One of the most common anxieties is in-flight nervousness. Whether you can’t stop running horrific crash scenarios through your mind or you fear in-flight turbulence, it’s perfectly normal to feel nervous when you’re about to fly on an airplane.
Though air travel is incredibly safe, it’s still hard to combat nervousness, especially on longer flights. Here are some tips for distracting a nervous flyer so you can fly with ease and confidence!
Read MoreIf you’ve decided to travel abroad, one of the wisest things you can do is immunize. Staying healthy and not picking up a foreign disease is an incredibly important precaution if you don’t want to end up in quarantine.
But there are a huge range of vaccines available nowadays, so how do you know which you actually need?
To make your travel arrangements easier, we’ve outlined the 5 most common vaccines.
Read MoreThe women in our group had started calling me shoulders – not necessarily because there was anything spectacular about mine, but because they could see them. Which was a novel concept when we were hiking across a continent covered in ice.
In fact, Antarctica is the coldest, windiest and driest continent on earth, and summer temperatures average just above freezing. So stripping off my carefully planned out layers wasn’t something I expected, or originally had in mind.
But the sun was beating down, and I was ridiculously overdressed. I had even started sweating! So there I was, hiking across a glacier, with bare shoulders, now recommending that every traveler to Antarctica packs sunblock. Because the biggest killer in Antarctica is the reflection off the ice.
Read MoreWho would’ve ever thought that packing a carbon monoxide detector would be an essential and life-saving item in one’s travel-kit arsenal?
We certainly didn’t until tragedy struck and my husband nearly lost his life to carbon monoxide poisoning at a “boutique hotel” in Central Mexico.
After dropping our twins off at their much-anticipated 6th grade camp in a rural community outside of Guadalajara, Frank and I set out to enjoy our weekend together, knowing that our children would be in good hands in the company of their classmates and the Camp La Cañada counselors, including a medic on staff.
But instead of enjoying a romantic weekend of exploring and relaxing together, we spent it fighting for Frank’s life. So I pen an open letter to all travelers.
Read MoreA trip to the dentist may not sound like your ideal vacation, in fact, the majority of us actively try to avoid it! But if you’re travelling to Mexico, it’s actually a nice opportunity to get some affordable dental care.
There are a lot of cheap dentists in Mexico that offer top-quality services. If you’re a little mindful, you can enjoy first-rate dental services at a fraction of the costs you would have to pay back home.
Read MoreMedical tourism is booming, and people from all around the world have become accustomed to traveling overseas for medical care in another country. Around 8 million patients each year.
Mexico is fast becoming one of the post popular destinations for medical tourism, treating more than 1 million foreign patients a year. These patients have typically been Hispanics from California, Arizona and Texas returning home for medical care, though there are a large number of Americans and Canadians who take advantage of the healthcare in Mexico too.
But whether you’re looking for a breast lift in Mexico or some dental work, you may be concerned about the country’s safety situation. Of course, price is the main concern, but safety always comes first.
You’ll be pleased to know that many Americans and Canadians are discovering that medical tourism in Mexico is much safer and cheaper than you might think.
Read MoreIn this increasingly divided world, there are still a few things which remain that unites us all. And one of those is that we all love a good old snooze. However, just as the language we speak and the food we eat differ depending on the country we live in, so too does how we sleep.
Unsurprisingly, our bedtime routines reflect the differences in everything from our environment, to our lifestyles and cultural values. Below are just some of the countless ways in which the world gets its rest on.
Read MoreWhether you’ve traveled for an active adventure, or urban exploration, a very common goal among travelers is to get the most out of every day. After-all, you have limited vacation days, and you’ve traveled to an exotic location – you want to experience as much as possible.
But there’s no denying that moving around all day comes with one downside— tired and sore feet. A long day of traveling, sightseeing, and walking will definitely take it’s toll.
Many travelers experience soreness, pain, and foot fatigue overseas, and it can be especially difficult if you’re wondering how you can possibly head out again tomorrow.
