Spark

Traveling Abroad

So my husband has been looking into traveling to a foreign country for a vacation. Now, this is a way-off vacation since it is not in our budget now and we have two small kids to think about. I figure though I will let him dream and let him surf around different destinations. We do have passports already, but I think by the time we have money and time to go on a big trip somewhere we will need to renew our passports. Luckily we wouldn’t have to deal with our own car in a foreign country as we have traveled locally before for vacation and dealt with flat tires. Other countries though do have places like Oliver’s Travels which would be useful though to help in planning.

I have never been outside our local continental United States and really don’t like plane rides, so I am not too excited to travel somewhere far. There is just so much to consider and plan for while being out of the country, especially if we were to leave our kids at home with grandma and grandpa. We would probably want new clothes (for whatever reason new clothes and vacation just go together), we would need to pay to update our passport, check into calling cards or an international cell phone plan, and look into visitors health insurance. I am not sure how our health insurance would work if we were to visit another country. I am assuming it’s the same but with our luck there is a special visitor health insurance option we would need to call about. We do have a pretty popular insurance company as our coverage so I am sure too we are the not the only ones traveling outside the country!

This past summer my grandma traveled to Norway, where she’s from, and got sick. She got taken to the local hospital there and has been dealing with Medicare to pay for her hospital bills. Luckily her family there can deal with what she needs from her doctor on that end and everything has been okay so far. I would be though a stranger in a foreign company so not only would I be scared but probably clueless as hospital coverage goes. Anyway, whatever we decide (when we decide) I will just add it to my list to call and ask about!

Cher

View Comments

  • We've travelled all over the world. Our health insurance does cover us anywhere (we also have a popular company, starts with a B and has two words). The catch is that we have to pay for it and then file an overseas claim form when we return to be reimbursed. I did have to use it once, in France. The forms they gave me were all in French, but the insurance company has interpreters that can read them which is why the forms are sent to a special address rather than where you'd usually send them. They paid for everything...ambulance, ER, doctor, tests, etc. just like they normally do. If your company doesn't cover you or you don't want to risk having to pay a large bill (there are places that it's not easy to use a credit card), it is easy to buy health insurance that will cover you on your trip. Some places require that you prove you have health insurance and/or medical evacuation insurance. When we went to Russia, we had to show this. We purchased a policy to cover both of us for the trip. It was inexpensive, I think about $50 each and it also covered the required medical evacuation. It was purchased through AAA. Any travel angency can help you with this.

  • That is definitely one thing that I'm afraid of if and when I travel abroad-I REALLY want to travel and that probably won't stop me in any case, but it's definitely something to keep in mind if ever I do decide to travel.

  • We went to the Dominican Republic before and it was beautiful, but scary. That's the only place we've ever been that was out of the country. I never even thought about needing insurance for it.
    Kas

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