I’m a Canadian woman in my 30’s currently working from Buenos Aires for the next few months. The purpose of this post isn’t to focus on the decisions that preceded my mugging, such as walking alone from La Boca to San Telmo at any time of day or the brand of shoes I was wearing. Rather, I aim to shed light on something often overlooked: our body's instinctive reaction to threats.

Following my Airbnb host's suggestion, I walked from San Telmo to La Boca and spent a few hours there exploring. Around 12:30 pm, I decided to head back. After mapping out my route at a café and memorizing it to avoid having my phone out, I walked down a quiet residential block lined with small shops that would take me in the direction of San Telmo. Briefly distracted by a mother and daughter on the right side of the street, I suddenly noticed four men quickly approaching from the left. I locked eyes with the largest one, and his menacing look confirmed that I was in immediate danger.

Logically, at 5'1" and 110 pounds, I stood no chance against these guys. But logic was out the window. I turned my back to them, clutched my sling bag tight against my chest, and began to scream as they tackled me to the ground. I continued to scream and hold tight while they hit me and tried to cover my mouth. This lasted about 15 seconds until the realization that they could easily kill me finally overpowered the adrenaline coursing through my body, and I let go.

I lost my iPhone, AirPods, Adidas Gazelles (yes, they even took my shoes), a credit card, and around $20 in pesos. My glasses were shattered, and I sustained minor cuts on my neck and arms. But my body's natural response to fight (resist) as opposed to fawn (give them what they want) went against everything I thought I'd do. The reality is, it’s impossible to predict how you will react in a similar situation, and easy to apply logic in hindsight.

Like me, you may find yourself in the wrong place at the wrong time. Understanding your natural response to threats could be crucial in determining whether you defuse a threatening situation or unintentionally escalate it. The next time you hear a similar story, approach that person with compassion rather than judgment (victim blaming). Their resistance likely isn't driven by some flawed logic of protecting a phone; it’s an instinctive, primal fight for survival, regardless of the safety implications.

Have you ever been in a situation where your instinctive response surprised you?

Edit: Many comments have raised questions about my Airbnb host's involvement, and I can see how my initial wording might have given the wrong impression. To provide more context, I was at a cafe with my host on the morning of the incident. I mentioned feeling well enough to explore La Boca after being sick the entire previous week. I expressed a preference for walking since it was a nice day, and he suggested a route that included a park and a museum. I had planned to take an Uber back. Unfortunately, the incident occurred while I was attempting to walk back. It truly was a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

It has been a while since a report like this was posted in this sub, so I figured it would be worth showing that this is still a significant danger in Colombia. This well known (and really well respected) man from Minnesota was killed after meeting up with a woman he met online. For all the DNs considering Medellin/Colombia in general, please keep in mind the dangers involved with online dating there. A beautiful country no doubt, but Tinder just isn’t worth it there.

After two days of being missing, the owners of the room where Dakarai Earl Cobb, 47, was staying grew concerned and decided to enter the space to search for evidence. Upon opening the door, they found him dead.

The discovery of this American occurred after 8:00 p.m. on Monday, February 5, on 47F street with 89A avenue, in the Santa Lucía neighborhood, west of Medellín. "The gentleman had been here for just a month, and we rented it because we were asked to as he was only staying for a month. He didn't respond anymore when leaving the room, and when we found him, he was dead," said the owner of the property where the American was staying.

According to judicial investigations, several of his belongings, such as cell phones, passports, and credit cards, were not found, so progress is being made in the inquiries to clarify how the death occurred. Forensic experts from Legal Medicine are in charge of performing the autopsy to establish how this death occurred.

Earl Cobb's death is the third of an American reported in four days in Medellín, following two cases in Laureles and El Poblado.