If you’ve ever found yourself wondering what to do to alleviate foot pain so you can rise again and be ready for the next day’s adventures, we’ve got you covered. Here are some tips on how to heel that pain!
Read MoreStress is very dangerous, and dealing with it can be time-consuming. Though very few of us can afford to spend an hour a day meditating or doing yoga.
Whether you’ve got three young kids, or a demanding career, staying centred, healthy and stress-free can seem an impossible puzzle, but we’re here to give you our solution; spend those days you had planned for a weekend getaway in pure relaxation and recovery at a quality spa location instead.
The best spa centres know all about the different factors when it comes to decreasing stress in the body, from physically kneading out knots and tension in massage, to eating well and beautifying, a quality spa trip covers all the bases and will have you feeling calm and Zen in no time at all.
Read MoreTropical countries are appealing and magnificent, but they are also home to a bunch of eerie crawlies whose bites can cause big problems for travelers.
To make sure you return safe and in good health, here are a few basic tips on how to keep insects away.
Read MoreMedical tourism is booming, and people from all around the world have become accustomed to traveling overseas for medical care in another country. Around 8 million patients each year.
Much of the time it comes down to procedures being substantially cheaper overseas, or not being able to find the right treatment at home. And traveling to another country for treatment often means being able to avoid long waiting lists for elective procedures. Though some medical tourists are immigrants who return to their home country for care, and others travel simply so they can avoid questions from family and friends (having the people of Thailand see the bandages from your nose job isn’t quite as bad as walking down the street at home).
The following destinations are leaders within the industry of medical tourism, and we have included information about the procedures they are most popular for. Just remember the golden rule: thoroughly research the clinic and the location before you go!
Read MoreWith our busy schedules, stressful routines and little time left for self-indulgence, planning for a spa break should be considered for destressing our busy lives. Not only for the luxury that often comes with the package but for health and well-being.
Here are five excellent reasons to indulge on a regular basis, including when you travel overseas.
Read MoreThere are a myriad of articles online providing tips for staying healthy while traveling abroad; stay active, wash your hands, eat well, be cautious of the tap water. However staying healthy should start at home, before you depart for overseas.
Travel can put real pressure on our immune system, even if it’s for fun; the stress, breaking the routine, “plastic” inflight food, jet lag, exposure to sick people, and environmental toxins. These all take their toll.
So while washing hands with soap and using hand sanitizer while you’re away are all great tips, these practices won’t stop you from getting sick if you have a weak immune system before you go. A strong immune system will keep you healthy despite everyone else coughing and sneezing around you, and will protect you from that bacteria circling through the airline A/C.
So it’s important to take care of your immune system whether traveling for business or pleasure. And, if you prefer to spend your time abroad doing what you love rather than being sick in bed, there are a few things you can do to prepare your immune system by staying healthy before you travel.
Read MoreThere are many, many reasons you should purchase health insurance when traveling abroad, the most obvious being to protect yourself in the case of an emergency, though some countries are beginning to require health coverage as a mandatory condition of entry, meaning travelers no longer have the choice to travel without a plan.
Expat hubs around the world are beginning to require mandatory health insurance before issuing a visa, and more and more countries are deciding to refuse entry without it. Many travelers don’t realize that without the correct insurance, they could be turned away from the destination they are visiting before they make it past airport arrivals.
The following countries are among those jumping on the trend of making health insurance mandatory for those wishing to travel or live overseas.
Read MoreThe idea to attempt a long walk had been in my head for some time. The book Wild, by Cheryl Strayed, came into my hands, shortly followed by Patrick Leigh Fermor’s A Time of Gifts; two autobiographies which detailed epic adventures across magical landscapes on foot.
It became clear to me that something very special happens to a traveler in this situation, so I decided I had to be involved. Though having never walked long distance before, I had to figure out where I should start.
The obvious choice for most travelers these days is the Camino de Santiago, or Way of St James. One of the most popular long distance routes made famous by films such as The Way with Martin Sheen, thousands come from all over the world to walk it every year. I imagined I’d probably be one of those thousands until – surprisingly – I started to learn a little bit more about European pilgrimage routes.
