When you’re going abroad, it is of utmost importance to set up yourself with good travel insurance.

By travel insurance, we usually mean insurance that will cover your emergency health needs such as hospitalization, ambulance costs and transportation back to your country if needed. Such travel insurance will also include protection against damage to luggage or personal property including theft. It will also compensate you for flight delays beyond a certain number of hours, as well as cancellations.

So how do you get travel insurance? Here are the options. I will be mentioning Spanish companies but the concept applies anywhere.

1. Buy Dedicated Travel Insurance

There are many companies offering travel insurance as their main service. A few examples are Zurich, AXA, Allianz and Europ Assistance.

You could also use a travel insurance aggregator to compare offers from various providers at once. One of my favorite aggregators is Hey Mondo.

2. Use Your Credit Card’s Insurance Facility

Many credit cards offer travel insurance as part of the card’s perks. I currently have the ING Direct credit card which features travel insurance as one of its benefits. It’s also free, which is a great deal. Note that to be covered by the card’s insurance, you usually need to purchase the flight tickets and book the hotels from that card.

Here’s what Ing Direct’s website says about the travel insurance benefits of its credit card:

¿Quieres irte de viaje muy tranquilo? Paga el billete con tu tarjeta de crédito y disfrutarás de un seguro de accidentes de viaje con una cobertura de hasta 150.000 €.
Además, si pagas con ella tu billete, hotel o cualquier otro concepto relacionado con tu viaje, disfrutarás también de un seguro de asistencia en viaje con una cobertura de hasta 4.500 € que incluye gastos médicos, daños al equipaje, retrasos en viajes y responsabilidad civil.

N26 Black and N26 You also offer comprehensive travel insurance; they partner with Allianz for this.

3. Use Your Private Health Insurance

Here in Spain, I’m insured by Sanitas private health insurance, and as part of the package I get emergency health insurance worldwide, with a limit of €12,000. This is usually enough for most travel needs.

Here’s what Sanitas say about this:

The policy has cover abroad for emergencies, in the course of 90 consecutive days in any country worldwide, up to a maximum of 12.000 per insured and year.

If you need medical assistance abroad, please first contact us at +34 91 345 65 84. You can make a collect call and we will provide you with all the instructions to achieve the best medical care.

If you wish to expand your coverage abroad, you can contract Sanitas Travel, an insurance which offers international healthcare and services such as compensation in case of death or baggage coverage. It is a custom insurance according to the number of days, transport, number of travelers and destination. You can find more information at sanitas.es.

4. Use the European Health Insurance Card (only in the European Union)

If you are tax resident in the European Union and you’re paying social security in your country of residence, you are entitled to get the European Health Insurance Card. This will cover your health emergency expenses abroad in the same way as you would be covered if you needed any services back in your country of residence. It’s important to remember that this is only valid for countries that are a member of the European Union.

5. Insurance For Digital Nomads

When traveling as a digital nomad, spending a few months abroad or similar travels, it’s essential to have good health and travel insurance cover.

I highly recommend using SafetyWing, as it’s travel insurance built specifically for this new breed of workers with laptops who travel as part of their lifestyle and work. It is also great for insuring your entire team if you run a remote company.

Things to Keep in Mind

Remember that every policy has particular limits, so please do read the policy document carefully. If you’re traveling to places where health care costs are high, such as the USA or Canada, make sure you have higher limits on your policy. For those countries, I would recommend having a limit of €100,000 minimum because an overnight stay at a hospital due to a broken leg or arm can really cost a lot of money there.

If you have kids, make sure that the insurance you plan to use also covers them. If not, take out a separate insurance policy for them.

Although I am covered by my private health insurance, I take out separate insurance specifically for any days I plan to spend in the USA or Canada. Note that the private health insurance only covers medical expenses, and does not provide cover for cancellation of the trip due to flight changes or illnesses, for example.

If you have kids I recommend taking out a separate insurance that also covers these events, especially when the cost of the trip is elevated or it’s a long trip, since kids can be very unpredictable and can get sick pretty easily. As an adult you can grin and bear a trip when sick, but with an infant or child things are much more uncomfortable for them and for you as a parent.

As always, leave any questions in the comments below and I’ll do my best to give you good answers.

When visiting or living in Barcelona with babies and young kids, you want to make sure to keep your little ones safe as well as not fall foul of the law.

In fact it is obligatory for kids and babies to travel in car seats when traveling by car.

