A recent report on various Craigslist sites listing dozens of campsites at popular national parks has alerted the media and campers to a new problem: campsite scalping.

One very popular national park, Yosemite, has found their campsites – which are reserved in advance for $20 per night through the contracted park reservation system – are being sold for up to $100 or $150 per night from vendors on Craig’s list.

What’s more, campsites aren’t the only thing being resold. Permits for climbing Half Done, which are issued by the park for free are also being sold for profit online.

How is this possible?

It comes down to supply and demand, of course. A quick search (at the time of this writing) of the Reserve America website, which handles Yosemite reservations, found many areas still closed due to heavy snow pack, and the areas that were open for a 4-night stay in August were already limited to yurts and RV sites (no campsites).

There are 900 campsites available in Yosemite, but the park is a highly popular summer destination, and the summer camping season is in full swing.

While the park system prohibits the reselling of any park reservation, there simply isn’t the time or resources to implement the necessary oversight any time soon.

You’ve probably noticed that hurricane season coincides with the summer travel season when school is out of session. Travel during hurricane season – just like travel during the winter season – comes with a unique set of risks and cautions. Air flights far from the hurricane zone can be significantly delayed – affecting air travelers across the country and even around the globe. Cruise ships may be diverted from scheduled ports, ruining your personal travel agenda.

To help consumers of travel insurance understand the risks of hurricane season travel and know what type of travel coverage they need, we put together the Hurricane Resource Center 2011, a comprehensive Traveler’s Guide to Hurricane Season.

It includes new information and timely topics, such as

• Top islands and U.S. cities for hurricane strikes – do you know where the ‘hurricane capital of the world’ is?
• Worst 3 months for hurricanes – and the slightly safer months as well!
• Cruise safety and cruise line hurricane protocols – are cruise ships safe during a hurricane?
• 5 Caribbean islands most likely to miss a hurricane – are one of these islands on your travel plans?

We’ve provided an entire section detailing the compensation you can expect from travel suppliers and what you need in the way of hurricane travel insurance coverage for all the rest.

In addition, we’ve also provided information and reviews on useful hurricane season travel tools, including websites, iPhone apps, and a new twitter feed from the National Hurricane Center. Plus, we provided some essential hurricane maps detailing where hurricanes originate, their typical travel paths, and major hits through history.

If you’re planning to travel this hurricane season – even if you will be far from hurricane alley – take a look at this hurricane resource to understand the residual risks of a hurricane event.

In case you’re curious, you can also read the Hurricane Resource Center press release.

Tourists planning to head to Greece this summer need to do a little research, but travel insurance protections are still available. Here’s what you need to know:

• ‘civil unrest’ is typically not covered for trip cancellation and trip interruption
• insurers typically exclude ‘known risks’

So, if this sounds like it means you won’t have the option to cancel, think again.

A quick call to two travel insurance providers: Travel Guard and Travelex indicated that if I were planning a trip to Greece and had not yet made a trip payment, I could purchase the ‘Cancel for any reason’ upgrade and have trip cancellation coverage in case things get worse and I decide to bail on my trip.

What’s the rub?

The thing that could rub a traveler the wrong way is the fact that ‘cancel for any reason’ doesn’t always reimburse your trip costs at 100%. In fact, a quick review of two plans revealed:

• Travel Guard’s Platinum plan reimburses 70% of pre-paid non refundable trip costs
• Travelex’s Select plan reimburses 60% of pre-paid non refundable trip costs

Still, getting some of your money back is better than nothing.

How about the details?

All travel insurance ‘cancel for any reason’ coverage comes with a set of rules that must be followed. For example,

• Travel Guard’s website indicates that The Cancel for Any Reason upgrade must be purchased at the same time of base plan and it is only valid if purchased within 15 days of initial trip payment. Coverage must be purchased for the full cost of all prepaid trip arrangements. (text copied from the Travel Guard website)

The warning from Travelex looked like this:

Both companies require you to purchase enough coverage for all non refundable trip costs and cancellation must occur within 48 hours of your scheduled departure – that means cancelling with the airlines, the tour operators, the hotels, and the travel insurance company (so you’ll need to get started early).

What would it cost?

