Did you know that it’s National Gut Week this week? It’s true. And it’s all about promoting the importance of happy tummies and good digestive health. After all, you know what they say. When you’re happy on the inside, you’ll be happy on the outside. A healthy digestive system is the foundation of a healthy you.

An upset tummy is never nice. But consistently bad dietary choices can take their toll and lead to more troublesome problems over time, especially when a bad diet is accompanied by stress and a lack of exercise. Estimates suggest that around a third of the UK regularly suffers from digestive problems. And travel-lovers can be particularly at risk.

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Price comparison websites are big business these days. Recent years have yielded bumper profits and it’s now pretty much impossible to go through an evening’s television viewing without being told to go and compare something or another. But do price comparison websites really help you sniff out the best deal? Perhaps not. According to a recent statement from the Financial Services Authority, it turns out that using price comparison websites might not be such a smart move after all.

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If you’ve ever read our World First Weekly Wander feature, you’ll know that we love keeping tabs on the travel blogosphere’s top writers. Toni White is one of them. Her travel blog, Reclaiming My Future, is a great read. But that’s not important right now. Because this guest post is written by Toni’s four-legged travel buddies. Ever wondered what life’s like for a cow and a sheep in Japan? Trot off with Sheepy and Duke and find out.

Being two farmyard animals we thought we would feel like outsiders in Japan. But from the moment we arrived in Tokyo we knew we’d be okay; there were more sub-cultures than chicken lay eggs.  Women walked around in Kimonos and those ‘funny looking flip-flops’ with socks on, men wore really tight jeans and fake tan, and girls dressed up to look like their favourite characters from Anime cartoons. We fitted right in!

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Every Monday our social media man Tristan Rothwell brings us his rundown of what’s hot in the travel blogosphere. It’s an easy way to catch up on the top travel trends and take a look at the stories that are making waves online. This week, World First Weekly Wander goes spiritual and embarks on a quest to find blog posts that nourish mind, body and soul. Who can resist that?

Take it away, Tristan!

Hello again travellers! It’s Monday and that can only mean it’s time to wander across the travel web to see what’s hot, through the eyes of World First. This week I have been reading a lot about yoga, something I’m a huge fan of. Never tried fit? You should, it’s amazing! And it’s a much tougher workout than some people think. (I train in Exeter with James Russell. Give it a go, you won’t be disappointed.)

With yoga in mind, I thought we could go on a voyage of both travel and self discovery in this week’s World First Weekly Wander.

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There’s an exciting endurance opportunity coming up that’s perfect for those that like a challenge. The London to Paris Bike Ride gives you the chance to take on a calf-crunching 234 mile route through two countries over the course of three days. And you might just be able to do your bit to help fight breast cancer too.

Ready to saddle up?

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Sun, sea, sand and…insolvency: How £7 can protect you from the cost of holiday horrors.

When you’re going on holiday, it’s easy to assume an “it will never happen to me” mentality. Why worry? Accidents don’t happen on holiday, do they? And aren’t holidays for escaping the fiddly chores and responsibilities of everyday life? Anyway, you’ve got enough to worry about with all that packing…

The reality is that swerving the travel insurance is financially reckless. According to the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, new findings show that in 2010 the average medical claim made by British tourists falling ill abroad was £1,333.41. In countries where the cost of medical care can be very high, such as the USA, the average claim for medical bills was £4,725, research by Sainsbury’s Travel Insurance shows.

>> Read the article from the FCO

While all travellers hope to have their dream holiday when they jet off, it’s worth remembering that accidents do happen abroad – just like they do at home. Without decent travel insurance, you could be left facing thousands of pounds worth of bills. In fact, the latest research into the average cost of medical care abroad guarantees that if something unexpected does happen on your travels, you really will have a holiday you’ll never forget.

At World First, medical expenses are covered under the terms of your travel insurance policy. And it can take as little as five minutes and £7 to get covered.

Visit World First and see how quick and cost-effective good travel insurance can be.

Photographer and World First social media man Tristan Rothwell recounts his recent trip to Cornwall and shows off some of the photos.

Having just returned from a trip to my birthplace and home town, Penzance in Cornwall, I thought I would share some photographs with you from the trip.

