Ponto de Vista

https://www.instagram.com/p/7sGH4_HgJl/?taken-by=chhavi_sachdev

I usually try to do two international trips every year, one in Asia, one elsewhere, but this year has been remarkably poor – both moneywise and healthwise, so I’d only done short trips within India (Assam, Goa, Delhi, Jaipur) until August, when I went to Portugal. And of course, I’d timed my Schengen visa application really tight. I had wanted to wait until some funds hit my bank account and realized quite late that VFS can take up to 15 working days to process it since it’s forwarded to Goa! Grrr.

So I ended up totally scrambling and getting to the visa centre a bit earlier than I’d planned.
The good thing was I have most of my documents scanned and digitized and I had already bought travel insurance that covered me through September of this year. (I buy it online and you can find several options with companies like ICICI Lombard).

You can’t get a Schengen without it and I just find it better for my peace of mind to have it wherever I’m traveling. It’s not just about falling sick (knock on wood) or needing a hospital, but also about luggage.

These two (Zizi inside, Tigger outside) were ready to come along with me but this is some baggage I would HATE to lose. And I’ve lost plenty. I only just realized, after reading the fine print, that if a bag is delayed by more than 6 hours, I am entitled to funds to procure basically a survival kit. And if it stays missing, I’m entitled to the market value of all that was in it. I do know someone whose bag was never recovered and she was really upset about losing her clothes and things, but at least she got the money to go buy more stuff.

I’ve had bags damaged and being proactive really does pay off. Last year, when I returned from the US, my bag showed up jimmied and jammed. Insurance took it away and had it evaluated; then fixed it and returned it. Yay for it paying off!

(Here, tek: a bunch of video resources 😉

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