Before you fly, make sure your medical condition won’t hold you back
Note: This is the fourth in a series of guest posts on traveling with a medical condition by British writer Laura Miller. In this post, Laura provides advice on flying with a medical condition and obtaining the right vaccinations and visas for your trip.
By Laura Miller
Flying with a medical condition
While traveling with many medical conditions is generally safe, airlines do have the right to deny passengers who could suffer complications in the air.
For those travelling by plane, the most common in-flight problems are:
• Neurologic events
• Cardiac events
• Respiratory events
• Gastrointestinal events
• Vasovagal syncope (fainting)
If you’re worried about the risk of being denied passage, it’s worth speaking to your doctor to ask for medical clearance. Consider if any of the following apply:
• You could compromise the safety of… Continue reading
Whether running with the bulls or leaving a museum in Pamplona, it pays to have travel insurance.
Getting travel insurance may seem like an afterthought, but there are times when it proves vital.
When my mother broke her hip in Pamplona, Spain — I’d like to say running with the bulls, but actually slipping and falling on her way out of a museum — she had a week’s stay in a hospital there and then a first-class flight home complete with nurse accompaniment, all covered by travel insurance.
It was one of the best investments my parents ever made, because the bill ran to something like $30,000-$40,000.
Many personal health insurance policies don’t cover medical costs abroad, so it pays to be on the safe side. For an outlay of perhaps five to 15 percent of the total cost of your trip, you could save yourself a significant… Continue reading
Florence, Italy, is a generally safe destination choice for those traveling with certain medical conditions. Photo by Dennis Cox/WorldViews
Note: This is the third in our series of Traveling with a Medical Condition, written by British journalist Laura Miller. Today Laura offers specific tips for traveling with cancer, a heart condition, or dementia.
By Laura Miller
Traveling with cancer
There’s no reason why a cancer diagnosis should limit your traveling. You’ll still want to see the world for the same reasons as everyone else and cancer shouldn’t be the barrier.
It’s not unusual for people with cancer to book up a holiday at the end of their treatment. On the other hand, others will have no qualms about leaving the country after being told the bad news.
However, it’s important to speak to your doctor and get their opinion before arranging a trip. You’ll then know the ins… Continue reading
South America is not out of reach for travelers with disabilities. Photo from riodejaneiro.com
Continuing our series on traveling with a medical condition — written by British freelance journalist Laura Miller — we’ll focus today on traveling with a disability.
If you missed Laura’s first post in the series, you can read her top tips for traveling with a medical condition here.
Laura provides a wealth of tips and advice that I’m sure many baby boomer travelers — and their traveling partners — will find helpful and reassuring.
By Laura Miller
In today’s world, travel isn’t restrictive. Regardless of whether you’re fit and healthy, have a physical impairment, learning disability, or any other condition, there’s no reason to avoid traveling.
You can visit even the most exotic of destinations: from South America to Southampton, a disability shouldn’t stop you from seeing the world.
Here’s how:
Planning… Continue reading
A Malaysian medical team at work; if you carry your medical ID, they’ll know how to treat you
With the oldest baby boomers now in their early seventies and the youngest in their early fifties, traveling with medical conditions has become a major issue for the baby boom generation.
British freelance writer Laura Miller has compiled a practical guide to coping with medical conditions while on the road (or in the air, on the water, etc.), so that all of us with medical issues can enjoy our travels to the utmost.
Her guide is long enough that I’ll be running it over the course of several posts, so stay tuned for more. My thanks to Laura for providing us access to this important series.
By Laura Miller
Having a chronic or serious medical condition doesn’t mean you can’t travel safely — but you will need to take… Continue reading
St. Petersburg, Russia: can be visited without a visa. Photo by Dennis Cox/WorldViews
Note: This is the sixth in a series of Baby Boomer Travel Guides and the fourth in the series focusing on transportation options around the world. Please go here, here, and here for the previous posts.
Scandinavia and the Baltic States compose far Northern Europe (we’ll cover Germany, The Netherlands, and some other northern European countries in a subsequent post), and feature some of the best scenery, most sparsely populated spaces, and lively yet historic cities in Europe.
Ships and trains offer the most convenient and comprehensive forms of transportation here, but driving among some of the countries is certainly doable.
And Denmark, especially, is well-suited to biking, with plenty of bike paths and flat terrain.
Getting Around The Baltics
The Baltic region is excellent for cruising because the main ports — Oslo,… Continue reading
Hagia Sophia (Church of the Holy Wisdom) at dawn in Istanbul, Turkey. Photo by Dennis Cox/WorldViews
Note: this is the fifth in a series of Baby Boomer Travel Guides. In our last post, we looked at the options for seeing the Caribbean. Today we focus on means of transport around the Mediterranean Sea.
When traveling around the Mediterranean region, you have a full range of options: taking a cruise ship or ferry boat, driving, taking trains, or flying between destinations.
(If you’re on a guided tour, you’ll most likely be traveling by bus, though other forms of transport may figure in as well.)
How you choose to get around this endlessly fascinating area is one of the biggest decisions you’ll make — maybe the biggest decision — regarding your Mediterranean trip. It will color your entire experience — for the better, we hope.
Each mode of transport has its… Continue reading
Terre de Haute, Iles des Saintes in the French Caribbean, is an idyllic spot open only to small ships. Photo by Catharine Norton
For your next trip, should you take a cruise, a train, a plane, drive a car — or try something different, like taking a cargo ship or long-distance passenger ferry?
That depends to a large degree on where you’re going and what kind of travel experience you hope to have. Different areas of the world — as well as differing expectations — lend themselves to different forms of transportation.
In this series, we’ll take a look at different options for getting around various areas of the world — starting with the Caribbean.
Navigating The Caribbean
This one is easier than most, or so it seems at first glance.
If you’re headed to one island in search of a beach resort or some cultural… Continue reading
Bison roam Yellowstone National Park. Photo by Dennis Cox/WorldViews
National Travel & Tourism Week, which runs this year from May 7-13, is a time to celebrate the impact that travel and tourism have on the U.S. economy.
And it’s huge. According to the U.S. Travel Association:
- In 2016, domestic and international travelers spent a combined $683 billion on leisure travel in the U.S. When you add in business travelers, the total is almost $1 trillion — some $31,500 spent per second.
- That same trillion-dollar spending generated $2.3 trillion in total economic output in the U.S., factoring in an additional $1.3 trillion spurred in other industries, such as retail.
- The travel industry supports 15.3 million American jobs — 8.6 million directly in the travel industry and 6.7 million in other industries.
- One of every nine jobs in the U.S. is dependent on the… Continue reading
The Diamant, Island Windjammers’ 12-passenger sailing ship. Photo from Island Windjammers
How you get to where you’re going can be just as crucial to the success of your trip as the destination itself.
And in some cases, the mode of transport is, in effect, the destination.
Ocean cruises are an obvious example of the latter.
When you choose to see the world by cruise ship, you’re committing yourself to spending most of your time at sea and limiting your sightseeing on land to ports or places that are within a few hours’ drive by tour bus, taxi, or rental car from the ports.
But ocean- and sea-going vessels come in many shapes and forms — from small sailing ships to floating behemoths — that can make for entirely different journeys themselves.
Or say you want to take the Trans-Siberian Express (train) from China to… Continue reading
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