I don’t get home to the motherland as often as I would like – but have just found time to spend a long weekend there with my girlfriend, armed with my usual array of cameras including my standard weapon of choice: the Canon 50d equipped with a Canon 50mm prime lens, the sharpness of which is truly amazing! The thing is, it didn’t actually make it out of my camera bag!

The reason the Canon became slightly ignored this weekend is due to taking delivery of my shiny new white iPhone! And then going into a camera app downloading frenzy. I downloaded Hipstamatic , Scratchcam and a few others the evening before leaving and was like a child with a new toy. Hipstamatic gives you a lovely lo-fi effect which i really like. I usually spend hours taking photographs with my £1000 DSLR and then spend many more hours making it look like they were taken on a £20 Russian charity shop camera. Not anymore thanks to these toy-camera apps.

I am a street photographer by choice, where the idea is to get the photograph without being seen! That’s not easy if you are using a large digital SLR. So the iPhone makes the perfect street photography and holiday camera. It’s got a 5mp lens, there are some great apps for it and nobody seems to take any notice of you using it. Perfect.

Here’s some of my iphoneography from the trip.

Land’s End – The end of the UK.

St.Ives in the rain. I guess it had to rain at least once. We decided to make a run for the Tate Gallery.

Once in the Tate Gallery we became part of the art itself, adding our names to the walls of one of the exhibitions.

I spotted these model houses in a shop in the High Street in St Ives and thought it may make an interesting shot.

We left St.Ives and headed for Sennen (my spiritual home). I grew up surfing Sennen and considered it my local break for 20 years. So I always visit when I’m in Cornwall. The sunsets are spectacular. Usually. Unfortunately, they weren’t this time and the heavens opened (again) just as we arrived. We made our way to The Beach Restaurant which really is worth a visit.

We would have sent you a postcard but…

We finished our long weekend with a trip to Philp’s pasty shop in Hayle, where we loaded up with pasties to take home for friends and family, not least the World First Managing Director who is a keen ambassador of pasty power. And what trip to Cornwall is complete without a pasty? Exactly. We’ll be back soon to stock up again.

Tristan Rothwell – Social Media Team – World First Travel Insurance
Twitter @wftristan
wftristan@gmail.com

On Sunday 21st August, Hyde Park in London will be filled by young and old donning the Lycra and limbering up to take on a 10k route through the park. And it’s all in aid of Crohn’s disease.

The annual event is organised by ForCrohns – a charity set up to raise money for research into Crohn’s disease and to help spread awareness of the condition to a wider audience. The 10k event is called 10k ForCrohns and it’s raised more than £125,000 since it began in 2002.

So what do you reckon? Think you’ve got what it takes to go the distance?

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Welcome to the latest instalment of our rundown of the web’s best new travel blogs, videos and photos – compiled by our social media man Tristan Rothwell.  This week we’ve got some stunning videos to show you. So grab a coffee, sit back and join us on a journey across the globe.

Take it away, Tristan!

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We love the fact that more and more people are finding out about our comprehensive, cost-effective travel insurance. And we love that more people are realising that we’re happy to offer cover to travel-lovers with medical conditions. Right up to the age of 100. After all, one of the sole reasons we started was to give people with medical conditions a fairer deal on their travel insurance.

So it’s great news that visitors to www.world-first.co.uk have doubled year on year for the past three years. And we’d like to thank you for your part in that. But the growth does mean that things in our old office were beginning to get a little cramped. So we’ve moved! We’re still in Devon, but we now call Exeter home instead of Honiton. After ten years, we’ll miss those tasty little bakeries that we worked by. But we’re now much better equipped to give World First customers a service that’s better than ever.

“The new offices in Exeter will enable us to develop our customer services team further with the opportunity to open longer hours to handle increasing call volumes,” explains World First’s Managing Partner, Martin Rothwell.  “The new offices also provide us with a better location for recruiting staff and we are installing some of the very latest IT and telecommunications systems to help deal with increased demand for our services from customers throughout the UK.”

Telecommunications systems in the digital age? Of course. While lots of our clients choose to buy travel insurance online, we think it’s essential to give our customers the dedicated customer services backup they deserve. The new offices will give our staff the tools they need to offer every customer the personal touch. And we think that’s important.

So from now on, the place to send all written communication (and moving in flowers) is:

World First Travel Insurance
Woodwater Park
Pynes Hill
Exeter
EX2 5WS