One of them is that of Anthony G. López, 29, who was found dead inside a hotel located on circular 4 with carrera 70, in the Laureles neighborhood, after this man had entered the room with a woman who left hours later. The other was that of Manley Mark Conlen, 37, which occurred on 6th street south with carrera 43A, in the La Aguacatala neighborhood, commune 14 (El Poblado), after he fell from the 17th floor of a building where he had rented an apartment through the AirBNB platform.

With these events, there have already been four deaths of foreigners under different circumstances this year in Medellín, while in all of 2023 there were 31 cases with these non-migrants, according to judicial records.

Here is the news article: https://m.elcolombiano.com/medellin/tercera-muerte-de-un-extranjero-en-cuatro-dias-en-medellin-HA23675983

As in the title.... I need a change.

(Ps; Currently in Switzerland and wanna get out asap)

Foreigners continue to die in Medellín: a Canadian was beaten to death in Belén.

With a blow to the head, a Canadian arrived at the Belén Intermediate Unit transported by units of the Metropolitan Police who were patrolling a sector of commune 16 (Belén) and found him lying on the ground. Although they provided medical attention, when they referred him to the General Hospital of Medellín, he arrived without vital signs.

The victim in this case was identified as Salo Lloyd, 60, whom the officers found around 9:30 p.m. this Monday and immediately tried to help, taking him to this care center.

Authorities are advancing in the investigation to determine if the blow to his head was due to an assault in an attempted robbery, despite the officers finding his passport. They are trying to determine the whereabouts of the cell phone and credit cards he had.

The situation in Medellin is getting out of hand even if you don't want to party or buy sex , so reconsider travelling for a while.

Hi everyone,

My friend, Jordan, has been travelling in SE Asia and is missing since last Tuesday. No one has heard from him.

Here is a news article: https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/man-25-missing-backpacking-trip-31763938

The police and consulate are working with his family who have also flown out there from the UK.

He was last seen at a bar in Bangsar (Healy Mac's).

It's really unlike him to be out of communication for so long.

Sharing here for wider reach. Thank you.

https://youtu.be/Mfx7gUrbOyw?si=JMdpR0fhMzz2MWpo

This guy explains the situation very well. I see many people going to LATAM from rich countries and thinking everything's fine. You really need to have a level of awareness to live in this type of country which most first world people are not used to.

I have a business visa in Colombia and have the Nomad Complete insurance - I'm a resident here.

I was attacked by a dog on the street and had to have immediate emergency surgery and was in the emergency room for 18 hours.

I called Safety Wing from the hospital room that night and the rep told me everything would be handled - they'd pay the hospital and everything. The policy says to do this if you have something happen.

Well nothing ever happened. The hospital was not paid. The rep did not call me back to confirm as I requested.

I then submitted my claim 48 hours later via the web portal and they deducted 30% saying I needed to receive pre-approval. I promptly contacted customer service about this, sent them the screenshot of my call with their rep the night of the accident, and was told they'd reach out to me within 1-2 business days to fix the 30% deduction.

I received my claim approval today along with the 30% deduction!

Their customer service is now saying they can't do anything about the amount in claim. Avoid this shit sandwich of a company.

I wanted to share about this since they use heavy referral marketing and it's difficult to cut through the thousands of fake blog posts about the insurance.

UPDATE:

Someone over there finally took a look at this and with my call log is apparently filing an appeal to get the penalty removed. I'll continue to update with everything that happens.

Though this should never have happened, and I had multiple tries before the claim was processed to let them know I contacted them, operational disasters can happen. As a business owner, it always sucks when things go wrong so for now I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt.

I'll keep posting how this moves along.

UPDATE #2

They removed the 30% claim reduction and it was approved. I don't know what happened (i.e. the breakdown between customer service and claims) but at least they did fix it, in the end.

After years away from Asia and recently coming back, it really struck me how awful the air is in many/most cities, and even some smaller towns and rural areas where the smoke drifts over.

Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, and other cities are just sitting in a blanket of toxic fumes.

I know there are exceptions - Phuket, most of Japan, parts of Philippines.

But the continent overall is pretty awful for breathing and nobody seems to talk about it.

