One of the decisions I’ve been struggling with lately is whether or not to bring my laptop to Brazil. Traveling for a month without the ability to backup photos, post blog articles, and respond to e-mails would be very inconvenient. But the level of crime down there isn’t exactly a big international secret; in fact, of the four people I know who’ve gone backpacking in Brazil, two have been robbed at gunpoint, one at knifepoint, and only one was never robbed at all. A $2000 laptop isn’t something I’m particularly interested in losing.
My first idea was to buy a nice travel insurance package, but after many hours of research I realized that wouldn’t be a possibility. The best I could find was a $200 single-trip policy that’ll cover several thousand dollars of loss…with a per-item maximum of $125, all electronics excluded. Gee, thanks. I’m sure glad I bothered to read all the fine print. Pretty pathetic when compared to the Norwegian, UK, and Thai policies I found that cover any theft up to $3000 with no restrictions.
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