Running through the quote process on the Travelex site, using these basic details:

• Trip dates: 8/18/2011 – 8/25/2011
• Trip destination: Greece
• Trip cost: $4,532.00 (a guess)
• Plan: Travelex Select with the ‘Cancel for any reason’ upgrade

The travel insurance cost for one traveler was:

Not bad for all that coverage.

 

With the airlines assessing fees for just about every little thing, many travelers this year will be turning to the old-fashioned road trip to stretch their travel dollars.

Here are some tips for a hassle-free road trip this summer:

1. Don’t pack everything – just the right things. Start out with travel-sized toiletries and make do with the hotel handouts.  Pack just a few days’ worth of clothing and wash your clothes as you go using the local laundromats or hotel laundry facilities.
2. Have an emergency kit in your car. Your emergency kit should include flashlight, blanket, rain ponchos (ever changed a tire in the pouring rain?), bottled water, and a little food.  Sure, you’re traveling in the summer, but you never know when you might run out of water or find it too far between travel stops and need a little snack.
3. Locate the best gas prices using GasBuddy.com. Enter the city and state or zip code and it will tell you the price of gas at nearby locations.
4. Locate local deals with Groupon, who also has mobile apps.
5. Of course, call your auto insurance company and find out whether you have towing coverage on your vehicle. If not, consider purchasing travel roadside assistance services for your trip.
6. Avoid major road constructions delays by consulting your state department of transportation, or rely on the number 511 which works in most states to give you road information.

House-sitting can significantly reduce travel costs and give travelers a chance to settle into a real home away from their own home. House-sitting is specifically staying in another person’s residence while the owner is away. House-sitting arrangements often do not pay the sitter, but the benefits to the sitter are free accommodations, the ability to live in and experience a local community – often with the added benefit of use of a vehicle and the opportunity to commune with the owner’s pets.

House-sitting arrangement vary according to the homeowner and house-sitter, but of course a formal document outlining who will pay for what expenses and the responsibilities of the house-sitter is a must. In most cases, the homeowner will pay at least part of the utility costs (depending on the length of their trip), costs for pet care and home maintenance. In return, the house-sitter may agree to pet-sitting duties and light home maintenance and upkeep.

This type of arrangement can work well for travelers of all ages and it comes with a number of benefits:

• Cheap living
• Freedom to live alone
• Greater space than a hotel room
• Company of pets

A site called Mind My House matches homeowners to house sitters from all over the world and has indicated that there is increased demand for house-sitters who are wiling to do a bit more to earn free long-term accommodations in another location. Some of these responsibilities may include care taking duties like mowing the lawn and more.

Of course, if you are choosing this method of travel, be sure to keep in mind what you may need in travel insurance: medical coverage in a foreign country, flight protection, and repatriation are likely.

A handful of airports around the globe really are trying to make it better for travelers. Here are a few innovations we support 100%.

1. Locking charging stations. This is the simplest of all solutions and we say, “About time!” It can take up to a half hour to recharge your phone or MP3 player, but standing next to the airport charging station to guard your device is a real time-waster. Now, you can lock your device using a personal code (similar to the way a hotel safe works) and go your merry way. Return to a juiced-up device.
2. Wireless check-in. Qantas is currently testing high-tech frequent flier cards loaded with radio frequency identification chips, or RFIDs, that allow travelers to check in.  Tap your frequent flier card at check-in and the airline computers will send an instant message to your phone with the gate number. Use your card as your boarding pass for a completely paperless process. More details are available here.
3. Customer service via tweet. Sometimes a problem will crop up and you can’t find anyone responsible to help. London’s Gatwick airport recently introduced signs in its terminals inviting passengers to send customer service feedback via Twitter via @gatwick_airport. When wi-fi goes down, you’re far more likely to get a response tweet in real-time.

Of course, in many airports, we’ve begun to notice a significant improvement in the availability of authentic, delicious food. Can we just say it for everyone? Thank you!

This is the stuff no one wants to think about when they are planning a trip – no matter whether that trip is a last-minute business meeting or a long-planned vacation. The term is repatriation and it means the return of a person’s body to their home country after their death.  Repatriation can cost thousands – even tens of thousands – of dollars depending on the location and condition of the body.

Without travel insurance protection for repatriation, the death of a loved one leaves friends and family scrambling to pay for your body’s return. Health insurance plans do not provide coverage and your friends and family will have to assume all costs without travel insurance.