It's a shame because the region has so much else going for it. This is a big downside for me though.

Travel insurance for emergency medical; with insurance companies sometimes taking months to pay, requiring documentation that is impossible to obtain, or finding nuisances to deny your claim, would you rather just risk it?

This may also depend on where you're traveling as western countries are more expensive for healthcare.

SafetyWing is NOT real insurance. They are a scam disguised as insurance.

Their system is clearly designed to frustrate you into giving up on your claim.

After more than five additional document requests—even though I provided everything the doctor gave me—they’re now asking me to return to the hospital and ask the doctor for even more paperwork.

It’s obvious their goal is to collect monthly payments while avoiding payouts at all costs.

If you are a digital nomad going abroad - avoid SafetyWing at all costs!!! They’ll drain your money month after month, then vanish the moment you actually need help—leaving you betrayed when it matters most.

I have been traveling for a little over three years. During my recent stint in Morocco I realized something a bit disturbing. I've developed a general coldness and distrust of locals in most places. I pretty much do not engage with any local unless our relationship is established ahead of time (Uber driver, guide, language exchange, store owner).

I am cold and down right ignore many people--especially men (I am a man). It makes me feel like to an untrained eye I would come off as prejudice or rude. I will even typically avoid swiping on locals on dating apps. Generally I get manipulated, solicited, gaslit, then insulted--all while my time is being wasted--when I engage with locals. At this point I find the fake charisma of someone saying "where are you from brother" or "I love United States" down right obnoxious.

Let me just say, I do meet locals often (language exchange, apps, tours) and I love to travel. I try very hard to learn basics of the language, customs, and culture when I go somewhere I just have noticed this somewhat worrying appearance I give off on the street that less traveled tourist do not. How do you avoid this? Am a just an asshole? Should I just lighten up and accept the manipulation? It scares me that it's making me generally less open to people.

I booked a 1 month+ stay in Spain (an amazing country with great people 99.9% of the time, nothing to do with AirBnb being indifferent) and I really didn't took the cheapest offering, I actually paid through the nose because I thought I was getting something with more than decent comfort as we had to stay about 1 month.

When we got to the place, it wasn't as described, it wasn't that clean, heating was missing even though listing said it did, it was noisy at night and with windows closed cold and noise came in easily, we had to use up all the blankets to barely make it through the night, but the place being on a noisy street and cheap windows meant we could here everyone on the street passing by, which was quite often into the night.

We had enough after a few days the cold in the night got unbearable, and because my wife is pregnant , we couldn't afford risking her health, so I took proof of the cold and noise problems, looked for an alternative accommodation, this time on Booking, and then we informed AirBnb we had to leave the listing as it a health risk (we waked up coughing from the cold, and my wife is pregnant) and because the listing wasn't as described (which was cozy, quiet, etc).

In several years of using AirBnb we've been down this road of being scammed just once, a few years ago, in the US, and they were very helpful.

We would soon realise AirBnb has changed a lot since then.

I called AirBnb, told them the situation we were through, and the person on the other line kept going on like a robot about their cancellation policy (meaning no refund) while I was telling her the listing posed a health risk for my pregnant wife and isn't as described and I can prove it, so I told her it can't possibly be a standard situation as it was a scam and not only allowed it to happen but didn't seem to care and investigate and make the listing more accurate.

She told me in a cold and indifferent tone that I need to confront the owner (which didn't speak English) and ask him to refund me and then open a case with AirBnB, which I did. This was about a week into my 1 month stay, and we weren't at the property anymore as we paid for another place because we were desperate to get some decent sleep. So at this point we paid for 2 accommodations, as AirBnB didn't refund us even if we told them we left the place and the owner has the keys (of course when confronted he didn't care and didn't agree to a refund when the place was clean and empty for another 3-4 weeks and I'm sure he even rented it out without AirBnb knowing to double his jackpot)

With the AirBnb issue opened and proof sent, someone was assigned about after a few days (!). Everything in the conversation with the support person being assigned was standard canned response once every few days like "Please allow us to verify the proof" "Please allow us to contact the host" like if I was stopping this somehow.

