Reasons why we need a travel insurance

Having lived in Italy and in Spain for many years made us initially completely underestimate the reasons why we need a travel insurance when we are out of the EU territory. In fact, in several (maybe all?) European countries, people grow up with the idea that a proper medical assistance is one of our basic rights, so we can’t even imagine having to pay thousands of dollars in case of emergency, until…well, until we travel abroad and some shit happens!

Not having a travel insurance at the beginning of our nomadic lifestyle was one of our biggest mistakes ever! Need some examples?

In the photo here below we were in Laos, ready to take a cool shot during an amazing sunset on the beautiful Mekong river. The perfect Instagram pic, right?

Well, not exactly! In Laos even turning on a light in your hostel room can be a total life challenge, and we didn’t consider that this charming  terrace could simply collapse! This is what happened: we decided to switch sits for the photo and the wood floor suddenly fell down. While Silva’s seat was not affected, Nico’s head hit on every single rock, while rolling down, until some bamboo sticks stopped him.

And here below is Nico, just a few moments after the accident.

In this occasion we’ve been very lucky, but it hasn’t been our only unfortunate time while travelling. If you happen to be in Southeast Asia during the wet season, don’t be surprised if you catch dengue fever. Almost every “farang” (=foreign person in Thai) we met while living in Thailand caught it during the monsoon, and hospitalization was needed.

How about that time that we had a motorbike accident in Pukhet? We’ve also been very lucky, nothing broken, just some bruises and skin abrasions. Yes, we were wearing an helmet, but we could tell you about several scary stories of friends we met along the way, who were not so fortunate, and in a couple of cases they even had to be evacuated by helicopter to a bigger island, in order to be assisted in a proper hospital.

When you drive a scooter with bad breaks and bald tires in Thailand or in Bali, and maybe it’s also raining, the potential risk is always around the corner: a dog or a chicken crossing the road, tourists who have no idea about how to drive a scooter, steep or unpaved roads, etc. And even some pretty much trivial injury, such as a broken arm or leg, can make you end up paying thousands of $$, if you don’t have a travel insurance.

Another time Silva fell into a river with strong streams in Chang Mai, and then we also recall a time when our boat on the lake Titicaca had an engine failure while we were on an excursion on those very cold waters…and it started sinking. Luckily, both times, we only got very scared and wet, but someone came to rescue us and no injuries were reported. But we’ve learned a very important lesson!

The best safety tip we can give you is to get a travel insurance that will cover you in case anything happens while abroad.

Nobody wants to think about the possibility of being involved in some sort of accident when exploring the world and while having a good time.

However, bad things happen and can happen to anyone anytime, especially if we find ourselves in a completely new environment, underestimating possible new dangerous situations. Or sometimes, even if we’ve been very careful, we can just be extremely unlucky and despite taking all the possible precautions our bag or electronic equipment might get stolen.

So what can we do? Although we can’t predict the future, we can still cover our asses in advance! As many others who live a nomadic life, we now rely on World Nomads, and here below we explain in details what they cover.