hey guys kristin here today we're talking about how to handle it when things go wrong when you
travel alone and just traveling in general obviously you want your trip to be awesome
nothing to ever go wrong but it is still life and there's going to be ups and downs but there are
simple ways that we can deal with a lot of the things that could happen and so these are seven
of the main things that tend to happen many of which have happened to me and how i dealt with
them the first thing is i think quite common what happens if you lose your debit card or your entire
wallet maybe gets stolen and you no longer have access to money this has happened to me
three times now there are two pieces of advice i want to give you that i personally didn't follow
and i really should have one is to have multiple debit cards stashed in different locations
so if you have one debit card that maybe the atm just doesn't give back to you or you forget it in
the atm and move on or your wallet gets lifted if you have another debit card stashed somewhere else
in your luggage then you can easily just fall back on that and use that one simple so what do you do
for money in this case first thing you want to do obviously is call and cancel that card you want to
let your bank know that you need them to western union use some money i bank with charles schwab i
always have because i really like that they don't charge foreign transaction fees and that they
refund atm fees the times that i've needed them to western union me some money they've done so
without charging me another thing that you can ask them to do and that i always had to do was find an
address where they can send that card so one time it was a dive shop in thailand that i had been on
a trip with they were willing to receive the card it could be maybe a hotel you're going to go stay
at it could maybe be a friend who lives there or a friend of a friend or just some reliable address
where you can get that card delivered and they can usually get that to you within a week another
thing that i thought about way later and think is actually way smarter is one time i was in santiago
and a guy in my hostel had lost his debit card so what i told him to do was actually just paypal me
some money and then i pulled that out of the atm and gave it to him because i have a bank that
refunds atm fees and doesn't charge me foreign transaction fees it cost me absolutely nothing
to do that for him so if you meet someone who's down on their luck or you happen to be that person
ask someone who you have a good rapport with if they can do that for you it's a really simple way
to get money without even having to bother with the western union thing number two that seems
to happen all the time is getting lost you would think that my sense of direction would get better
over time but i just hold that this is an innate quality i do not possess and that i generally lack
spatial awareness this part covers over 800 acres apparently or maybe don't quote me on that is it
800 000 i'm not very spatially aware but anyway so i tend to be super reliant on google maps
and especially map stop me i think this is where i make my first turn that way gotta check my
map first this is an app i really like that you can just download and it works
completely offline you don't need any kind of connection the caveat is you need to download
this map before you're offline but let's say you didn't do that and you're just completely
lost you don't know where you are the next best thing that i'd say you can do is look for a cafe
or a place that advertises having wi-fi dip into there kind of recollect yourself
and then use the wi-fi to orient where you are and where you want to go another good thing that you
can always do is if you're staying at a hotel they probably have a card so always grab that card when
you're going to go out for the day and then if you happen to get lost you can always get into a
taxi and give them that card because it will have the address on it in lieu of all of those options
maybe there's no wi-fi anywhere try to talk to people and get a sense from talking to them
of where something is sometimes all you have to say is the name of a place that you're looking for
and they can at least send you in the right direction just keep asking the next person
until you find your way back to wherever you're trying to go next what if something
really valuable to you gets stolen like a camera or something that you spent a lot of money on
hopefully you have travel insurance that will cover this item but what you need to do is get
a police report because most travel insurance is not going to reimburse you unless you can get that
police report stating that the item was stolen so make sure that you do that but another thing
to really note is that most travel insurance is hyper focused on health rather than belongings so
usually they don't have great coverage for items sometimes your credit card if it's a good credit
card company might offer some kind of coverage but again you probably need to prove that it was
stolen in which case you need that police report if you're not a professional person and you're
not using your gear professionally if you have homeowners or rental insurance sometimes they will
even provide coverage and replacement for these items as well but what i try to do is always bring
this pacsafe wire mesh back protector with me you can put the rain cover on your bag and then just
wrap this around it basically this makes you the most annoying person ever to rob because someone
would have to cut these i just feel a lot better if i'm staying in a place that maybe doesn't have
lockers or doesn't have a safe i don't even know how many potential thefts this has saved me from
i would say this is one of the most important purchases i've made in my travel career as well
another thing that i do is i just make sure that my valuables are not left in a car are not left
unattended by me knock on wood i've been really lucky that nothing super super high ticket and
important to me has ever been stolen i think just because i am pretty hyper vigilant about
making sure that my gear is never left fully unattended number four thing that can happen
is you get sick or hurt this is another reason why having travel insurance is a really good idea
usually you're going to have to pay out first and they reimburse you so just make sure when you do
go to a doctor or a clinic that you make sure that you get everything that happened itemized
and that you have a clear receipt so that you can prove that you got medical attention and that you
deserve to be reimbursed for that in terms of finding a doctor if you're in a really tiny town
and there's just one option then i guess that makes it really simple for you but a few times
i've gotten sick abroad what i end up looking for is like the best highest rated hospital or
doctor in the area i've been to bangkok hospital in phuket really high-end very good hospital
