You’ve waited a long time for this – your fishing vacation to Central America.  You’ve saved your money, accrued enough vacation days, spent hours reading info online, you’ve worked closely with in-country experts (aka – us!) to build the perfect itinerary, and you’ve even researched the seasons and moon phases for the best fishing conditions.  Everything is in order and you are all set, you just have to wait for that special week to arrive.  The ‘bucket list’ trip-of-a-lifetime, honeymoons, a father/son or father/daughter fishing trip, or just an annual getaway with fishing buddies – whatever your motivation is the end goal is to have a vacation experience that creates memories for a lifetime.

When you book your vacation with Central America Fishing you get our nearly two decades of combined travel industry experience, detailed and customized itineraries planned by an expert, reservations confirmed months in advance for your peace of mind, and of course our 24-7 in country service once you are in the country.  Despite the perfectly laid plans and booking your fishing vacation with a seasoned company like ours, what takes months and years to make a reality can all be ruined in a moment.  We’ve been doing this long enough to come across all kinds of situations that force clients to miss all or part of their vacation: snowstorms, job changes, unexpected pregnancies, personal injuries, not being able to find babysitters, even hard-to-believe situations like your dog tearing their ACL and requiring surgery (yes, dogs have ACLs too!).  Below is a list of our Top 10 reasons why purchasing travel insurance on your next fishing vacation to Central America is a good idea.

1) Cancel your trip due to bad weather

The peak travel season in Central America is, not surprisingly when it is winter in North America.  The months of December through April are the warmest and driest months here so it’s a logical decision (if not self-preservation) to want to escape the winter for a week or two.  It seems every year however that the Midwest or Northeast gets dumped on with snow for two or three days straight causing massive delays and canceled flights.  The irony is too bitter to be funny when the very reason you are trying to escape winter becomes the reason you aren’t able to and you find yourself trapped in an endless cycle of icy roads and snow storms.  Whether you miss the first couple of days of your trip or the entire week, travel insurance will protect you in this situation.  We’ll of course do our best to rearrange your vacation logistics for you so you can still make the trip happen, but with travel insurance, you won’t have to worry about missing out on that prized hotel you fought to get the last room at or a full day of tuna fishing in Panama.

2) Personal Injury

True Story:  One of our favorite repeat clients booked a trip eight months in advance with the hopes of landing in Costa Rica right in the middle of tuna season.  Three weeks before they were set to arrive his wife was out walking their dog, the dog stopped to do his business, and then unexpectedly lunged after a squirrel and took the wife down with it – breaking her wrist.  For anyone who has had a wrist injury before, you know very well that three weeks isn’t even close to enough time to heal.  He called asking if they could reschedule the trip, but with such short notice, the airlines and the fishing boats weren’t being very flexible so they had to make the trip as they were traveling with another couple.  With travel insurance, they would have been covered as clearly, a wrist injury would have prevented her from fishing to the best of her abilities.  We managed to rig up a few left-handed reels for her and her husband helped her with the rod as she reeled, but as you can imagine the experience certainly left her feeling a little empty after they’d been looking forward to this for months.

3) Family member becomes ill

Travel insurance would actually cover you if you or your travel companion’s family member becomes ill and requires your help caring for them.  We often hear clients with elderly parents ask about cancellation policies in case “something happens”, but with travel insurance that “something” becomes “nothing to worry about.”

4) Involuntary loss of job

Fortunately for all of us the worst of the Great Recession seems to be behind us, but in any economy, these things still happen.  If you have your trip planned and you or your travel companion involuntarily lose their job you would be covered by travel insurance.  We often hear that clients are unsure about committing to a vacation because their company might relocate or be acquired by another company, but with travel insurance you can rest assured that you are either going on this fishing vacation or you can get your money back.

5) Jury Duty

Let’s face it, your number probably won’t get called, but when it does you can bet it’ll be at an inconvenient time!  If you or your travel companion are subpoenaed or required to serve on jury duty you’ll be covered.

6) Damaged Fishing Gear

You’ve been working on your fly cast and presentation all spring with an eye toward your fly fishing vacation to Belize.  You’ve spent more money than you want to admit on tiny little things named Crazy Charlie, Christmas Island Special, and Black Death.  You’ve spent hours watching ‘how-to’ videos on YouTube to work on your double haul.  You have your 8 wt rod for bonefish, 9 wt rod for permit, and 10 wt for tarpon.  You are set, focused, and determined to add your name to the list of fly anglers with a Grand Slam.  The only problem is that the 9-foot, 4-piece rod you packed is now a usable 5-piece fly rod due to the airline crew ever so delicately tossing your bag onto the plane.  Even if you have a lifetime warranty on the fly fishing gear travel insurance can help you recoup any time and money lost on the fishing trips you had booked.

7) Have to return home early for an emergency

We’ve had clients who are thoroughly enjoying their vacation only to be rudely brought back to reality with a family crisis back home.  We’ll help you change your transfer back to the airport so you can fly home the next day, but what about all those unused hotel nights you are leaving behind?  If you have travel insurance you’ll be able to head home and save the day and not worry about recouping the funds from the unused portion of your vacation.

8) Damage to your primary residence

You knew you should have fixed the roof last summer, you were just “too busy.”  Now it’s time to head to Costa Rica marlin fishing and the heavens open up with a rainstorm like you’ve never witnessed in your life.  Your basement is now a wade pool and there is no way you can leave the house for a week with this going on.  With travel insurance, you can cancel the trip at the last minute, fix the house, and buy a new calendar to pick out new dates for the trip.

9) Medical emergency evacuation while in the country

You’ve seen YouTube videos of frantic marlin and toothy barracuda jumping into boats, but of course, it’ll never happen to you…  The more time you spend on the water the more likely you’ll see something crazy occur, and heaven forbid something happens to you your travel insurance can help with an emergency medical evacuation.  Big game fishing on the ocean doesn’t have a script and doesn’t always go as planned, you are wrestling with some of the strongest and most athletic fish on this planet that are highly capable of making you feel very slow and very feeble in an instant.  With travel insurance, an accident doesn’t have to be a financial tragedy as well.

 

10) Lose your passport

We hear it every week – you want to move to Central America and live here too – but losing your passport won’t help you do that.  Losing that all-important document can leave you like Tom Hanks in ‘The Terminal‘, unable to leave the country you are in and unable to get back into your home country.  Besides the stress of getting a new passport, what if you miss your return flight in the process and are forced with the prospect of buying a pricey one-way ticket just to get home?  You guessed it, travel insurance can help you with all of that.  Whether you forget it at a hotel, it falls out of your pocket in a taxi, or you have too many rum cocktails while dreaming of creating your own hotel & fishing charter business and lose it – these things happen and travel insurance will make everything ok in the long run.

One thing we love about the tourism industry is that when you deal with new people, foreign countries, sport fishing vacations, and international travel there is no shortage of things that surprise us.  As we always say, ‘life happens,‘ but with a great travel insurance company like Travel Guard you don’t need to stress about anything that life throws at you.  Just sit back and enjoy the bumps and turns in the road knowing we’ve got you covered and your travel insurance is prepared to remedy any situation, no matter what happens.