Whether you are traveling to a remote location or simply walking around a new and unfamiliar city, there are risks.  The following are the top 7 useful travel survival tips culled from the experts.

1. Carry less to show you have less to steal than others around you. A single small backpack (wear it on your front in crowded areas) means you are more agile and have your hands free. If you don’t look like you have anything useful to steal, thieves will move on to better targets.
2. Similar to number 1: dress to fit in, not to impress. Flashing expensive clothing, cameras, jewelry or luggage is a sure way to draw attention to yourself – unwanted attention. The kind of attention that identifies you as a target for thieves.
3. Avoid high-risk areas. When you get to a new place, you’ll want a map. Visit an official tourist office to get a map and ask the person on duty to highlight the areas you should avoid. If you can, try to verify those highlights with the clerk at your hotel too (just in case the person at the tourist office is less than honest).
4. Don’t require the use of your phone in remote areas. Where coverage may be limited, your phone’s battery will drain much quicker. If your phone dies or breaks, you’ll want alternative means of getting around and finding what you need to find (think paper maps and hand-written notes).
5. Don’t panic in an emergency. If your plane has to make an emergency landing, or you encounter a civil riot, or you leave something important in a taxi, panicking is only going to make things work. Understand what ‘brace for impact’ means, stay away from civil demonstrations because as peaceful as they look at the start, they can quickly become violent, and take your time exiting a taxi.
6. Tell someone where you’re going. If you’re going off the grid for a time, let a friend or family member back home know where you’re going (as specifically as possible) and when you plan to return. Also, let them know who to contact if they don’t hear from you when they are supposed to. National parks usually have a ranger station where it’s useful to check in and out, for example. Friendly innkeepers are usually happy to note when you are expected to return and call for help if you don’t return when you should.
7. Be prepared. Take the time to think about and research the risks for your destination and be prepared. The risks you face can be as simple as loss of power in your hotel on a short weekend trip to New York City. See our tips for what should be in your travel emergency travel kit. For a remote adventure, see our list of essential travel products for off-the-grid trips.

Of course, we also recommend you think carefully about and purchase travel insurance for your trip. If you’re not sure what you need, see our Travel Insurance 101.

We recently received a flyer from HTH Worldwide, who offers global travel insurance plans through Travel Insurance Review, and we wanted to share it with our readers.

Last year, a 72-year-old traveler from Florida went to Torremolinos, Spain for a two-month vacation. This traveler purchased an annual plan from HTH: TravelGap Multi-trip Silver (a plan that covers travelers up to age 84 and includes coverage for pre-existing medical conditions). During his trip, he experienced dizziness and suffered a loss of consciousness. He was admitted to a local hospital for diagnosis and treatment.

While this particular hospital did not have a contract with HTH, the administrators agreed to invoice HTH for the traveler’s medical care. After two weeks in hospital, the attending physician released the patient to return to the U.S. but because he was disoriented (due to his condition of Alzheimer’s), the doctor and the HTH team agreed that a nurse would be necessary to ensure he could travel safely. After his hospital discharge, the traveler was medically evacuated to the U.S. accompanied by a nurse and traveled in business class. He was admitted to a local hospital in Florida and placed under the care of his family physician.

HTH arranged for and paid for all the hospital charges in Spain, including the air flight home and nurse escort (image below copied from the HTH flyer).

What can we learn from this traveler’s experience?

A lot of travelers give travel insurance a bad rap because they believe it should cover them in all travel emergencies, but as we’ve shown in this story, travel insurance is sometimes the best purchase a traveler can make.

Unfortunately, travelers typically fail to read their plan’s description of coverage and so they don’t know exactly what their coverage includes and they make assumptions about their coverage. Often, we find that travelers take the easy road, simply purchasing any old travel insurance plan offered to them in the check out process, and then get angry when it doesn’t have the kind of coverage they need.

If you’ve been let down by travel insurance in the past, please review our 5 Common “Loopholes” and How to Avoid Them to better understand how travel insurance works and how to purchase the right travel insurance for your needs.

We recently had a question from a traveler who received a future airline credit for an upcoming trip and we wanted to use it to explain how this works.

This traveler had already paid for the airline portion of their trip. Later, they noticed a price drop and negotiated for a better ticket price. The airline gave this traveler a credit to be used toward future travel, not a discount on the current trip.

This traveler had already purchased their travel insurance as well, was within their free look period and wanted to know if they should reduce their trip cost to account for the future credit.

Why was this savvy traveler concerned? Because they had purchased travel insurance with a pre-existing condition waiver and cancel for any reason coverage – both of which require the traveler to purchase coverage for the entire non refundable charges of their trip. If their trip cost was now reduced, this traveler wanted to be sure their coverage was correct.

In this case, however, because the airline credit was toward future travel and not the currently insured trip, the traveler should not reduce their trip cost.

Had the airline issued an immediate credit on the current trip, then the traveler could lower their insured trip cost to avoid paying for more coverage than they needed.