Never sign what you don’t understand

If you find yourself coping with the death of a loved on abroad, never sign a document you can’t read and understand. If the death is due to natural causes then there should be minimal involvement from local authorities, but if the death was caused by an accident or criminal activity, the local authorities are likely to investigate further and may wish to relieve themselves of liability. If you don’t understand the documents you are asked to sign, get a translator. Again, travel insurance assistance services representatives can help in this situation.

Get a handful of death certificates

Deaths must be registered in the country in which they occur, but you are likely to need copies of the death certificate. Get several copies – at least 4 – because you will likely need them on your trip and when you get back home and it will be harder to get them after you return.

How long does it take?

Repatriation experts say it can take 7 to 10 days to return a body, provided the death is due to natural causes. If an investigation is ongoing, it can take longer.

What is the process?

The body must be embalmed before it can be moved by public transport. If you are handling the arrangements, employ a reputable funeral director to help. Cremated ashes can be taken on public flights as hand luggage in a sealed container or urn as long as it can be X-rayed. If you are accompanying the ashes home, you must have a cremation certificate as well as a death certificate and sealing certificate to board the plane.

Flights across the southern hemisphere were significantly disrupted as the cloud of volcanic ash from a erupting volcano in southern Chile drifted across Argentina and Australia.

Approximately 8,000 passengers on Qantas alone have been affected as the airline grounded all flights serving Auckland, Christchurch, Queenstown, and Wellington, New Zealand as well as Tasmania and Melbourne (Australia’s second largest city). Across the lakes region of Argentine Patagonia, the ash cloud has closed all airspace. In the southern ski resort town of Bariloche, snowplows are being used to clear piles of grey ash.

Passengers, including several large groups of teenage Tasmanian footballers, spent hours in the Melbourne airport trying to organize lodging and get answers from the airline. Those without travel insurance will be footing the bill for these travel delays on their own dime. At the same time,  meteorologists are warning of a second ash cloud that could drift across southeastern Australia within the next two days.

The Chilean Puyehue-Cordon Caulle volcanic region previously endured major eruptions in 1921 and 1922 and 1960, according to the U.S.-based Smithsonian Institution. The volcano may continue to erupt for an additional 10 days.

 

Many people encourage couples to take a vacation before their baby arrives because traveling after the baby is born is far more complicated than when it’s just the two of you. Of course, should you decide to take a babymoon (a honeymoon before the baby), it’s important to understand what your travel insurance can and can’t do for you before your trip and while you are on your trip.

Standard travel insurance policies do not provide protection against emergencies related to pregnancy. They are simply unwilling to take on the risk of insuring pregnant travelers because, as you might imagine, there is a greater possibility they will need medical attention.

So while travel insurance plans automatically exclude pregnancy and childbirth from their coverage, but complications of pregnancy are medically covered by many travel insurance providers. For example, according to Travel Guard’s Description of Coverage for their Platinum travel insurance plan:

‘ “Complications of Pregnancy” means conditions whose diagnoses are distinct from pregnancy but are adversely affected by pregnancy or are caused by pregnancy.’

In layman’s terms, this means that common medical conditions that are caused by or affected by a pregnancy are covered by the plan’s standard medical coverage.

The same Description of Coverage from Travel Guard continues with:

‘Complications of Pregnancy do not include false labor, occasional spotting, Physician-prescribed rest during the period of pregnancy, morning sickness, hyperemesis gravidarum, preeclampsia and similar conditions associated with the management of a difficult pregnancy not constituting a nosologically distinct complication of pregnancy.’

This is just one example of a travel insurance plan’s language. So what does this paragraph mean in layman’s terms? It means that a diagnosed medical condition that is solely related to pregnancy will not be covered by your travel insurance policy.

For additional information, see these posts:
Pregnancy is not a Covered Reason to Cancel
Does Travel Medical Insurance Cover Premature Delivery?

So, can you safely travel with travel insurance while you’re pregnant? It depends. If your pregnancy is proceeding smoothly along, your doctor says it’s safe to travel, and you are early in your pregnancy, you could be just fine. Every travel insurance plan is different, so it’s crucial that you review the plan details (which are available on the travel insurance’s website before you buy) so you understand what’s covered.

Also, use your free review period to call the assistance services representatives and ask some specific questions that will help you understand what’s covered and what’s not.