting to the office and eating lunch at Panera. And I say that fully aware Panera is nasty.
By ‘hazards’ I mean bungee jumping in Ecuador or taking selfies on the shoulder of the Ha Giang Loop but also cycling around cities without bike lanes, taking trains that (surprise) occasionally derail or walking in Buddhist temples whose floors look dry when they’re wet.
The animal kingdom also likes to remind us our place in the food chain isn’t always at the top. There are Brazilian scorpions that hide in shoes, monkeys with teeth like wolves that like to steal iPhones and box jellyfish that wash up on beaches of Australia. Actually, forget the box jellies; they’ll just straight up kill you.
Foreign places also have bacteria and parasites that you haven’t adapted to. I’ve seen local Nubian kids sip straight from the Nile on a hot afternoon, but the diarrhea from drinking it would be fatal for anyone else. Fresh fruit from a market won’t make Indonesians sick, but the wrong kumquat in Lombok might send you to the pharmacy.
Just so we’re clear, these “what ifs” are not to spook you I’m not encouraging avoidance, I’m encouraging preparedness. You absolutely should eat the kumquat, watch the scenery pass through the rickety train window and feed peanuts to goofy, feral monkey as long as it’s not foaming at the mouth. Exotic discomforts are life’s greatest joy, so race towards them. Just do it with a good insurance policy.
There are several providers, but World Nomads, despite their derpy, robotic customer service, is generally number one on most backpackers’ lists. Allianz and Travelex are also reputable. Lately, others have been popping up, including providers like SafetyWing, which focus on nomads and people swear by.
It’s hard to say which will be right for you, so do that homework. Get quotes from as many companies as you can that include an explanation of benefits, often called an EOB, so you can compare apples. Also, read reviews to see how willingly each company pays claims.
For some things, possibly.
Review how your card company’s policies cover flight or trip cancelation, damage to rental cars and lost or stolen luggage. Make sure each policy applies equally to domestic and international travel too. Sometimes there are differences, especially with rental cars.
Note that for their insurance to apply, you need to pay for the entire transaction on their card. You may also need to use the company’s travel portal and adhere to other conditions, like declining any option liability waivers. You gotta do your homework.
Lastly, if you redeem rewards points to pay for travel expenses, confirm that their insurance policies apply to those flights, stays and rentals as well.
For what it covers, surprisingly little. My policy from World Nomads covered every country I visited in 2018–19 and totaled 1,617.59 for my first 12 months, which is typically the maximum amount of time one can cover at a time.
If you reach the end of your policy and want to continue traveling, you can usually add on months at the end or buy a new policy for the length of time you need. I did, and the price was surprisingly cheap because I ended in pretty benign places.
And that brings me to a quick insurance hack: Sometimes you can save by splitting out the riskier destinations into their own policies. If you’re doing two months in Japan, Korea and Taiwan, for example, and going to Indonesia after, the policy for the first three plus the policy for the fourth might cost less than clustering them all together. You gotta price these things out.
“Hey, Andy, what’s the ACA?” I’ll tell you.
In 2010, then-President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law and required all Americans to buy health insurance. Soon thereafter, a bunch of mendacious red-state senators politicized and dubbed it Obamacare, fully ignoring that the law was created by Republican Mitt Romney when he was governor of Massachusetts. If you want to be a partisan dickface, call it Romneycare. Today, we’re being grownups and using its proper name.
Why are we discussing it at all?
The ACA requires that all Americans have health insurance. It’s ludicrous to pay the usual $800/month for a plan that’s useless abroad though, so people who leave the country for long enough are fortunately exempt. This exemption is tricky business, so read closely.
When you’re away for 330 days of the year or more (check that number in case it changes), you meet what the IRS calls the physical presence test, and you’re no longer required to maintain a health insurance policy back home. There are tax benefits to this as well, but we won’t discuss those here.
If you get really sick or injured and reach the limits of your travel insurance policy, you may want to return home for further treatment, at which point you’ll need US health insurance. If you’re comfortable getting advanced care abroad (and paying for it) like me, great. If not, look into nomad policies that cover healthcare worldwide, including the United States.
How do you do that? Talk to a professional. Expat insurance and taxation is a confusing business, so much so that it’s spawned a whole industry. A quick phone conversation with an expert, even if you have to pay for it, is worth it to avoid filing a tax return that shows ACA noncompliance or having insufficient coverage after a medical flight back home.
My privacy policy is simple: I don’t share your information.
Yea, it’s just a name, email and nationality, but I’m sure there are people who would pay for it. My thoughts on that: fuck those people and fuck those fuckers who sell personal information to them. You’ll find none of that monkey business here.
If I get hacked and your info get stolen, I’ll shoot you a note to let you know. I don’t deal in passwords, credit cards or anything like that though, so there’s almost nothing for anyone to take.
To see the full privacy policy — it’s pretty boring and cost me a lot of money — you can follow the link at the bottom of the page or in the confirmation email.
Domestic American air travel is a racket run by three major companies and a few smaller ones who effectively collude on prices to screw passengers and support their bloated executives and corporate structures.
Even regional jets, which are technically independent, are fucking death traps that I literally never, ever fly.
It’s not this way in other countries, because most people are sensible and see transportation as akin to a public utility. It’s therefore common to find flights on foreign carriers for under $100. I frequently see fares less $50.
Booking far in advance is therefore unnecessary, except of course in places where tickets sell out. Avoid the temptation to book months or weeks out if you’re just trying to save money. Not only will doing so lock you into dates you might regret, you may end up paying. Why? Booking sites now sniff for your computer’s location and display higher prices for foreigners.
