The freedom and infinite possibilities of backpacking make it a very appealing travel option for many people. Creating an itinerary just moments before you head somewhere and setting off with no definite plans in mind excites many, as does the possibility of living simply and frugally and travelling on a small budget.

However, backpacking is not always so careless and spontaneous. Before embarking on any adventure, there are some fundamental guidelines and skills that all backpackers should know. While having to think about these skills may initially seem a bit of a drag, this knowledge and information can be beneficial and help you to make the most out of your trip. Added to this, backpacker skills can help you to feel more safe and secure as you travel.

Destination(s):

While some backpackers do not like to make too many plans too far in advance, it is important to know at least your first destination. When deciding on your destination, consider geography, the amount of time available to you, the weather and, if appropriate, work opportunities and limitations. Of course, many backpackers like to ‘follow the sun’ and travel where and when the weather is good. While this can help to create a positive experience, also consider the fact that backpacking in the off season can enable you to enjoy cheaper rates and deals.

Research:

It is very important to commit to doing some background research on the place(s) you intend to go. Parts of the world are affected by economic, political and/or social instability and of course, other countries have different values, customs and practices to those we are used to home. Do your research to know whether it is safe for you to travel to particular destinations and take steps to educate yourself about customs, practices and appropriate behaviours.

Insurance:

As for all travellers, it is important for backpackers to have adequate travel insurance to cover themselves should anything go wrong. Insurance companies offer a range of cheap travel insurance policies and deals that can often be tailored to suit the needs of the individual and the type of holiday they wish to have.

Skills to know, have and use:

From the outside, backpacking may seem straightforward, carefree and always fun but, generally speaking, backpacking can be hard work and a way of travelling where very few luxuries are enjoyed. Seasoned backpackers will tell you that to do it well and with maximum enjoyment, backpacking requires skills and knowledge.

Wherever you travel, it is important that you respect the nature and environment and behave in ways that do not have a negative impact. Backpacking is not always ‘a party’ and an opportunity to get loud and crazy with your long term or newly found mates.

Many backpackers recommend developing skills to assist you in times of emergency and danger. Such skills include being able to look after your needs for food, water and shelter.

As you can never know what may happen, skills in first aid are an incredible asset for backpackers. Not only may you be able to use your first aid knowledge for your own benefit, you may also use it to help others.

Backpacking can be an incredibly fulfilling and memorable way to travel. All backpackers should take some steps to ensure that they have the skills, knowledge and insurance cover to assist them to have an enjoyable, safe and interesting holiday.

How to Have a Great Backpacking Holiday is a post from: Travel Insurance Tips & Articles

Vietnam is growing in popularity as a tourist destination every year. With world famous cuisine and warm hearted, friendly people it is no surprise that tourism is now one of the major income producers in the country.

But it is not all simply food and culture; there is plenty for the adventurous traveller as well. Remember to always take out adequate travel insurance before your holiday to take care of any unfortunate possibilities, but with proper planning and by making plenty of bookings in advance, you can look forward to a wonderful holiday.

The mountain villages of Vietnam offer the adventurous tracker the experience of a lifetime. You will not only enjoy the magnificent scenery but you will also get to experience the pleasure of visiting a mountain community as they go about their day-to-day life. This is a completely different aspect to coastal Vietnam, and you are sure to enjoy a unique experience with the U decide on a long trek or a short overnight stay.

Here are the top places you should consider.

• Sapa. This area is famous as a former French hilltop village in north-west Vietnam, where backpackers can arrange homestays for short visits. This is a unique opportunity to live with the Vietnamese mountain family so you can see the real side of their everyday life. This area is home to some ethnic minorities including Giay and Tay people.
• Mt. Fansipan. This is the highest mountain in Vietnam and boasts spectacular views from the top, where you can just about see the entire Indochina peninsular. You will pass by terraced rice plantations, huge pine trees and you will trek through a lush rainforest vegetation.
• Mai Chau has the reputation of being one of the most beautiful regions in Vietnam. Peopled by ethnic minority groups such as the H’mong as well as some Thai groups, you will be welcomed in into their villages where you can share meals and get a glimpse of their unique lifestyle.
• The Pu Luong Nature Reserve is an area of great beauty stretching from the north-west to the south-east of Vietnam. You can track at your leisure along the many tracks and, as usual, you’ll be welcomed into the many villages you find along the way and even enjoy an overnight stay.
• Cuc Phuong National Park is famous throughout the world for its biodiversity and is a centre of scientific research. Located in northern Vietnam you can go on an accompanied two-day trek, where you will enjoy an eco-friendly designed to ending with a river trek back to Hanoi. This is truly a number with good experience.

