Retire Overseas

International Health Insurance Plans

International health insurance programs are becoming more popular. The number of people who travel abroad has gone up in this current era of globalization. People who have the wanderlust find the need for a medical coverage while they are away from home. International health insurance provides broad coverage in the event of illness or injury.

Quite a few health-related mishaps can happen while travelling to a foreign country. Since you would not be a native, you might not be eligible for government-sponsored health care. If you travel overseas regularly either for business or for pleasure or maybe be as an international student, it is important that you have an international health insurance plan.

Basically, international health insurance generally offers two plans.

The travel medical insurance

The expatriate medical insurance.

Although these both provide coverage in the event of sickness or accident, the coverage vary on their length of the stay in the foreign country.

The travel medical insurance is the more popular type of international health insurance used. This is a better option for those travellers who are making one tour or cruise and only stays in a foreign land for a shorter duration like seven days to six months. This usually consists of $1 million coverage for ordinary and emergency healthcare, home country coverage and trip interruption. However these plans vary from company to company. Another factor that may come into picture is your home country and the country that you would be travelling to.

Consider the case; if you are an American who wishes to live in another country for an extended time, the expatriate medical insurance is the plan for you. It is essential to make sure that you and your family is covered in your new country. The advantage of this over the travel medical insurance is that this can be renewable annually and has a bigger coverage of up to $5 million. In most of the countries, though the medical expenses are lesser compared to that of the US, this kind of insurance gives more options in foreign land as well.

Opting for an international health insurance plan is indeed a smart move, whether you are traveling just for few days or for a longer duration. But the key point again lies in making the right choice. Decide what plan will best work for your travel insurance needs, considering all the various parameters.

retire overseas Malaysia Penang Floating Mosque

Image taken on 2009-11-04 13:52:52 by WohinAuswandern.

Being a Tour Guide Can Be a Dream Job

In survey after survey, when people are asked what they would do if they had more time and additional financial resources, the top answer is “travel.” Unfortunately, for most people, the dream of seeing exotic locales and exploring the sights and sounds of distant places remains just that – a dream. But some people choose to transform their travel dreams into reality by receiving tour guide training and becoming a tour director or getting any one of a number of other travel jobs.

Types of Tour Guide Jobs

Travel and tourism training paves the way for any number of tour guide jobs. Leading tours can mean sightseeing and bus tours, adventure tours, sporting tours, and cruise ship excursions either near your home, within the United States, or internationally. With tour director training, you can find work as varied as being a cruise host to assuming a management position with a tour company. The companies you can work for include tour operators, destination management companies, and event planners.

Who Makes a Good Tour Director?

One of the wonderful things about the travel and hospitality industry is that it encompasses a diverse array of jobs and draws people from a variety of backgrounds. In order to succeed in the field, you simply need to love travel, enjoy working with people, and have the right travel and tourism training. Some tour guides have extensive travel experience prior to starting, while others just have natural curiosity and the desire to travel. Many take tour guide jobs on a part-time basis, either during vacations from school, after retirement, or during the “down time” of seasonal careers. Others work locally as full-time tour directors or travel the world on cruise ships. There isn’t a single career path that leads to becoming a good tour director; indeed, it is tour guide training that makes all the difference.

Finding the Right Tour Guide Training

While some community colleges and universities offer tour guide training, you can also earn a certificate as a tour director through online courses. The best online courses offer the option of getting credit for the course through an accredited college or university in your community.

When looking at travel and tourism training options, look into the background of the instructor. Ideally, you will find someone with over a decade of extensive travel experience throughout the world as a cruise host and international tour director. He or she should also have considerable tour guide training experience.

A reputable tour director training course should last about six weeks. It should cover the expectations, requirements, and procedures involved in tour directing and guiding, as well as techniques for group management, creating and delivering interesting narration, and handling challenges that arise. The course should also go into depth about pre-tour planning, multi-day tours, facing emergencies anywhere in the world, and governmental regulations and procedures. Finally, a good tour guide training course will explore the career opportunities available for a tour director, which opportunities are a good fit for your needs and interests, and how to best write a resume, network, and interview for travel jobs.

Getting paid to travel is a dream job. And, with the right tour guide training, you can make that dream come true!

Take 6,400 Friends On A Cruise

Miami-based Royal Caribbean International, the world’s second-largest cruise line, announced on February 6, 2006 that it had ordered the largest and most expensive cruise ship in the world, a $1.24 billion vessel which can hold up to 6,400 passengers. It is to be named Project Genesis.

This ship, which is scheduled to be completed in the fall of 2009 by shipbuilder Aker Yards of Oslo, will be 220,000 gross register tons. A gross register ton, a standard measure of a ship’s size, is a unit of volume equal to about 100 cubic feet. It is to be built at a Finnish shipyard.

Aker is to be paid 900 million euros ($1 billion) to build the ship, making Project Genesis the most expensive ship ever ordered in the history of commercial shipbuilding. The $1.24 billion figure includes all expenses required for interior finishing of the ship. Royal Caribbean contract with Aker includes an option for a second ship.

Richard Fain, the chairman and chief executive of Royal Caribbean said of Project Genesis, “It is exhilarating to take such a giant step into the future. Project Genesis truly is a remarkable ship. Its bold design, daring innovation and technological advancements will delight our existing customers and help us draw in new ones.”

Aker Yards Finland currently builds Royal Caribbean’s “Freedom” class vessels. However, the Project Genesis ship will be 43 percent larger than the present recordholder, “Freedom of the Seas”, which is currently under construction and scheduled to be finished by April 2006.

