How to Find Adventure Travel Insurance

by Chris Owen on

Adventure travelers have needs. Insurance needs that are unlike those of other travelers that choose a different, maybe easier path. Now, a major insurance plan provider has what they think is just what this edgy group needs.

With their new Great Outdoors plan, Travel Guard North America has enhanced coverage and benefits, offering a streamlined solution to travel insurance.

“A lot of time, effort and money go into planning active and adventure vacations,” said Carol Mueller, Vice President of Travel Guard North America in a release. “Whether you’re planning a relaxed sporting vacation or participating in extreme adventure, many factors can cause a dream trip to go awry.”

On safari, surfing, spelunking or mountain climbing, the comprehensive Great Outdoors plan covers gear and equipment, along with coverage for emergency medical expenses and evacuation, trip cancellation, interruption and delay, and more.

“Travel Guard’s new Great Outdoors travel insurance plan provides a wide range of coverages and specific sports travel services to help put active travelers’ minds at ease,” adds Mueller.

Along with this plan comes 24/7 access to Travel Guard’s travel assistance and emergency services for flight re-bookings, physician referrals and prescription refills. Plus, the Great Outdoors plan includes additional sports-related concierge services like hunting and fishing guide referrals, coordination of equipment pick-up and delivery, driving directions, and any other requests active travelers may have.

Often though, what makes or breaks a travel insurance plan is not what they cover but how they pay. TravelGuard has a bit of a reputation for paying fast when the required documentation is submitted by fax or email. Some other companies are known for making those covered jump through enough hoops to count as an adventure of its own, trying to collect.

I can personally attest to TravelGuard’s process, experiencing it first hand when injured on a recent trip. It was just 3 weeks from the time I submitted the claim until I had a check in my hand, about half the standard time for many insurance companies.

 

Flickr photo by Se7en Summits

Slave Quarters Discovered at Monticello

by Sean McLachlan on


Archaeologists digging at Thomas Jefferson’s home at Monticello, Virginia, have discovered slave quarters used at the time he was living there.

The remains were found at Tufton, one of Jefferson’s farms a mile from the actual house. Jefferson owned several farms around Monticello that were worked by his many slaves. The artifacts dating to Jefferson’s time include everyday items such as a button and fragments of ceramic, as well as a slate pencil, which raises the question of whether one of the slaves was literate. A more sobering find was a padlock. The slaves appear to have lived in small, single-family homes.

Jefferson’s views on slavery were complex. He correctly predicted that it would divide the nation, but that didn’t stop him from owning slaves himself, and while Jefferson wrote against race mixing, DNA evidence indicates that Jefferson fathered several children with one of his slaves, Sally Hemings.

A second slave quarter site was also found, dating to the middle and end of the nineteenth century. Jefferson had died in 1826 and his family sold his 130 slaves to pay off his many debts. Monticello itself was sold in 1831. The family that bought the Tufton farm also worked it with slaves until the end of the Civil War.

Photo courtesy Stefan Volk.

Give Back While Traveling With These Voluntourism Hotel Packages And Programs

by Jessica Festa on

Just because Earth Day has passed doesn’t mean we should stop doing our part. In the spirit of goodwill, these hotels are offering voluntourism packages and programs for guests.

Limelight Hotel
Aspen, Colorado

Throughout the summer, the Limelight Hotel is helping guests get their hands dirty and help the environment. In partnership with the Roaring Fork Outdoor Volunteers, guests will be able to do trail work in the beautiful White River National Forest, which spans millions of acres. Volunteer tasks include trail maintenance, trail construction, invasive species removal and more. Hotel guests who participate will receive transportation, a packed lunch and beverages and a complimentary beer in the hotel lounge when they return.

Eight hour day volunteer projects are available, as well as sunset volunteer times from 5:00 pm to 8:00 pm. Rates start at $150 per night during the summer. Call 970-544-6259 or click here to book. Westin St. John Resort and Villas
St. John, U.S.Virgin Islands

The Westin St. John Resort and Villas, a luxurious tropical resort, is offering incentives to guests who volunteer at the nearby Virgin Islands National Park. Volunteers will get a $100 resort credit, as well as transfers to and from the park. Project tasks include maintaining park trails and ruins and cleaning up beaches and coastlines. To sign up, you can click here or show up on Tuesday or Thursday at 8:00 am. Simply present your volunteer voucher at the front desk of the hotel to receive the credit.

Offer available through December 31, 2012. Rates start at $399 per night based, on double occupancy. Call 888-627-7206 or click here to book.

Hyatt Regency Waikki Beach Resort and Spa
Honolulu, Hawaii

The Hyatt Regency Waikki Beach Resort and Spa believes everyone should do their part. To help motivate guests to volunteer, the property is offering a Lokahi Package, or Lokahi Group Meetings, which rewards meeting planners, attendees and the community. The incentive, which also encourages groups to spend time volunteering with local organizations to help team building, raised almost $30,000 in 2009 and 2010 for the Waikiki Community Center. Perks for the meeting planner include double Hyatt Gold Passport bonus points and a complimentary Pohaku Lomi Massage. Attendees will receive free in-room Wi-Fi, 15% off spa treatments, a complimentary lei greeting and a special room rate for five days before and after the meeting. Additionally, community benefits include 5% of profits going to a local nonprofit of the meeting group’s choice and help from volunteers.

Offer valid until December 24, 2012. Packages start at $149 per night. Call 808-237-6200 or click here to book. Use promo code LOKAHI when booking.

