UK border staff are due to strike this Thursday (10th May). Find out what your rights are if the disruption affects your travel plans as well as what World First customers are covered for by their travel insurance.  

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Poland and Ukraine aren’t known for their indigenous population of wild dogs. It’s perhaps just as well for Roy Hodgson, given that one poor result in the Euros this summer will have the football media queuing up to throw him to the wolves. 

Yes, against most expectations in the football community, West Brom’s Roy Hodgson will be the man to lead the Three Lions in the Euros this summer. It’s a surprise appointment. And one that some might call managerial suicide given that the England job has been such a poisoned chalice over the years. But whatever happens to Hodgson, we’ve got the travel insurance that will give you the peace of mind to concentrate on nothing but football if you’re heading out to Poland and Ukraine this summer.

Here’s a breakdown of what we can give you. Strength in depth? You bet.
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Off on your travels this Easter? Great! Here are a few things you should make sure are ticked off your holiday checklist before you get cracking…

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World Kidney Day takes place on 8th March. It fights for awareness and early detection of kidney disease, which affects 600 million people across the globe. Unfortunately, for several million of those the condition will be fatal within the next twelve months. The need for increased awareness is clear. But where does travel insurance come into it?

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Have you switched on the television recently? It’s almost impossible to make it through the day without seeing an advert for a price comparison website. Perhaps that explains why more and more people are using them…

Recent statistics suggest that around 45% of people now begin their search for travel insurance on a price comparison website. 17% of those then go on to purchase their policy through one of these ‘web aggregators’.

So do these price comparison websites actually save you money? Can they really help you search out the best policy? Let’s take a look.

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Welcome to another World First Wander, a regular rundown of the travel blogosphere’s best new posts – as spotted by our social media man, Tristan Rothwell. It’s a super speedy way to stay on top of the latest and greatest stories in the travel world. So grab a coffee, get comfy and get reading.

Take it away, Tristan!

Greetings travellers!

It’s time for another World First Wander – your one stop shop for what’s hot in the world of travel. There have been some great travel posts and articles appearing across the internet recently and I wanted to share a few of my favourites with you.

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We’ve had some really amazing entries for this month’s My World First competition. There have been tales of camel kissing, AK47s, communist countries, ice hotels, the Amazon, a kiss from Olly Murs, stolen underwear and a fling with a diving instructor. And that’s just the start! The best news is that there’s still time to enter and give yourself the chance of winning a Kindle.

As you might have guessed, the theme for our travel writing competition is world firsts. Get it? We want to hear about your first-time travel experiences. It could be anything you like. And judging by the entries we’ve already had, it probably will be! If it’s a first in your world then it’s one of your world firsts. Tell us about it. This blog post explains the rules and reveals just how easy it is to enter.

The winner of this month’s competition will receive a Kindle – or the equivalent value in Waterstone’s vouchers if they prefer. Viveca Koh won a Kindle in a previous World First competition and sent us this amazing photograph of her and her new toy at the ECVB powerstation in Belgium.

You can take a look at more of Viveca’s photography using these links:

Viveca Koh Photography

Viveca Koh Blog

Follow the hashtag #myworldfirst on Twitter. This month’s competition ends at 23:59 on 30th November.

Written by Tristan Rothwell

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Who doesn’t love taking a few snaps on their holidays? Exactly. This week’s World First Weekly Wander is a photography special and sees our social media man, Tristan Rothwell, offer a few of his specialist tips as he scours the web for the best new travel photography blog posts.

Take it away, Tristan!

Greetings travellers! It’s time for our weekly catch up on the web’s hottest new travel content. After revving the engines with The Mongol Rally last week, this week we’re shifting focus to one thing that 99.9% of us do on our travels: photography.

I’m a keen photographer and have been for several years. I shoot mainly digital with a sprinkling of 35mm and medium format thrown in for good measure. But with the recent purchase of a shiny white iPhone 4, my photographic weapon of choice has changed a little!

The iPhone is with me at all times. I photograph everything, much to the annoyance of those around me. With travel firmly in mind I thought we could look at some recent travel photography articles that will hopefully inspire and instruct you in the art of the travel photograph.

But first I thought I’d offer a few tips of my own that I think will help you to get better shots and become a better photographer. Maybe.

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World First Weekly Wander is a weekly rundown of the latest and greatest travel blog posts. It’s compiled by our very own social media man, Tristan Rothwell, and it’s a super-speedy way to catch up on the latest travel buzz. This week we’re off to Mongolia. No, really.

Take it away, Tristan!

Hello again travel fans. It’s that time of the week again and the theme for this week’s World First Weekly Wander is…

The Mongol Rally!

Last week our theme was “road tripping” which was great, so great that it inspired us to put a World First Travel Insurance team together for next year’s Mongol Rally. You heard it here first! Unfortunately, my team name suggestion of Nuns On The Run has been thwarted in favour of something more sensible (probably involving the words “World”, “First”, “Travel” and maybe “Insurance”).

So to get us even more inspired and also help me persuade some of my friends to leave their loved ones for quite some time, this week we are off to Mongolia. So start your engines and fasten your seatbelts, this may be a bumpy ride.

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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