All posts by Jason Demant

Travel Advice — Health Insurance

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The two most frequent travel related questions I receive are “how do I setup my money” and “what do I do for health insurance?” I previously answered the 1st question and today, I’ll address the 2nd.

While on the road, World Nomads is hands down is the health insurance of choice.

World Nomads is essentially emergency-only health insurance. For United States residents, your co-payment is $100. This means if you’re going in for something routine, you’re going to pay for it. But if it’s something catastrophic, you’re covered.

Other reasons why I like World Nomads:

  • Covers you while participating in all kinds of crazy activities – surfing, scuba diving, bungee jumping, skydiving, snowboarding, etc…
  • Travel insurance is thrown in for free if your things are lost or stolen.
  • Available to residents around the world (not just US residents!).
  • Easy sign-up process and easy to extend while traveling.

Some things to be aware of before purchasing:

  • Unlike traditional health insurance, if there’s an accident, you pay fully out of pocket first, then file a claim to be reimbursed.
  • While they cover you if your things are lost or stolen, only $500 of electronics are covered. If your new Macbook Air is stolen, you’re not going to be reimbursed for its full value. If you travel with expensive jewelry or electronics, you should consider purchasing additional traveler’s insurance.
  • If you’re a United States resident and purchase domestic health insurance, you’re not covered if you’re within 100 miles of your permanent residence.
  • Lastly, make sure to read all of the fine print of your policy so you understand exactly what you’re getting. It’s surprisingly easy to read.

Check out their website, WorldNomads.com for more information and if you have any questions or opinions on World Nomads, leave a comment, I’d love to hear them.

Jason Demant is the founder of UnAnchor.com, where you can find detailed do-it-yourself travel itineraries for your next trip. For the latest on travel-writing you can follow him on Twitter @UnAnchor, or join the I Love Travel Writing Facebook group.

Full Disclosure: All links to World Nomads are affiliate links and by using them you support my travel habit. You’re awesome!

Photo Credit: Laura4Smith

Travel Writing Advice from Around the Web

chicago skylineHere’s a quick digest of some my favorite travel-writing advice articles I’ve recently run across:

How To Be a Travel Writer – This excellent article by British Guild of Travel Writers member Roger Norum goes through the entire travel-writing process. From, “is travel-writing for me?”, to getting started, advice on writing, and advice on the business side. It’s a must-read for anyone interested in travel-writing.

How to Be a Travel Writer (I guess this is a popular title) – Written by famous travel-writer Rick Steves. In the article he discusses how to get started travel-writing by learning how to travel first and then moving on to discuss how to make money.

Tips on Travel Writing – 7 great tips on travel-writing from Lonely Planet author Tim Richards. In the article he gives tips on your pitch, discusses sponsored travel, and gives advice on the type of articles to start out with as a beginning travel-writer.

Jason Demant is the founder of UnAnchor.com, where you can find detailed do-it-yourself travel itineraries for your next trip. For the latest on travel-writing you can follow him on Twitter @UnAnchor, or join the I Love Travel Writing Facebook group.

Travel Tips – Setting Up Your Money For Traveling Internationally

organizing_moneyOne of the most common questions I receive about traveling is: “what bank and what credit card should I use while traveling?”. After doing countless hours of research on the subject, and spending the last year traveling abroad, I’m confident I’ve found a good way to set up your money in an efficient manner.

A quick warning: Unfortunately, the following information is only applicable to people from the United States. I apologize to the international audience, but I have yet to find similar options in other countries.

For banking, I recommend using Charles Schwab as your primary account. Why is Charles Schwab great? They have all of the traditional features one looks for in a bank, but in addition, they do not charge any fees for using other companies’ ATMs and they automatically reimburse you when the ATM you’re using charges you a fee. They even reimburse when international ATMs charge fees. At the end of every month, along with an interest payment, there’s a line-item that reimburses you for any fees charged by ATMs.

Tip: If you go with Schwab, make sure to track your ATM fees, especially internationally, as I’ve noticed they do not catch and reimburse you for all of the fees. A quick and easy phone call takes care of the mistake.