The biggest ship currently in operation is the Queen Mary 2, at 151,400 gross register tons. It is owned by the Cunard Line, a unit of the Carnival Corporation, which is the world’s largest cruise ship company. The British-registered liner is 1,132 feet long, more than 236 feet high, and can hold 2,620 passengers. The QM2 is capable of crossing the North Atlantic at a speed of 30 knots. The 14-day 2004 maiden voyage from Southampton, in southern England, to Fort Lauderdale, Florida on January 12, 2004, was completely sold out months before departure.

The QM2 has 17 decks which hold five swimming-pools, sweeping staircases, a grand ballroom, a 360-degree promenade deck and many luxury shops. Cunard Line built the ship in hope of reviving the glamour of ocean liners, whose mystique has largely been dispelled since jet travel made trips across the Atlantic routine.

A one-way passage from Southampton to New York ranges from $1,817 to $28,000 per person, depending on the type of cabin selected, as well as a daily service charge.

The original Queen Mary was launched in 1934 at Southampton by the queen’s grandmother — Queen Mary, wife of King George V. This ship was slightly more than half the size of the new model. In the second World War, both the Queen Mary and its sister ship, Queen Elizabeth, were painted grey and served as troopships, since they were fast enough to outrun German U-boats. Winston Churchill later stated that the military use of these two ships shortened the war by a year.

The ship was retired in 1967 and sold to private investors. It is now docked permanently as a seaside hotel in Long Beach, California.

The QM2 took the title of world’s largest cruise liner from Royal Caribbean’s 1,020 foot-long Liberia-registered “Voyager of the Seas,” launched in 1999.

As a sign of just how much passenger ships have increased in size during this century, the QM2 is three times the size of the Titanic, which at 46,300 tons and 800 feet was called the “largest movable object built by man” when launched in 1911. However, all the giant cruise ships are comparatively tiny compared to the largest of all ships – a 564,700-ton supertanker Seawise Giant built in 1979, and now called Jahre Viking.

A ship still in the planning stage would dwarf all current sea-going vessels : the Freedom Ship. It is essentially a plan for a floating city, a giant barge that would slowly circle the globe every 2-3 years. At 4,320 feet (1,317 meters) long, 725 feet (221 m) wide and 340 feet (103 m) tall, the ship is taller than the length of a football field and wider than two football fields put together.

It would hold 18,000 condominium units for full-time residents ranging from $180,000 to $2.5 million, including a small number of premium suites priced up to $44 million. 3,000 commercial units for vendors would also be offered in a similar price range. For part-time residents, there will be 2,400 time-share units and 10,000 hotel units. It will also hold a casino, a ferryboat transportation system, a medical facility offering both Western and Eastern medicine as well as preventive and anti-aging medicine. A landing strip for small jets will cover the top. An onboard school will give students a chance to take a field trip into a different country each week for academic purposes or to compete with local schools in sporting events. There will also be an International Trade Center to give on-board companies and shops the opportunity to show and sell their products in a different country every week. More than 100 acres of outdoor Park, Recreation, Exercise and Community space have also been planned.

Norman Nixon, who developed the idea for the massive ship, has estimated it will take approximately three years to complete once construction begins. So far, this ambitious project has not been able to attract sufficient investment funds to get off the drawing board.

Personal versus Corporate Offshore Accounts

There are tax advantages, banking privacy, and convenience to offshore banking in trusted locations such as Belize. In today’s high speed world many live outside of their country of origin and do business in other foreign countries. For many it makes excellent sense to take advantage of offshore banking. The reasons for banking off shore may differ for those wishing to establish a personal account versus those wishing to set up a corporate account.

For both personal and corporate offshore accounts in tax advantaged locations such as Belize offer the convenience of easy access to assets. In addition such accounts benefit from strict banking regulations governing account information, banking privacy. Offshore banking has a long history of use by international corporations. It may be time for you to consider an off shore account.

Personal Offshore Banking

Personal offshore banking is ideal for privacy. Offshore accounts are often the best vehicle for depositing funds into international investment products. Personal offshore accounts can be opened for as little as $250 US. Such accounts virtually always offer an ATM card allowing you to withdraw funds from ATM machines anywhere in the world. Make sure that the account you open takes advantage of support from a personal account manager.

Corporate Offshore Bank Accounts

If you do business overseas or have a trust or corporation formed in an offshore location an offshore bank account will often be an integral part of your business and investment strategy. A corporate account is opened and held in the name of your offshore corporation or trust. Such an account can greatly facilitate international money transfers. Such an account can do so while protecting asset privacy.

The mechanics of setting up a corporate offshore bank account are really the same as setting up a personal account except that all account information is corporate and not personal.

In order to set up such an account the individual needs to set up his or her offshore company first, typically in the same jurisdiction as the offshore bank account. However, this is not necessary and, at times, may not be the best choice. The individual should be guided by sound business principles in setting up each of these entities in order to derive the maximum benefit. This will include dealing with competent authority in setting up both offshore companies and offshore bank accounts.

A typical setup fee for a corporate offshore bank account is $500 US and the account will include an ATM card usable worldwide. There will also be support for international money transfer (SWIFT/BIC).

Large, international corporations and wealthy investors have used offshore companies, trusts, and bank accounts for years. They have done so to facilitate their business activities, legally reduce taxes, and do their business without their competitors knowing their every move. The business tactics available to international corporations are available to you too. You just need to be willing to do a little research into the opportunities available offshore in trusted jurisdictions such as Belize.