We recently noticed this question on a message board: Can I renew an expired passport if I can’t find it – it seems to be lost!

Unfortunately, no. The passport renewal process is relatively simple and inexpensive as long as you have the passport that’s about to or has already expired. The key is having your expired passport in hand.

You can renew your passport by mail if all of these conditions are true:

1. The passport is intact and can be submitted with your renewal application.
2. The passport was issued when you were at least 16 years old.
3. The passport was issued in the last 15 years.
4. The passport was issued in your current name or you can legally document your name change.

See the instructions from the U.S. State Department to renew your passport by mail. If any of the above list is not true, then you must apply in person for a new passport starting from scratch.

One note of caution: the State Department would likely appreciate receiving a form called DS-64 Statement Regarding a Lost or Stolen Passport. The primary reason for this is to be sure that your passport isn’t being fraudulently used by someone else.

As you might expect – the answer is: It depends. Every travel insurance company and plan is different, as is every traveler. That being said, there are some commonalities between travel insurance plans on which we can draw to answer this question.

In this scenario, you can cancel and be reimbursed your trip costs

If your travel insurance plan has trip cancellation coverage that lists family member’s death as a covered reason for cancelling your trip, then yes you will have coverage.

Caution! You’ll need to know what constitutes a family member according to your plan. Some plans cover only spouse and children, some extend coverage to in-laws, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and more.

Here’s the definition of ‘family member’ from the Travelex Travel Select plan certificate:

And here’s one from the MH Ross Bridge plan certificate:

The key is to read the coverage.

In this scenario, you cannot cancel and be reimbursed your trip costs

If the family member who died had a pre-existing medical condition and you did not purchase a travel insurance plan with pre-existing medical condition coverage, then no you won’t have coverage for cancelling your trip. This is where travelers often get caught – they only take their own pre-existing conditions into account, not those of family members. If your uncle dies from an existing heart condition, you won’t have coverage to cancel your trip unless you purchased a pre-existing medical condition waiver with your plan.

As we’ve mentioned before, no insurance plan can cover everything – that’s not the nature of insurance. Every travel insurance company carefully spells out the covered reasons for cancellation in their description of coverage or the plan certificate. The key is to read the coverage.

FYI, some travel insurance plans include the death of a host as a covered reason for cancellation too.

Here’s a worst-case scenario we recently read about: an exhausted traveler stumbles off  the plane and hails the first taxi available to get to their hotel. The driver speeds through unfamiliar crowded streets and zips into the over-crowded hotel drop-off area. A few porters rush to lay claim to the traveler’s things. As the taxi dashes down the street and around the corner, the traveler realized they left their camera and laptop on the backseat.

Ouch!

4 Steps to Avoid Leaving Your Valuables in a Taxi

The following are the top recommended steps to avoiding leaving your valuables behind in a taxi:

1. The first rule is to stay aware when you’re getting out of the taxi. Sometimes when you arrive, your car may be surrounded by beggars, noisy street vendors, and other distractions. Stay aware, gather your things carefully, and don’t get out of the taxi until after you have collected your belongings, paid the driver, and taken a good look around. That will help you exit the taxi with your things safely.
2. Opt for official taxis over the less expensive operators. Not only is this safer, but it helps with tracking down lost items. Often, your hotel will have a preferred taxi service which may help in finding lost items for guests. Give them a call from the airport to find out – they may even be able to send the cab to you.
3. Label all your gear with return information. After all, good people do exist and they may be willing to contact the phone number and connect with you to exchange it. Or, they may be willing to mail it to you or leave it at your hotel.
4. Tip your driver. This can help you stay in their good graces and they may even turn around and bring the item back to you once it’s discovered.

Remember that many travel insurance plans have baggage coverage for lost, stolen, or destroyed items up to certain limits. Expensive items like jewelry, laptops, sports equipment, and cameras may be scheduled on your homeowner’s or special property policy, which means you’ll have coverage for items that cost more than the baggage coverage limits. See the limits of baggage coverage by plan and company.

The team at Travel Insurance Review would like to take this opportunity to wish each of our clients and customers a very safe and happy Christmas season.

We also want to thank each of you for being such an important part of our success this year. You’ve contributed to our travel insurance plan reviews, given us excellent feedback, and signed up for and read our travel safety news – on a regular basis, you’ve even forwarded the newsletters to your friends and neighbors who are planning trips.

In the coming year, your safe travels are at the very top of our list.

Our resolution is to continue delivering the highest quality travel insurance understanding, information, tips, and more to travelers of all ages on all kinds of trips, helping you decide what travel insurance you need to travel and return home safely.

From our families to yours, we extend the best wishes for a safe, healthy, and joyous holiday season!

Holistic health experts remind holiday makers that the holiday season is a time of stress, lack of sleep, reduced physical activity and numerous indulgent holiday foods.