For credit cards, I recommend Capital One’s No Hassle credit card. They offer cards with a $0 annual fee in a cash rewards flavor and an airline miles rewards flavor. What makes these cards great is the fact that they do not charge any exchange rate fees (normally 3%). In fact, Capital One apparently even eats the 1% exchange fee that Visa and MasterCard charges.

Together, Schwab and a Capital One credit card make a great combination while traveling abroad. Their excellent exchange rates and lack of fees mean you can worry about finding your next travel writing story, rather than worrying about how you’re going to pay for your next meal.

Jason Demant is the founder of UnAnchor.com, where you can find detailed do-it-yourself travel itineraries for your next trip. For the latest on travel-writing you can follow him on Twitter @UnAnchor, or join the I Love Travel Writing Facebook group.

The Guaranteed Way to Become a Paid Travel Writer

travel-writingThe one sure-fire, 100% guaranteed method to becoming a paid travel writer is to find demand first, and write second. It’s certainly possible to write first and then try to sell your writing, but it’s a whole lot harder. In this post, and future posts as well, I’ll make sure to share some recent paid travel-writing gigs I’ve found from around the web.

A quick warning – while all of these jobs are paying jobs, they are not exactly well-paying jobs. But, for someone interested in travel-writing, these are a great way to get your feet wet, build up your resume, and get paid at least some amount for your time.

All of these jobs are time-sensitive. If you come across this post and the jobs have already expired, do a search on the sites I’ve linked to for their recent job postings.

Destination Weddings ArticleseLance

35 Articles / 500 Words / $3 eachFreelancer

Article WriterOdesk

Finally, if you’d still prefer to write first and then try to get paid, PhotoJBartlett.com has a great list of sites that actually pay and he includes many direct email addresses – 10 Travel Photography and Travel Writing Markets that Pay

P.S. Just a quick fun, old article from MatadorFour Ways To Sound Like A Jerk In Your Travel Writing (And How to Avoid Them)

Jason Demant is the founder of UnAnchor.com, a place to find detailed do-it-yourself travel itineraries for your next trip. For the latest on travel-writing you can follow him on Twitter @UnAnchor, or join the I Love Travel Writing Facebook group.

Photo Credit: Keith Chan

Freelance-Zone Welcomes New Writer Jason Demant

Rafflesia Flower Bukittinggi West Sumatra-SHello and welcome to my inaugural post. My name is Jason and I am addicted to travel. During the past year, I’ve quit my job, sold all of my stuff and have been through 10 countries. Unfortunately, I’ve used a lot of my savings in order to achieve this lifestyle, making it unsustainable. My goal in life is to find a way to make it sustainable and earn a living while traveling- which brings me to the topic I’ll primarily be discussing here on Freelance-Zone: travel writing.

Why I’m Here

I will be focusing my posts on travel writing as well as general travel tips. Within travel writing I will be providing recommendations from the top travel writers, posting about various travel writing opportunities, and discussing the latest news and trends within the community. I’ll be posting every 2 weeks, so make sure to look for my new post every other Monday.

My Background

My career began in the Silicon Valley. I worked for a large high-tech company for nearly 5 years before finally giving in to my ever-growing travel bug. Last October, my girlfriend and I sold all of our things, packed up our backpacks and hit the road. We’ve been primarily traveling through Asia, spending the largest chunk of the last year in South Korea learning Korean.

To find out the latest details of my travels, you can check out our travel blog, Life After Cubes or on Twitter @LifeAfterCubes.

My Latest Projects

While traveling I also started a company, UnAnchor.com. UnAnchor is a platform to find travel itineraries for sale that detail what to do and how to get around in your next travel destination. It’s a great place for the aspiring travel writer to hone their skills while making extra cash as well. All itineraries are sold, with prices starting at $0.99. The writer determines the price and keeps 75% of the revenue.

For more on travel writing, please consider joining the “I Love Travel Writing” Facebook group or follow @UnAnchor on Twitter.

Final Note

I always enjoy connecting with new people. If you have topic recommendations, questions or feedback I can be reached by email at Jason.Demant [at] gmail [dot] com. I’m looking forward to being a part of the Freelance-Zone community and getting to know the current and aspiring travel writers out there.