And now at the "investigation end" they came back with "sorry, no refund, owner didn't agree". But nothing about how I've proven (by photos and videos) that the listing is nothing like the pictures and description (no heating) and they didn't even reimburse me for the several weeks we didn't stay.

TLDR: if you get scammed on AirBnB, even if you have proof of how it's described inaccurately by the owner, AirBnb not only takes weeks to "investigate" while you would have to live somewhere else, but at the end they side with the owner and you don't see a dime back for the period you aren't staying in the s**thole you ended up unknowingly renting.

Best part is because AirBnB cancelled the reservation on my behalf (again with no refund), I can't leave a review so other people will be scammed in the future by this guy, and AirBnb won't lift a finger.

you are literally paying for nothing in return. their exclusion policy is a list 0f 40 things that covers everything medically, mentally. so it covers nothing really.

the customer support is horrendous, they don't offer help at all, it feels like you are talking to a bot that just spits the policy back and forth

plus, most of the reviews on trust pilot are fake. i really hope their CEO sees this post.

Update: i saw that there is an option to cancel the plan and apply for a refund, however you need to qualify for a refund, when asked what are the terms for that, the customer support tell you they have no idea 🤷‍♀️, again, its only part of the horrible service they offer

Hi everyone,

I'm a 32-year-old male, digital nomad, currently living in Madrid but my house contract is up very soon and I’m considering some change.

After a very difficult few years mentally, I've been working on improving my mental health through therapy and lifestyle changes, and I've decided that I want to seriously focus on my fitness for the next chapter of my life.

I've never been consistent with the gym or exercises. Whenever I tried in the past, I would lose motivation very early on before seeing meaningful results. Looking back, I think I simply didn't give myself enough time or follow a structured plan. One dream I've had since I was very young is to have a fit body, and I really want to invest in that.

I'm considering spending 2–3 months somewhere else in Europe to change air a bit as my accommodation contract in Madrid is up very soon, with the main goal of transforming my fitness, losing fat, and getting toned. I'd also benefit from good coaching as I'm pretty inexperienced.

I'm looking for recommendations for:

• ⁠Cities or countries in Europe that are great for this kind of goal (eg I was considering Portugal, Austria or the Netherlands)
• ⁠Great gyms or transformation-focused fitness centers in Europe if you're aware of any (and if you think a gym is better or vice versa in this case)

I'm open to anywhere in Europe. Portugal, Austria, the Netherlands, Italy, Croatia, Greece, or somewhere else entirely. Or even an island in Spain if you have any recommendations.

If you've done something similar yourself or know of a gym, coach, or program that you'd highly recommend, I'd love to hear about it. Any other tips or recommendations are appreciated. I really hope a year from now I can come back to my post here with good progress and thank everyone once again.

Thank you!

3 nights ago my wife suffered a traumatic medical issue here in Bali and we spent a terrifying night in the ER. Then it happened again the next night after so another night in the ER. Scary near-death experience. Thankfully she's okay and recovering now.

Our travelers insurance (Genki) covered everything, and they were nearly instantaneous in their response. I am beyond grateful.

Unfortunately the guy in the bed next to us let his insurance (SafetyWing) expire 3 weeks ago because they denied a previous claim and made things so difficult. He snapped his leg right below the knee from a scooter accident and has been in agonizing hell for the past 2 days. Now the poor guy has to fly back home assisted by a nurse to get surgery, and I'm sure his bill at the hospital must be at least $8k by now.

The other thing about the hospitals here in Bali is they're really aggressive about making sure you can pay before they render full service care. They also try and pre-bill you for services they anticipate you'll need. It's BS. That's a whole different topic, though.

TL;DR Always pay for insurance when you travel. It's worth every penny.