Personal Health Survival Strategies

The following are the top personal health survival strategies for the 2011 holiday season:

1. To avoid big weight gain, focus on maintaining a healthy weight not excessive weight loss. Starting a new diet on January 1st is one option, but it’s not the best option. Focus on maintaining a normal, healthy weight all year long so you don’t have to go through drastic measures in the new year.
2. Enjoy the foods you like – in moderation. No single meal and no single type of food will make you instantly overweight – it’s the accumulation of to many calories too often that does it. Denying yourself your favorite foods is not way to effect a health eating pattern. So, enjoy the foods you like in smaller portions. Savor them slowly and you’ll not only get more out of the enjoyment, you’ll enjoy consuming less.
3. Keep moving through the holidays. With the colder weather, traveling to visit friends and family, and the huge number of commitments, it can be hard to keep your exercise schedule on track. Find ways to sneak in exercise. Craving a long talk with your mother or son? Lace up your shoes, bundle up, and take it outside. You’ll find that the movement will help you focus and enjoy the time with your favorite person and you’ll get a calorie burn besides!
4. Implement smart drinking strategies in addition to smart eating strategies. The human body can’t store alcohol until it has metabolized it. That means your before dinner drink gets metabolized first, then the food you eat. If the body has all the calories it needs right now, the food gets stored as fat. Enjoying a light cocktail with dinner helps the body get the nutrients it needs from the food first. Alternating each drink with two glasses of water helps your liver de-toxify too.

Travel Survival Strategies

Crowded airplanes, lack of service, weather delays, and tired, angry people all contribute to needing a holiday travel survival strategy. The following are the top holiday travel tips for 2011:

1. Make copies of your travel documents and credit cards. If you are robbed or lose your wallet, passport, and other travel documents, you can rely on the copies to help you replace them. Keep one copy in your checked or carry-on luggage and leave one copy with friends or family back home (you can call them if your copy is also stolen).
2. Get there early – really early. Airports can be dull and most people avoid them until they really have to be there, but arriving early gives you the lead time you may just need when the security line gets blocked by someone who hasn’t kept up on the current TSA holiday travel tips.
3. Be nice – even when it’s hard. Your niceness in a sticky, tense situation can have a calming effect on those who are standing by and potentially diffuse the situation.
4. Carry your bag on board – or even better, ship it ahead! FedEx and UPS have decent tracking systems that can help you track the progress of your bag. They’ll even insure it (the airlines won’t). So send everything you can ahead and pack light. You’ll save on airline baggage fees, hassle, and worry.
5. Load up your electronics with plenty of entertainment. This will help tide you over when there are travel delays.
6. Remember where you parked the car. This is especially true during the holidays when you may be sleepy or distracted when you park, then have trouble finding it when you return some days or weeks later. See our tips for finding your parked car.

Of course, having the right travel insurance can help you travel safely without incurring a big financial loss too. See what travel insurance covers and what it doesn’t; then, read our tips for saving money on your travel insurance plan.

All those generic articles out on the Internet describing the ‘essential coverage necessary in every travel insurance plan’ are just plain junk. We cannot stress this enough: every traveler has different needs, every trip has different risks, and there are times when travel insurance is overkill and unnecessary.

At Travel Insurance Review, we’re here to explain travel insurance to consumers. It’s not our intent to push travel insurance, but to help consumers determine their risks and get the coverage they need. No traveler wants to spend more than they have to on stuff like travel insurance and we don’t want you to have coverage that’s unnecessary.

That being said, there is no such thing as ‘essential coverage for every travel insurance plan’. It’s simply not true. In fact, we’ve written a whole page listing when travel insurance is just not necessary.

A few examples:

• If you’re traveling inside the U.S., have adequate medical coverage, and a little money in the bank for out-of-network medical care, then you may not need travel medical coverage.
• If you have plenty of time on your trip and no hard schedule in mind, you can better accommodate travel delays. You may not be happy about it, but if you’ve got friends in town, you won’t be out a great deal of money and you could even have some unexpected fun with the delay.
• If you plan to carry your bag, stow it on the plane yourself, and not leave it alone, you probably don’t need baggage coverage – especially if you can afford to purchase what you need when you arrive.

Travel insurance is relatively cheap insurance against truly awful travel scenarios that can cost you a great deal of money like these:

• Your child, wife, brother, or father is hospitalized and you want to cancel your trip to be there for them.
• A ruthless hurricane destroys the resort where you planned to stay.
• Your boss cancels your leave and you are facing the loss of thousands of dollars in non refundable travel payments.
• You are in a horrific bus crash and need medical care you can’t afford without insurance.
• Your checked luggage goes to Spain but you’re headed to Hawaii with nothing but a credit card in your pocket.
• Some jerk breaks into your car and steals the briefcase containing your passport before an overseas trip.
• You have a heart attack on a cruise and need to be medically evacuated to a qualified hospital.

So, please stop listening to the scare tactics, take a little time to determine the risks you’re facing on your trip, and compare travel insurance plans, coverage, and price with our travel insurance comparison tool. You’ll have just what you need without spending a lot of extra money.