Rude, right? Blame the mirror. We invented that.
First, some bad news for most Americans: automatic transmissions are as rare overseas as manuals are in the US. Unless you want to seriously overpay, make friends with someone who owns an old Miata and learn.
Second, anyone who wants to rent a car should obtain an international driver’s permit. This is easy — just 30 minutes at AAA.
When it’s time to rent, don’t get tempted by lower prices with small, local companies. Go with a big multi-national.
Understand your insurance situation through-and-through. Know the limits of your credit card’s automatic coverage and have a printout of the policy. If you can get a translated copy, even better. If you’re still in doubt after all that, just pay for their coverage.
Research the scams. Before you drive off the lot, walk around the vehicle and video record it. When you return the car, do the same. Also record yourself locking it and depositing the key in the night box if you return after hours.
If you get a notice from the rental company later saying you owe for damage or not returning the car, you can send them those videos with an E-vite to go get fucked. You might also copy tourist law enforcement, so they get fined to oblivion.
It’s tricky, but you need to basically study each country’s road laws and signs like you’re getting your student driver’s permit again. Most places have tricky rules, and they love to fine gringoes like us for violating them.
In Cyprus, for example, you can be fined for eating or drinking anything behind the wheel, even a Snickers. In Denmark, you’re legally required to look under your car before you get inside to ensure no one is underneath. In Spain, drivers with poor vision have to carry a spare set of glasses. Dirty cars are illegal in Russia, as is splashing pedestrians on a rainy day in Japan.
In some places, driving is really difficult. I pity any fool who tries to drive in Cairo. You can also very swiftly kill yourself on a German highway if you’re untrained. Driving at 120 MPH is far more complex than simply pressing the accelerator further.
Fare classes are highly inconsistent.
First class in one country is generally different to first class in any other. The same is true of second, third and so on. They vary wildly by country and system.
If it’s fiscally reasonable, I choose first for early mornings and overnights. They really are better, even just for security of your belongings.
The one time I settled for a second-class overnight, I had to physically fight a mouth-breathing Russian girl who was sweating vodka and wouldn’t stop burying her face into my lap to huff my underpants like Whip-Its. I wish I was making this up, but it’s true. I arrived sleepless, angry and ugly. It ruined my first day in Lisbon and I only had five. First class would have been worth the cost. Second class is my usual go-to. For shorter trips or anything after 9 a.m. I go second.
If I want an adventure, I go even lower. Some agents won’t sell those tickets to tourists though unless you insist.
Nomads and backpackers who don’t do the travel hacking thing usually buy cheap flights. Be careful of taking that too far.
For starters, you need to observe weight limits on baggage. In the US, no one gives a shit, but elsewhere they care. The care deeply. Never buy a ticket that forces you to pay weight overages.
Seats are also important, but not for comfort. I never take bulkhead or exit-row seats unless I pay for early boarding. Both offer less (or zero) under-seat storage, so being in a later boarding group puts you at risk of having nowhere to put your carry on — or as you’ll hear them called “cabin bags.”
I’ve even been on a flight where the attendant nearly made me check my personal item. I shut that down by threatening to create a scene and de-board, but I could have avoided it by paying $8 for priority boarding.
Countless people have asked if I used an around-the-world plane ticket for my first trip.
My simple response: Don’t ask dumb fucking questions. Also, no, I didn’t.
ATW tickets are nearly useless. They typically require you to book your stops in advance, so there’s too little flexibility. The fine print is also brutal and changes constantly.
Last time I researched them, the price was based on allotments of miles. The number of stops also changed the equation. All of them required you to choose a direction (east-to-west, for example) and none permitted travel in the reverse direction even slightly. Some airlines even insisted all departures had to occur from the same point as arrival, meaning if you traveled by land elsewhere, the airline penalized your mileage allotment.
I said airline there, but ATW tickets come come from a single carrier. Instead, you buy into an alliance, of which I believe there are still only three. Quite the lack of competition there.
ATW fares do lend themselves marvelously to itineraries where you go to a different city each month and make it the base from which you explore the region. This is something we’ll talk about later when we discuss hub-and-spoke travel.
If you have status with a particular airline, you may want to consider their ATW option — emphasis on ‘may’ — but be warned that flying everywhere robs you of some great experiences.
Domestic American air travel is a racket run by three major companies and a few smaller ones who effectively collude on prices to screw passengers and support their bloated executives and corporate structures.
Even regional jets, which are technically independent, are fucking death traps that I literally never, ever fly.
It’s not this way in other countries, because most people are sensible and see transportation as akin to a public utility. It’s therefore common to find flights on foreign carriers for under $100. I frequently see fares less $50.
Booking far in advance is therefore unnecessary, except of course in places where tickets sell out. Avoid the temptation to book months or weeks out if you’re just trying to save money. Not only will doing so lock you into dates you might regret, you may end up paying. Why? Booking sites now sniff for your computer’s location and display higher prices for foreigners.
Rude, right? Blame the mirror. We invented that.
The beauty of hub cities is the slow pace. How slow you take it will vary according to the number of side trips as well as your pace. If you commit to a month though, this introduces the possibility of renting an apartment. Even if you don’t plan to stay the full 30 days, apartment rental is generally very cheap. It can also make cooking easier, which also saves cash.
Cooking for yourself doesn’t have to mean eggs for breakfast and chicken dinners. You can dial up the adventure full throttle if you sign up for a greenmarket food tour and a cooking class right after you arrive. Not only will you know what to do with the local ingredients, you’ll eat better. Plus if you know what you’re doing, the vendors may screw you less, which will offset the price of the guide.
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