Why you should take out Travel Insurance

Backpacker Travel Insurance Article

Travel insurance come fairly high on the to do list when planning say, a trip round the world or a week visiting family in Canada. It goes without saying, you could get lost, cases could end up on a different continent, a trainee baggage handler could snap your ski in half. It's best to be prepared for all eventualities. But you wouldn't necessarily apply the same rules to a train or bus journey, for example. Especially if said journey is under six hours and you're not leaving the country. Insurance becomes something they stick on the bottom of the web page you're buying tickets from, a box to untick because the extra few quid isn't worth it.

At least, that's what you think until you get caught out. An evening train journey down to visit my boyfriend in London became a nightmare when I arrived in King's Cross, tired and weary from the journey, met my boyfriend, and stumbled towards the tube station because actually, he doesn't live in London at all, but in a town about half an hour outside it. The realisation hit when we saw an orange-clad engineer walking along the track carrying some traffic cones. Repair work, no more trains tonight. Shit. But all wasn't lost, we still had fifteen minutes before our main train left Waterloo.

Ran to street level, frantic search for a bus, which was absolutely useless as neither of us has a clue about the London bus service - more minutes wasted. Taxi to Waterloo please, we had ten minutes and we made it, ran to the station doors only to find them being locked from the inside. At just after one in the morning the station was closed, no more trains. It was at this moment that we realised our connecting train had in fact left from Victoria three minutes ago, and even if we had a way to get to that station, our chances of getting a train were pretty much nil.

So, stuck in London with no way to get home, we were left with no option but to find a hotel for the night. After nearly an hour wandering around trying to find one within our price range (I know it's not the time to be choosy but we were on the waterfront - £150 for a night is extreme!) we managed to find a decent bedroom that smelt ok for a mere £85. Of course, this meant we had to buy new train tickets in the morning, so altogether that engineering work had cost us about £115. I was fuming, and I wrote to Virgin when I got back telling them so. If my man hadn't come and met me I would have been alone, but actually, the train services don't care about that. What I had done was unticked that little box that said Travel Insurance beside it, and as a result we will not see any of that money again. So the moral of the story; it's only a few quid guys, and one day it might just be worth it!

If you have a web site offering backpacker travel insurance then contact us and we will review your product