YMCA of the Rockies
Estes Park, Colorado

If you’re planning on staying in the Rockies for at least six weeks, YMCA Estes Park Center and YMCA Snow Mountain Ranch offer free room and board for volunteers. Volunteers stay in a range of accommodation types, like cabins, hotel-style lodges and even yurts. There are myriad jobs to choose from, like instructing crafts, leading hikes and maintaining trails. While returning volunteers can stay for short periods of time, new volunteers must commit six weeks from September to mid-May, and 11 weeks from May to August.

Click here to learn more.

Loews Coronado Bay Resort
San Diego, California

Through a partnership with the California State Parks and California State Parks Foundation, Loews Coronado Bay Resort is able to offer guests a volunteer vacation at Silver Strand State Beach. Participants will get a tour of the beaches rare coastal habitat and the chance to take part in a restoration project or beach clean-up. The property also includes a 1% donation fee to the project in their room rate, which has helped raise over $300,000 since 2008.

There is no charge to take part in the volunteer vacation, which is offered on Saturdays and Sundays, from 9:30 am to 11:30 am. Room rates begin at $159 per night. Call 800-235-6397 or click here to book.

Mandarin Oriental
Miami, Florida

To help guests have a worthwhile vacation, Mandarin Oriental is offering a community service package that includes a trip to the Everglades, morning volunteer work with park rangers and a tour of the park. Volunteer tasks range from mulching trees, weeding invasive plants and working on recycling projects. Moreover, guests will receive perks like a free hybrid car rental for the day and a 90-minute Thai Herbal Compress Ritual in the spa. For each treatment received, a native tree gets donated to the Everglades.

Package is $2,200 based on three nights, with double occupancy. Call 866-888-6780 or click here to book.

The Ritz-Carlton, Grand Cayman
Seven Mile Beach, Cayman Islands

While the entire Ritz-Carlton Hotel brand participates in a Give Back Getaway program, The Ritz-Carlton, Grand Cayman adds a special angle to theirs. The property’s Blue Iguana Recovery Program Giveback Getaway allows guests to join employees in half-day voluntourism projects. Volunteers will work with Jean-Michel Cousteau’s Ambassadors of the Environment to help save the indigenous and endangered Grand Cayman Blue Iguana. Tasks include feeding the animals, assisting with the shelter and using GPS to help track the iguanas.

Zarco, the iguana pictured above, also has an inspirational success story. He was the first male Blue Iguana adopted by the hotel, through their relationship with the Blue Iguana Recovery Program. As an alpha male in the park, he bred with many females, and was successfully released back into his native habitat last year.

The project is available from November through August, for groups as small as two and as large as 15. A fee of $100 per adult, and $50 per child aged 12-15 covers transportation to Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park, and a donation to the Blue Iguana Recovery Program. Room rates start at $383.20 per night. Click here to book.

Sandals Resorts
Caribbean

To help improve literacy in local children, Sandals Resorts is featuring a Reading Road Trip program. Guests of any Sandals Resorts, Beaches Resorts or Grand Pineapple Beach Resorts can take part. The program lasts for two hours, and takes volunteers in local Caribbean communities to visit adopted schools in Saint Lucia, Antigua, Bahamas, Turks & Caicos or Jamaica to work with small groups of children on their reading skills.

The cost to participate is $20 for adults, and free for children 8 to 12. This includes round-trip transportation and all supplies. Click here for more information, and click here to book.

Want To Learn How To Drive a Model T Ford? This Museum Will Teach You

by Sean McLachlan on

The Model T Ford was the most successful car design in history. From 1908 to 1927, more than 15 million were sold at a price so affordable that cars went from being playthings of the wealthy to a common item for any middle class household. For better or worse, today’s car culture is a direct product of the Model T.

Now the Collin County Farm Museum is offering courses in driving the Model T Ford. This isn’t just your standard stick shift. It takes up to fifteen minutes and a fair amount of strength to start, and has all sorts of peddles and cranks unfamiliar to anyone accustomed to driving modern cars. The license will allow you to drive the museum’s very own restored Model T, part of its large collection of vintage vehicles.

The Model T appeared at a time when paved roads were rare, and it was made tough enough to stand driving over fields and up steep slopes. They could take a lot of abuse, which is probably why there are so many left today. There’s a limit to what they can take, though. Don’t drive them like they did in this slapstick comedy or you’ll fail the course and probably get arrested.

Travelers And Bloggers Get Together With New Web App

by Chris Owen on

Travelers planning a trip often turn to a trusted travel information source, one they may have used before and had good results. That source might be a guide book, web site or travel blog like this one where intrepid travelers scour the planet for experiences and information. A new web application now hopes to connects travelers with travel bloggers in what could be a very viable and relevant source of travel information.

At Uencounter.me, travelers and bloggers create a personalized virtual pin map to mark locations of interest. Travelers might mark places they want to visit. Bloggers mark places they have already visited and produced content about.

“Tens of thousands of travel blogs exist on the web and the Uencounter.me Team is excited to provide a venue that offers the bloggers a resource for additional exposure,” said CEO Leslyn Kantner in a release. “We feel they are a perfect complement to our platform.”

The nature of the application encourages interactions between users about pins on the map. For example, I signed up and began by placing a pin in my hometown. Immediately, other pins pop up on the board from bloggers who had been there and written about it. The information and location of those pins came with a date and other background information to quickly scan before going further.

Bloggers are able to add a link to their blogs on the description of each pin they place on the map and Uencounter.me offers bloggers a badge to place on their webpage so that readers can link directly to the bloggers map.

Another use: Businesses and organizations can drop pins for where their customers or group members are located.



Flickr photo by Adams K.