When travelling in Vietnam, it is always a good idea to have adequate holiday insurance and to book a guide when travelling in remote areas. In every town you visit, make it a point to ask fellow travellers of their recent experiences and ask for recommendations. This is the best way to get a guide you can trust and also to find accommodation which will meet your standards.

5 Top Treks In Vietnam is a post from: Travel Insurance Tips & Articles

You are all excited about your backpacking trip, planning where you will go and what you will see. You make detailed lists of your itinerary, the best route to take, important phone numbers and website addresses you may need while you are away, and what to pack. You are so involved in planning everything down to the smallest detail that you don’t realise you have forgotten the most important thing of all – your travel insurance from insure4less.com.au.

You aren’t alone. Even though the importance of taking out travel insurance before leaving on a backpacking trip has been stressed in print and by word of mouth as well as in various backpacking forums online, there are still some people who just don’t think they really need this type of protection.

It shouldn’t really be a question of money, as we have made it a priority here at insure4less to develop a travel insurance for backpackers that is extremely budget friendly. So, the main reason must be that these travellers just don’t realise the things that travel insurance can do for them, and what a serious dilemma they could find themselves in if they got involved in an accident or another awkward situation while on their backpacking trip without the protection of insurance coverage.

No one wants to even think about getting so ill that they have to be hospitalised while they are far away from home. Still, these things do happen. People often fall ill when travelling, and there’s a chance you could, too. There’s also the chance of being involved in an accident with a car or other motorised vehicle. Either you could hit something or someone while driving, or someone hits the car you are in and injures you. Either way, you will be taken to a hospital to assess your injuries.

Do you realise how much admission and treatment to a hospital in a foreign country could cost? What if you were too ill to continue your trip and needed to go home? Or, what if you accidentally damaged the hostel you’re staying in, and you are being asked for the name of your lawyer? Chances are, if you are a young person off on a backpacking adventure, that you don’t even have a personal lawyer!

When a traveller is not covered by travel insurance, such personal disasters are often made worse by a long-term financial burden. Staying in hospital plus the costs of any operation and aftercare treatment and being flown home once medically fit can be incredibly expensive. Just one night is a hospital in Southeast Asia can be as much as $1,000; a medical repatriation from the States can cost as much as $300,000. The Department of Foreign Affairs has even been involved in medical evacuations from nearby Bali in which costs have exceeded $60,000.

insure4less has got you covered! Buy any one of our 3 travel insurance policies, Essentials, Excel or Excel Plus and you are covered for personal liability expenses as well as for emergency medical and dental treatment. What’s more, there’s even cover for extra hotel and travel costs, if you miss a connecting flight due to a transport delay at any point in your pre-booked itinerary.

Don’t get caught unprepared while you are on your backpacking trip! For complete peace-of-mind, backpackers travel insurance is a no brainer.

Travel Insurance and Backpacking is a post from: Travel Insurance Tips & Articles

Backpacking always comes across as quite a carefree form of travelling. Carrying everything you need in a backpack, the world is free for you to visit and explore as and when you choose.

The free and easy nature of backpacking requires a special kind of travel insurance, and this isn’t an area you want to skip over. Take some time to find out which is going to be the best policy for you and make sure everything that should be covered is before you set off.

Backpackers insurance policies are generally very competitive and cover a wide range of activities, but they do vary in content so make you will be covered for the activities you know you will be doing.

Certain sports and activities may only be covered up to a certain level; for example white water rafting may be included on your policy, but rapids around the world vary in how difficult and challenging they are. Some of the more extreme ones may not be included on your policy so be sure to check you’re covered before you strap your crash helmet on.

Standard policies will also generally cover you for working abroad, since this is a very common activity among backpackers, to help pay their way while they are travelling. Not all types of work will be covered, although the most popular ones such as bar work will be. Again, check your policy and if you are in any doubt when you are travelling give the helpline a call to see whether you are covered. You may find that you can still buy a standard policy and purchase additional cover for certain other activities before you travel.

Most backpackers are away from home for several months at a time – possibly a year or more – and it’s possible that you may want to pop back home during that time. If you think that might be the case (perhaps you’d like to surprise everyone by arriving home on Christmas Eve for example) then you need to make sure your policy allows you to travel back home for a while should you need or want to. Not every policy allows this.

In short it can be a good idea to make a list of things that you will definitely need to be covered for when you start searching for a suitable policy. That way the actual search will be far easier, and you will be better placed to find the ideal policy for you.

What Exactly is Covered With Backpackers Insurance? is a post from: Travel Insurance Tips & Articles

Backpacking is an exciting and challenging activity that can be a life changing experience in many ways.

But as with any other form of travelling you need to make sure you’re covered by the right insurance policy before you go. Policies designed specifically for backpackers are routinely available now and they aren’t too hard to find.