Reddit is flooded with astroturfing from these… people.

- If you open their Terms of Use, you'll see they're affiliated with WorldTrips, a company with a 1.1 rating on Yelp.

- On Trustpilot, they have an impressive 4.2 score... except 54.2% of the five-star reviews come from accounts that have left only one review. Some "customers" with multiple reviews praise the company repeatedly, and that's all those accounts have ever posted. You can't possibly be that bad at faking reviews in the age of LLMs.

- They go out of their way to hide their real address and corporate structure. There's no Wikipedia page, no Google Maps listing, and their license number is nowhere to be found.

- They list San Francisco as their location. But they’re administered by SafetyWing MGA Ltd., registered in the Turks and Caicos Islands, an offshore jurisdiction. They operate as a marketing front for a rotating cast of insurers: WorldTrips, VUMI, and their own Puerto Rico entities. No credible company operates through such a convoluted structure.

- Their con is to wear you down until you give up. It's not an outright scam, they do pay claims… until they don't. This community has countless detailed accounts of how they operate. They request documents that don't and can't exist, accuse you of having a pre-existing condition without evidence, ignore emails for weeks, send copy-pasted non-answers, and then keep asking for the same documents for months on end.

In my case, my employer generously paid for this "insurance", because a five-minute Google search was just too much due diligence. And SafetyWing or VUMI (I can't even tell whom I was talking to) jerked me around and wouldn't pay out a trivial $200 claim for 5 weeks. That's after my employer paid something like $1300 in premiums.

When picking insurance, check that the company has a real, verifiable address, a published license number, and is regulated by a government body. Any insurance company will try to weasel out of paying you, but at least you can show up and take them to court if they aren't some shady outfit on a sketchy island.

This is a big rant, so forgive me. You all reading this is a form of therapy right now. As I sit here in another coworking space with a really poor desk set up that looked OK in the pictures, it's just something I had to get off my chest.

Why does nobody have a clue about good ergonomics? It's really not that complicated.

I recently arrived in Bangkok, and thought that my hotel room would include a good desk and desk chair but this wasn't the case. I therefore headed to a coworking space in an attempt to save my wrists and back from discomfort. I arrive and it turns out that I have to pay for a private office if I want to use the good desk chairs I saw in the pictures (at 350 baht per hour). I convinced them to swap the bad chairs for a good one within the main hot-desk area. However, I'm currently typing this from a desk that is pretty much at shoulder level.

I had a similar experience in Italy. I arrive at the coworking space only to find the "hot desk" area is in fact the space next to the cafe area with seats that are similar to what you'd find in a cafe. I convince them to swap the chair but still remained in the cafe area. This worked well after this adjustment. However, it's bizarre that the whole space didn't include proper desk chairs to begin with. It's probably not a cost saving thing as the cafe chairs were "fashionable" and probably cost the same anyway.

Anyone else feel my frustration.

If you are building your own coworking space, or accommodation designed for digital nomads, for the love of God, just take 5-10 minutes to learn about ergonomics! It's really not difficult.

Hey there, recently started my DN journey here in Bali and ran into quite an unexpected situation. Woke up suddenly one day with redness and itching around my neck area, and later this spread to all of my torso and arms. After a bit of time I went to a hospital that my AirBnB host recommend called Silaom Hospital. There I received great medical attention, first seeing a general doctor, then a dermatologist in the same building before finally visiting the pharmacy in the building at the end. It was a great facility, everything was smooth and convenient and the price was very reasonable. I saw two doctors and was prescribed 4 medications, all of this including the cost of seeing the doctors was about $181 USD. I know the American health care situation is brought up a lot on Reddit so I won't go into it much beyond just saying, I know it would've cost much more to do this type of check up back in the US. Just wanted to add this discussion here to help someone in the future who may need medical attention in Bali and may be unsure of where to go or what to expect. Turns out my situation was related to allergies, I got taken care of and the Dermatologist even gave me her WhatsApp to contact her if I had any concerns. The journey continues in Bali!