Upon arrival at the El Prat Airport you will not find any taxis that have car seats. If you use a service like Cabify they will outright refuse to carry you as they don’t want to break the law and risk getting their driving license suspended.

Your only other alternative is to use the normal taxis, but again they won’t have any car seats. This means that you will be putting your little one in danger unnecessarily. You never know when disaster might strike, and you don’t want to be the one responsible because you didn’t plan ahead for something this simple.

Thankfully, I’ve found the perfect solution for all our movements within Barcelona and to and from the airport. The answer is to use a service called Blacklane. It’s a kind of premium taxi service whereby you can use their mobile application to order a taxi in advance with set pick up and drop off points.

Pries are in accordance with the service offered and the premium cars they use. The best thing is that I can put my mind at rest that they will provide a quality car seat that is in line with regulations and is clean and ready for my son to travel in safely.

Two other services you can use:

• Taxibarcelona
• Taxi baby seat BCN
• Taxi adaptado

When you buy spectacles/glasses it’s important to buy the right fit, style and color for your face. Most of the times when you visit shops the attendants won’t really give you any assistance about the matter, and I really hate visiting spectacles shops in general.

All they do is stand behind you and make you uncomfortable, and at best they’ll just say that all the pairs you try look good. Anyway, I figured out that the best way to shop for spectacles is online, so that’s how I’ve been doing it for the past few years.

If you want to really learn how you should choose your spectacles, visit these two excellent guides by Toppology, a U.S.-based company that designs custom spectacles. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to find anything similar in Europe.

• Finding your perfect frames
• Picking the perfect shade for your skin

The shops I use in Spain are SmartBuyGlasses, Blickers, Bluenty and Mister Spex. The latter lets you order 4 pairs to try at home. All you need to do is return them within ten days and either choose one or just order another 4 to try out. Once you found the right pair, you can then order the custom lenses and they’ll send you the final pair in a few days.

It’s important to choose the right lenses for your spectacles. I order Zeiss or Essilor, which are two leading brands.

Blue Light Coating

As a heavy computer device user, I had looked into whether blue light coatings are of any use. They can easily double the cost of a prescription lens however there is no evidence that they actually help. The best thing you can do to help your eye comfort is to stop using electronic devices 1-2 hours before going to bed or use software like Flux to reduce the harsh light from devices when you are preparing to sleep.

There is no evidence that blue light harms the retina. I have therefore not bothered with blue light coating.

• Study from Harvard on blue light
• Debunking digital eyestrain and blue light myths
• Do You Need Computer Glasses? (August 2019). Lifehacker.
• Do I Need Anti-Reflective Coating on My Glasses? (August 2019). Wisegeek.
• 4 Things to Know About Shopping for Eyeglasses. (November 2013). AARP.
• Are Anti-Reflective Coatings Worth the Cost? (July 2019). Verywell Health.
• What Are the Advantages of Anti-Reflective Coatings on Glasses, if Any? (February 2015). American Academy of Ophthalmologists.
• How to Get the Best Eyeglass Lenses. (December 2016). Consumer Reports.
• Crizal: Glare, Scratch, and Smudge Resistant. (2019). Essilor USA.
• Tips for Choosing the Right Eyeglasses. (July 2019). American Academy of Ophthalmology.
• Where Can You Find Prices for Crizal Lenses? Reference.
• Should You Be Worried About Blue Light? (July 2017). American Academy of Ophthalmology.

After having visited the USA many times I have no doubts about wanting to live in Europe, although I enjoy visiting the U.S. from time to time. I have avoided writing about the topic on this blog since I never really had to think hard about it and weight the pros and cons of each; it was just clear to me which I preferred.

Growing up I like many other millions of people worldwide thought the U.S. was the ultimate place to be, but after visiting I saw that it is far from the idolized place that we see in movies.

Since I call Spain home these days, a tweet from entrepreneur Martin Varsavsky on Twitter caught my attention and I thought I’d repost his thoughts here for anyone interested in comparing Spain to the United States.

Of course, there are many other nuances one should consider, and I wouldn’t stay that Spain is better than the U.S. outright, but it’s good to know about the ways in which they differ and then make an informed decision on where you want to live. To the below I would also add that America is not as much of a free market as everyone believes. I see much more competition in many European countries when compared to the U.S.

Link to Tweet

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Just landed in Madrid flying from San Francisco and traveling around the USA where I lived for 20 years and I frequently work. The San Francisco vs Madrid change makes me wonder.