The best place to start your search is via an online search engine. Simply typing in the words ‘backpackers insurance’ will bring up thousands of results which you can then start to look through. Another good way of finding the best policy is to go to a price comparison site, which will compare lots of policies to find the cheapest. Bear in mind that the cheapest isn’t always the best though.

One key point to consider is whether you have any special needs or requirements that you need to declare. For example, do you have an ongoing medical condition that you need to inform your insurance company about? If you keep it quiet to get a cheaper policy and you need treatment while you are travelling you won’t be covered, so it can be an expensive corner to try and cut.

Depending on your needs a standard backpacker policy may not be enough. You may have to buy additional cover or a more specialist policy from another provider. Always make sure all your needs are covered and don’t try to save money by getting less cover than you actually need.

You also need to consider where in the world you will be travelling to. Different policies will cover different destinations, so if there’s a chance you will visit a neighbouring country to the one you will be spending virtually all your time in, then make sure you get cover for it just in case. The countries you visit will probably affect the final price you will pay, so don’t forget to shop around before laying down your money.

It’s wise to remember that your needs will be different when you are going to spend months abroad than they would be for a two week summer holiday. So don’t book insurance like you would for a holiday – consider what your needs will be for the longer period of time and buy exactly what you need to have peace of mind the whole time you are away.

How to Buy Backpackers Insurance is a post from: Travel Insurance Tips & Articles

If you’re going backpacking then a standard insurance policy probably won’t cover you. You need a dedicated backpacker’s insurance policy to make sure all your needs will be met.

You can look for this online or offline, but there are plenty of advantages to conducting your search online.

Firstly it is far easier to compare policies when you are searching online. If you see a number of policies you like the look of you can bookmark each one and then compare them in more detail.

You can also save a lot of money by buying your policy online. Some backpackers still opt to buy everything in one go from the person or company they get their travel tickets from, but this can be a very expensive way to do it. By putting in the effort required to look for your own policy you can go direct to the insurance company and slash the price of a typical policy by an amazing amount – sometimes more than 50%.

Of course some backpackers prefer to be able to talk to someone at the company who is selling them their policy, which is why some people still resort to the high street. But when you add in the time factor – having to go out to visit the company, waiting in line to be seen, and discussing which policy will best meet your needs – the option of sitting down at home and clicking a few buttons on your computer does look a lot more attractive.

It’s also much easier for you to get quotes based on different travel dates and requirements online. All you need to do is alter the information in the required boxes and wait for an online quote to appear – without having to answer any questions directed at you by the person doing the calculations.

Perhaps the best part of buying your backpackers insurance online is that there is no hard sell to contend with. You can pitch the top companies together and decide for yourself who is the best one to meet your needs, without having to endure the sales spiel of a seasoned promoter.

So the next time you are thinking of going backpacking, switch on your computer and get all the information and quotations you need for booking your travel insurance online.

Buying Backpackers Insurance: Online vs Offline is a post from: Travel Insurance Tips & Articles

In a recent poll on backpackers.com, 4 out of 5 backpackers said that they take out travel insurance when they travel.
But every insurance company seems to offer something different, and every insurance company seems to take a different approach. So with the rather wide and baffling variety of insurance policies out there, it can sometimes be hard to pick the one that’s going to give you the best deal.

Knowing how hard you guys save, trying to make each hard-earned cent go just that little bit further, a number of Insurers have focussed their efforts on developing travel insurance products that are specifically geared towards the independent traveller. Good news right? Remember, at the same time, these companies need to make money, and so they need the total premium they earn to always exceed the amount in total claims they pay out. For this reason, you should always check the small print.

Naturally, buying travel insurance direct and cutting out the travel agent or tour operator can bring the price down substantially, as these middlemen tend to earn high commissions.

Here are a few things that you should check up on before buying a backpacker travel insurance policy:

• Are the Insurers accessible? Make sure there’s a 24/7 medical emergency helpline, as this means you’re always close to help, whenever you need it.

• Does it cater for working holidays? If you plan on working overseas, make sure that there is cover in place for the type of work you’re likely to do, such as bar work, nursing, fruit picking, an office job etc.

• Are most adventure activities covered? Check to see if your policy covers EVERY sort of sports and activities you’re likely to do, like bungee jumping, scuba diving and even tandem skydiving – the kind of spontaneous leaps we often don’t plan but end up taking when travelling.

• Is there cover for terrorist acts? Terrorism knows no boundaries, and attacks can happen at any time, with innocent bystanders getting caught in the fray. In a situation like that, far away from home, it’s essential to have backup. Make sure you have full medical cover in the event of such an attack.

Backpackers insurance is a post from: Travel Insurance Tips & Articles