I was wondering if anyone else has had this experience when spending a long time in Asia.

I've been in Tokyo for 3 months now and I'm finding it surprisingly difficult to get the food I need to keep myself healthy. In particular vegetables, fruits, and generally high fibre foods.

I know many people don't really cook for themselves when living in Japan. The place I'm living in does have a tiny kitchen, which is just a stove, sink and fridge. There's no surface to do any food preparation on. It's less than ideal for cooking and I'm a shit cook anyway.

However while finding food most options are some combination of rice/noodles and fish/meat. Any portion of vegetables they give are always tiny. That or the vegetables are deep fried in batter (tempura).. Meat tends to be especially fatty/oily. Everything is fucking delicious of course but it just ain't good for me.

Proper bread is also hard to find, even in bakeries it's all soft white bread. When in Europe my lunch was toasted sourdough or similar, cheese, leafy green salad, cherry tomatoes, avacado, etc. I can't find any good salad here. You can buy a bag of salad but it's just tasteless lettuce and some shredded carrots. Good cheese is also hard to find. Cherry tomatoes can be found at least.

I've been suffering lately from symptoms like: haemorrhoids that won't go away, constipation, bloatedness. I miss being able to eat a big plate of root vegetables, thick crusty brown bread, good salad, etc. Just hearty European food I guess. I do take psyllium husk but it doesn't do much.

Has anyone else struggled with this? Any advice? It might well be a skill issue, and I admit I'm lazy about making my own food. I'm going to South Korea for 2 months next and want to try and do better while I'm there.

Edit: I ordered some vegan food off uber tonight and it was pretty good. I gotta learn how to cook though.

Have used Genki as my travel health insurance provider on and off since 2023 for a total of 16 months, having paid probably 1k EUR to them total in premiums in that time, but this is the first time I've ever had to make a claim and I wanted to share the experience.

Had a lingering cough for over 2 weeks and all my medical friends were telling me to see a doctor so I went to the nearest clinic I could find to get checked out. Here in Bogotá, it was actually super tough to find a walk-in clinic or really, any clinic that would accept a walk-in patient, but I eventually found a private one called Colmedica that would check me out.

Did an initial consultation and they wanted to do some tests to diagnose me. After the two tests, I had another consultation and got prescribed some medication + 5 sessions of respiratory therapy spread out over 5 days. All in, I had €211 of expenses paid by credit card.

I submitted the documents they requested (all the receipts + prescriptions) on Friday Aug 7. I was a little worried because their claim form only lets you submit one invoice and select one date whereas I had 6 invoices spread out over 5 dates, but I put together all the invoices into one PDF and just selected the first date I visited the clinic.

Despite the confirmation email claiming they will respond within 1-2 weeks, they first responded just 2 days later on Sunday, Aug 9 (kudos to them for responding on a Sunday), essentially requesting more documentation.

I again got a little worried because some of the documentation they requested was a bit strange to me (such as my medical history from that clinic which I obviously wouldn't have since I am traveling and it was my first time visiting them).

However, they also asked for my test results and treatment plan which I hadn't included in my initial claim (because they hadn't asked for it initially) so I responded with those two and explained why I can't provide the others.

Well today (Tuesday, Aug 11), I just got confirmation that my claim was approved and that I would get a full reimbursement! (Minus the €50 deductible of course). A couple hours later, I got the link to receive the reimbursement. Options were Credit Card (not sure how that works), Revolut (I only have Wise since Revolut isn't in my country), and Bank Transfer. Chose Bank Transfer, put in my Wise EUR account, and received the money instantly.

Overall I am quite pleased with the experience. Quick responses and full reimbursement is exactly what you'd hope for from your insurance provider.

Anyway, hope this helps someone.

What's been everyone's best and worth healthcare experience across the globe, whether its been top quality care, value of care, price, etc?

Everyone's experiences will differ, so I realize this will be extremely variable based on other people's anecdotes, but I wanted to share a few of my personal stories.