• Why are homeless people so rare in Madrid and so common in San Francisco when here GDP per capita is half?
• Why is the murder rate 500% higher in California than in Spain?
• Why is health care free even for tourists in Spain paid for by Spanish taxpayers as a human right and so incredibly expensive and cumbersome in California? Our son fell in the bathtub and we had a $12k bill for a few stitches at Stanford University emergency room.
• Why are universities in Spain free and there is no student debt while in the USA there is more student debt than the GDP of Spain?
• Why are there in the USA more people in jail/parole than there are inhabitants in Madrid the third largest city in Europe?
• Why is litigation so common in the USA and so rare in Spain?
• Why is inequality in the USA twice as high as that of Spain?
• Why does Spain who borders Africa and has a much bigger illegal immigration problem than the USA provides amnesties for those who work for three years and USA separates parents from kids and conducts violent raids? Has 11 million hard working people who it refuses to legalize.
• Why do people live 4 more years in Spain than US while Spain spends 70% less per person in health care?

Spain is not perfect, housing costs are high, good jobs are tougher to find, half of Catalonians want out, political corruption is unacceptable, universities produce no Nobel prizes.

But here cancer does not mean bankruptcy, pregnancies come with maternity leave, long vacations available to all, gun deaths, opium deaths are almost unheard of and in 09 when unemployment shot up crime surprisingly went down.

Spain has the fastest growing large economy of Europe. It is a welcoming democracy loved by the millions of foreigners who live here. Looking for an alternative country to live in? Consider Spain.

USA is amazing at solving intricate science and technology problems that no other country has solved but struggles at solving every day life challenges that all other developed nations have solved.

Raising Kids

North American living is many times a case of living in suburbia, and this contrasts quite sharply with European living in general. Here’s an interesting video contrasting North America and European cities when it comes to raising kids and letting them outside the house.

Other Considerations

There is no doubt that over the 60 years after the second world war, the USA could be considered as not only a superpower but the world’s most advanced nation in many respects, with many innovations arising there, as well as a sense of freedom and entrepreneurship that was unmatched anywhere else.

However the glory days are behind, and in my opinion, this country has been in decline in many ways for the past twenty years.

General John Grubb described seven stages that most empires go through:

1. The age of outburst (or pioneers).
2. The age of conquests.
3. The age of commerce.
4. The age of affluence.
5. The age of intellect.
6. The age of decadence.
7. The age of decline and collapse.

I’m not sure exactly where I would place the USA, but my gut feeling is that it has crossed into the 7th stage of decline and collapse with all that’s happened there in the past 5 years. Europe might not be in an exciting phase, but it remains a place that is much richer in culture and diversity and in my opinion a way better place to live in. You also have the rise of Asia as a continent which has grown immensely in affluence, innovation and political clout.

If anything, I think that the USA is no longer the undisputed world leader, and now has to share the stage with the rest of the world. Its domination of world commerce through the dollar as the default currency is also at risk after the immense money printing that has occurred, and time will tell whether a basket of other currencies will take its place, or even something altogether new like Bitcoin.

When you are buying a new car it is essential to negotiate to get the best price possible. I used to hate this part as I don’t like negotiating. I prefer to know the real price of something and then decide for myself whether I can afford it or not.

Being in a foreign country and having to negotiate against experienced salesmen in a foreign language looked like a recipe for disaster to me.

Luckily I used the power of the internet to figure things out and I got a great deal.

Here’s how you can also get the best price on a new car in Spain.

First of all, be sure of which car you want and exactly which configuration. This is essential.

Second, find an online forum for that make and model. For example, in my case, I wanted to buy a Mazda so I found the Mazda forum in Spain and signed up.

Then, use Carnovo to get price quotations from several dealers in your area. Even though they’re supposed to be the best offers, they’re not, you can negotiate even more than that.

Your next step is to check the forum, typically other buyers will post their offers and the final price they managed to get from their dealers. Use those experiences to figure out the best price you can get for your car. You should now go to the dealer with a range of prices you are ready to accept, it’s wise to leave a leeway of €500.

So, if the original offer on Carnovo was say €29.000 and you know others on the forum have gotten it at €28.000, you can now go and tell the dealer straight up that you are interested in the car and ready to make a deposit right away, but you also know that the price should be €28.000 because your friends have gotten it at this price. Whatever he says, just keep insisting and be prepared to walk out if he doesn’t accept. Just make sure he has your contact details, even if he lets you walk out, he will call you in a few days to accept your offer.

That’s a brief guide to getting the best deal on a new car in Spain. Hope it helps!