Read MoreWith the travel season quickly getting underway, now is the perfect time to address motion sickness. And while you may not have suffered from it in the past, this is a common condition that affects millions of people, and the reality is that motion sickness can ruin anyone’s trip.
Sometimes referred to as car sickness or sea sickness, motion sickness is a disturbance in your inner ear that is caused by repeated motion. Hiking up the highest peaks or cruising across the ocean can easily be derailed. This not only applies to those heading on a cruise, but could develop if you find yourself traveling in countries with poor road systems or stuck on a horribly crowded buses. Even turbulence from a plane could set you off. And unfortunately, many sufferers don’t do anything to treat it, or treat it with the wrong products and ineffective methods.
But for those of us who live our lives in motion, it’s critical that we know how to prevent and deal with motion sickness should it occur. Because it’s something that is easily treatable, and as such shouldn’t ruin anyone’s trip.
Read MoreForget snakes on a plane. Worry about the germs. Research shows that air travelers are at a higher risk for infection than people going about their daily lives.
The good news is that, for the most part, airplanes’ air filtration systems function well enough that you’re unlikely to contract more serious illnesses. Instead, your greatest risk is contracting the common cold or a classic case of the flu.
While that’s all well and good, it may be little comfort to people who don’t particularly want to have a cold or the flu while trying to enjoy their vacation. Luckily, it is possible to decrease your risk of infection from germs on a plane. Here’s how to maximize the chances of disembarking the plane as healthy as you boarded it.
Read MoreWater is the most crucial condition for life of all kinds. All living organisms need it in order to survive, though there are more than 780 million people worldwide without access to clean drinking water. 345 million of them live in Africa alone. Every 21 seconds, a child dies from a water related sickness.
Instead of turning a blind eye, Charlie Christensen decided it was time to do something about it. On May 18 2015 he freed himself of his job, his apartment, and most of his possessions to begin Walking for Water; a philanthropic pilgrimage, on foot, from Denmark to Tanzania.
This means walking for 18,000 kilometers, through 28 countries, over 2.5 years. It is a journey to inspire the beginning of a movement meant to combine the trends of explorations and self realizing journeys with the noble cause of supplying the world with clean drinking water, wherever needed.
Almost one year in, he will cross the straight to Africa on the 18th of May 2016 to continue his journey.
Read MoreThis year has been a frightening year for those who travel – terrorism appears to be on the rise, governments have been issuing overblown safety advice, and travelers are becoming more and more paranoid about whether or not it is safe to travel (it is).
Realistically, cities like London, Prague and New York have some of the highest crime rates in the world, though no government agency advises against travel here. And you have just as much chance of being caught up in an attack on your own country as you do while traveling abroad, yet no-one lives permanently in a bunker underneath their home for fear of coming out.
So many New Yorkers are cancelling their plans to go to Paris, but look what occurred right in their own backyard on 9/11. You can’t let it stop you from traveling and you can’t live in fear.
Because the truth of the matter is that it’s not travel which is dangerous – it’s LIFE. And we should never let the fear of extremists activities stop us from doing what we do. If you stop traveling, the terrorists win.
So don’t stop traveling, just travel smart. Here’s how to travel safely in the face of terrorism.
Read MoreInternational medical coverage is such an important issue for those who travel abroad, and since becoming brand ambassadors for Individual Health and GeoBlue, we have written a whopping 22 articles on the many different reasons why comprehensive health coverage is something you never want to find yourself stuck overseas without.
Because you don’t have to be on an adventurous trip for something to go terribly wrong, and you could be in the very best of health, however the fact is that environmental factors are beyond your control. All it takes is one major health incident to bankrupt you for life, or worse, see you refused emergency medical care because you don’t have the insurance and can’t afford to pay. Traveling without health insurance in this instance could very well cost you your life.
So why do so many travelers still travel without it? You wouldn’t go away without your tickets or your passport, so why risk going away without a proper health insurance plan?
I’ve been phrasing that as a rhetorical question across my 22 posts to date, however hadn’t stopped to actually address why. Why do travelers risk everything to travel without insurance which could ultimately save their life?
