World First Travel Insurance Blog

If you’ve travelled recently, are travelling or are planning to travel, you could be forgiven for being a little confused.

The ash has been coming back in the last couple of weeks but only to the edge of Europe. Frustrating if you live in Belfast, Dublin or Gran Canaria, but it didn’t cause the same major problems as it did across the whole of Europe a month or so ago (and hey, if it means me staying a few more days in Gran Canaria, where’s the factor 50!). (more…)

Cuba’s one of those places I’ve always wanted to go to. During the years of continued support from the Soviet Union and other Eastern Block countries and the US trade embargo, tourism was a largely ignored and underdeveloped sector. With the fall of the Berlin Wall in the last ten years or so, it has expanded exponentially. (more…)

In recent months Thailand has been embroiled in political turmoil opposing the red-shirted supporters of former Prime Minister Taksin Shinawatra and government forces backed by the military. The six-party coalition is under pressure from its supporters in the upper classes and from royalists to crack down on the mainly poor red shirts.

Thailand has a constitutional monarch King Bhumibol Adulyadej who has been on the throne since June 1946, making him the world’s longest reigning king. The government is freely-elected with a Prime Minister at its head. However, the military has had a tendency to intervene from time to time when it doesn’t like the government or it does something it doesn’t to upset it. The last time was in 2006 to remove the previously mentioned Taksin Shinawatra. Perhaps they didn’t like him buying Manchester City? (more…)

To paraphrase LP Hartley’s famous line from The Go-Between, “Abroad is a foreign country, they do things differently there”. Recent cases of people getting into trouble have highlighted in the media the need to be very careful when travelling. It’s amazing how many people just don’t do basic research into the places they go to, or just assume either that they can do just like they do at home or, if they do get into trouble, the British Embassy will get them out of it (note: they won’t). (more…)

Many of you have already booked or will be booking beach holidays for the summer. For the vast majority, everything will fine and you’ll come back relaxed and ready to go. We’ve all seen the seaside rescue programmes on TV though and they act as a reminder that the beach and the sea do present some dangers. Here’s a guide how to how to stay safe. Most of it is common sense, but these things need to be said.

Avoid sunburn

No amount of information about the dangers of over-exposure to the sun seems to prevent us from flocking to the beach to fry all day long and come away looking like a ripe lobster (I know, lobsters can’t be ripe, but you get the image). Sitting on the beach all day is fine, but protect yourself from UVA and UVB rays with factor 20+ water-proof sunblock. Avoid the sun at the warmest times of the day between 11 and 3. Believe me, even at 4 in the afternoon, a beach on the Mediterranean can be a pretty warm place. And don’t forget your hat (do I sound like your mother? Unfortunately she was right). (more…)

Because if you get a problem, the Embassy or Consulate or whatever it’s called will be around to help you. Won’t they?

Well, they won’t. There is a limited amount of things the Foreign Office can do for you, but getting you home isn’t one of them. Our friend Danny went away recently. It has to be said that he was particularly unlucky, but any one of the things that happened to him could happen to you. Have a look at this video to see what happened.

Then again, whilst you might not get into trouble, there’s all kinds of things that could go wrong

Whilst there are far fewer ads on the TV than there used to be, the holiday booking season is upon us. It’s time for our annual flock to the sun in search of a little time out of the rat race. So where are we going? It seems that the Costas are (finally) on the wane and our tastes are increasingly diversified. ABTA (Association of British Travel Agents) has just released its report on travel trends for 2010. They make interesting reading and show how fashions have changed in the last 10 years or so. (more…)

For us British drivers, we think that everybody else drives on the wrong side of the road. In fact, 25% of the world’s cars are driven on the left, so a quarter of the world’s population are with us. The French however think that we do everything the wrong way round. There’s no pleasing some people!

Unfortunately, driving on the wrong side of the road is the least of our problems. They have different rules too! So here’s a few guidelines to getting around safely and not ruffling the feathers of local drivers, wherever you are. (more…)

Many years ago when I was a teenager, I set off with a mate from school on a train (well, a few trains) across Europe with a final destination of Istanbul. We both went away with backpacks, tickets and passports, our wits and not much else. We had the transit visas for Yugoslavia and Bulgaria that we needed in those days when the Berlin Wall was still very much in still standing, but that was about all the planning we did. We had a couple of scrapes, particularly losing each other in Belgrade when the coaches were shunted off to a different platform. (more…)

Every so often, there’s a story in the press about a back packer going missing. The way these things are reported, you’d think it was a dangerous thing to do. Of course nothing in this world is completely safe, but the fact is that tens of thousands of teenagers set off every year for anything between two weeks and a year and come back fully enriched by the experience. I only did it for three weeks in 1977, but came back completely different for what happened.

So parents, what should be on your kids’ to do lists?

1. What research have you done? Have you got a good guide book,? The amount of information available these days even on the most obscure places in the world, is staggering. The Internet and mobile devices make it possible to store stuff electronically. Why not ask ask friends who have already travelled for advice. (more…)