but still not that expensive i found another doctor that specifically catered to foreigners
in ho chi minh city when i had like a weird skin thing going on and the best part about that was
they spoke english and yes it was a little bit more expensive but it didn't matter because i was
getting that reimbursed so i would look to nomad forums facebook groups that are unique to that
city maybe expats in that city i would also just look at good old-fashioned google reviews to try
to see if people like that particular hospital or doctor there tends to be doctors that expats go to
if it's a town that has expats and so that's what i would look at if it were me
if you're seriously hurt again that's another reason to have travel insurance because a lot of
times they can fly a family member to you they can help you get back home where you can get
further help or maybe to another country that is a little bit better equipped to deal with whatever
your situation or issue is and then hopefully you don't get stuck with the entire bill thing number
five that tends to happen a language barrier this is a big concern that people often ask me about
before they start traveling like what happens if i go to a place where i don't speak the language
that's my experience in most of the places that i've gone out of 60 countries i've been
to i probably spoke the native language in 10 of them so there's a few things i like to do before
i go one you can download the google translate so that you have it available to you offline this is
super helpful just to be able to type something in and show it to someone when i was looking
for a specific star-shaped platform in lombok in indonesia i was able to just type that in
show it to the lady at my guest house and she knew exactly what i was talking about helped me get an
ojec which is like a little motorbike taxi to go visit this thing and i don't know how i would have
communicated that to her otherwise so it's great to have that option and it can also help you to
learn the language as well another thing don't discount context the point and shrug method and
just saying one word and the person understanding you know if you're at a restaurant just pointing
to a picture or pointing to a meal someone else is eating and being like yeah i want that
really simple really easy you didn't need any language for that they already know that what
you're talking about is food because you are in a restaurant so it's things like this where it
seems like it's going to be really big deal but then once you get there and you're on the ground
it's actually not that big of a deal talking about pricing and haggling again you can just
do that with a calculator really simple are you going to have frustrating situations come up from
time to time undeniably but this is kind of part of traveling like it's not always going to be
simple and easy and straightforward and that's totally okay but trust me when i say language is
not as big of a deal as you might be worried about number six what happens if there is a significant
delay in your travel plans that's really holding you back i'm supposed to be going to myanmar today
and i will not be getting on the flight i was supposed to be on i know i keep harping on this
but travel insurance will usually reimburse you if it's more than 24 hours of a delay that could come
with a credit card or it can come with some travel insurance that you've already purchased usually
these policies are really not that expensive so they are worth getting but i've definitely had
situations before where the weather or it was a holiday or for some reason i experienced a really
significant delay in my plans apart from getting reimbursed if you possibly can for tickets that
you've already bought or things that you're going to miss it's not at the end of the day that big
of a deal let's be honest it just means that you re-evaluate your plans you make a change
oftentimes these are the experiences that i look back on you know they were character building
maybe they actually led me down a road that ended up being better for me maybe they
sort of steered me in a direction where i had a different experience that was equally if not even
more enjoyable this is okay i can do this my best advice to you when things like that happen are
not to cry over spilt milk for too long but just get straight to trying to come up with a solution
sometimes the alternatives that we come up with can be even better than our original plans
finally number seven if you are a victim of a crime obviously this is a worst case scenario
no one ever wants this to happen it's really rare to be honest when you're traveling especially if
you take precautions and i do talk about that in my video about 10 mistakes not to make when you're
traveling alone but if it should happen again it's really good to go get a police report of the
situation especially if you're going to be taking out any kind of claim sometimes the police do not
give a [ __ ] and that's just unfortunately the situation where you are traveling in that country
they just don't want to do their job there's always the option if this is a serious crime
of going to your embassy or consulate and that might mean you have to go to the capital city
of whatever country you're in but if you've been a victim of a serious crime and you really need help
then being able to get help from your embassy is often one of the best things you can do
especially if you've lost a passport or something has happened where you just really need additional
help beyond what anyone else can give you it's more than petty theft it's more than
like a minor crime something really serious has happened that's what your embassy is for it's to
help people who are abroad and having issues to help with diplomacy between the countries
obviously do take advantage of those services that are offered by your embassy or consulate
if you really really need to obviously no one wants anything to go wrong when they're traveling
especially alone but i will say that these moments when things looked like they had gone really wrong
for me are often when i had the most heartwarming people kind of come and help me out of a situation
when i really figured out what i was made of the things that were difficult is where i experienced
the most growth i can look back on a lot of that now and see how it was all ultimately
really good for me and made me into a more confident person i hope that you
can eventually look back on things that are not ideal about your travels and laugh about them
or just say that you learned from them but don't let fear of what might happen what might go wrong
prevent you from going i have tons of advice on this channel for first time solo travelers
or even if it's your fourth or fifth time places you can go ways that you can plan and things not
to do in order to stay safe so i hope you have an amazing time and thanks for being here bye