The following are a list of reasons why travelers head overseas without health insurance, and if you happen to be one of them, hopefully we can make you realize the critical importance of changing your mind.
Read MoreWhen an emergency happens and you’re in a foreign land what do you do? Do you speak the local language? Do you know which medical facilities are qualified to treat your medical needs? Do you have the financial means to satisfy the local providers?
What if you are in a rural land, or even worse, one which doesn’t have medical providers that meet western standards of care? These are all very real problems for a person traveling abroad. Not knowing what to do or where to go could cost you your life.
So why do so many travelers still travel without insurance? You wouldn’t go away without your tickets or your passport, so why risk going away without a proper health insurance plan?
The following are 10 reasons why traveling without international health insurance is a stupid idea. Because if you can’t afford to travel with health insurance you shouldn’t be traveling at all.
Read MoreThe flight into La Paz, Bolivia was an incredibly scenic one. Our commercial airliner was soaring through snow-capped Andean peaks. Though it wasn’t by any means that the pilot was flying low, rather that these mountains stood at dizzying heights. And the same can be said about the city of La Paz.
Compelled to experience the city’s unique cultural energy and street life, we set out on mission to explore on our first day. Though it only took 10 minutes of a leisurely stroll before we turned away. While relatively fit and quite used to hiking and climbing throughout many climates and conditions, a casual city stroll had left our lungs gasping for oxygen we couldn’t have.
If there is one thing we learnt from our time in La Paz, it was that any destination at this altitude is to be savored over time, as it’s important to properly to acclimatize. When you’re traveling this high, your lungs need time to adjust to reduced oxygen and breathing thinner air. Otherwise altitude sickness kicks in.
If you know that you are going to be traveling to high altitudes, follow a few simple steps to prevent altitude sickness.
Read MoreNever underestimate the importance of traveling with a solid first aid kit – in fact, this should be one of the very first things you pack.
According to a recent survey, a massive 80 per cent of us are not equipped to deal with minor medical emergencies in our own homes – let alone when we’re out on the travel trail. This means we are making thousands of unnecessary emergency visits to hospitals and GP’s for relatively minor, simple to treat conditions such as grazes, blisters and splinters.
You generally don’t have to be a doctor to help yourself, or others, in an emergency, though you do have to have the first aid skills and tools to administer the care required; you need to be traveling with a first aid kit.
Before you embark on your upcoming holiday, use this check-list as a guide to things you may need in your travel first aid kit. You may need less or more, depending on your travel destination (don’t forget to take into account the remoteness of your visit). The ‘perfect’ travel first aid kit will prepare you with the tools required to meet any potential problem abroad.
Read MoreI was two weeks out from arriving in South America when I realized I would need to produce a Yellow Fever Certificate. I was horrified at the thought. Proof that I had already been stabbed 4 years earlier existed somewhere, though for the life of me I couldn’t find that little yellow book. It had likely been misplaced after my Africa trip, or probably even thrown out.
Crap.
One of the few mandatory vaccinations for many South American destinations, not having proof of the vaccine meant I was going to have to take it again. A costly and particularly nasty injection, it was bad enough having been subjected to this needle once, let alone a second time, which could have been prevented if I had harbored the sense to keep my documentation in line.
Read MorePeople often take their drinking water for granted. In most western countries we don’t think twice before grabbing a glass and sticking it underneath a tap. But when you’re traveling the tap water may not be safe to drink.
You need drinking water no matter where you go, but with travellers diarrhea, giardia, hepatitis A, typhoid and cholera among the illnesses that can be transmitted with bad water, it pays to know which parts of the world guarantee clean, safe tap water, and where you should be sourcing bottled water instead.
The water you need to be most concerned about is water that might contain microorganisms that will make you sick, and in less developed countries, you are more apt to run into water that contains a variety of microorganisms you want to avoid. But according to the CDC (United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), you may be drinking bottled water more often than you think.
Read More
I am Megan Jerrard, professional travel blogger/journalist with a focus on adventure, discovery, immersion and inspiring you to explore!