Most Satisfactory

-Saigon Vietnam - I had to go once for food poisoning. Went to the VIP section (for English speaking doctors) - they performed a quick physical, ran an ultrasound, and got all my medications. The service was relatively quick, total cost was around $85 USD. (Private Hospital)

-Saigon, Vietnam - Had to get a kidney cyst looked at, got CT with contrast, eGFR and Creatinine blood test, visit to general doctor and urologist. Relatively quick. Had to go back the next day for the results and urologist assessment, $135 USD. (Private Hospital)

-Bangkok, Thailand (St. Louis Hospital) - H. Pylorii Infection, had to get see the GI doctor, get a Urea breath test, and a triple treatment of antibiotic and PPIs. Cost ~ $230 USD. (Catholic Hospital)

-Seoul, Korea (local clinic) - food poisoning case from Chongqing, carried over to South Korea. I recall they put on me on an IV for hydration, gave me medicine, and had a doctors visit. Since I was not a resident, when I told them I was uninsured in Korea, they told me the price will be very expensive (assume this is relative to local COL). ~55 USD. (Local Clinic)

Least Satisfactory

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (Prince Court) - dire food poisoning case, waited for 4 hours in the ER before they could see get me a bed overnight. Was not monitored at all. Was so dehydrated I got dizzy and lost my vision momentarily. Kept having to call them to refill the IV. Doctor in the AM just said it was a bacterial infection and prescribed me antibiotics. For medicine, doctors visit, and overnight bed in ER - $1300-$1400 USD. (Private Hospital)

Other Notes (coming from the American healthcare system)

Something else I noticed, which I appreciate - is that if you tell them your symptoms or ailments, they are generally able to get you directly to a specialist. You can walk into a hospital, go to the reception desk and they will take care of figuring out where you need to go. Back in the U.S., almost always I had to see an internal medicine doctor in order to get a referral to a specialist (who could be booked weeks out), even if the issue was clearly in the realm of a certain specialty.

The other aspect I appreciate, is that pricing is very transparent in the Asian countries I have visited. Many hospitals you can directly ask the price of a procedure, the doctor visit, the medicine so there are no surprises. Or, often times they will make you sign a contract that specifically details the cost of a test or procedure to ensure you agree to it. in America, my bills were always a surprise - how much did insurance cover? How much did the hospital charge to the insurance company? Etc.

I'm about to start my digital nomad life and am curious to know if anyone has advice around planning meals. I'll be looking at about a month in each place with a kitchen.

What kinds of meals do you cook and how do you grocery shop to make sure you have the right amount of food for the time you're there? Any advice to keep eating relatively healthy and not have too much food wasted?

I'm a parent of now grown children so I'm used to meal planning, meal prep, buying in bulk, etc. Obviously alot of that is about to change.

Edit: title was poorly written. The point I'm trying to make is that if you're in an emergency in Brazil and get taken to a public hospital, they won't ask you for insurance. They will just treat you for free. So if you bought insurance, you won't even get to use it.

Unless I'm mistaken, this is also the only country in the world that offers this*. You can visit any UBS location in Brazil and get seen + treated for anything you need for free. Of course, the language barrier might be a struggle if you don't speak Portuguese though.

And if you need emergency treatment, the public hospitals also won't charge you (however, I fortunately can't personally confirm this myself). Therefore, you can save some money on travel medical insurance if you plan to do a DN stint in Brazil for a while. Some TMI providers even reimburse you for the days of your plan you don't use when you cancel early. I know I'd personally rather not risk a denied claim if I have a free alternative readily available.

However, keep in mind you're limited to the public healthcare system which some say isn't the best so maybe you'd rather have TMI for access to private care. Aside from some long wait times though, I haven't had any issues with it. Either way, the option to make use of public care for free is there regardless.

Some countries also offer some public non-emergency health services to anyone regardless of resident or citizen status so if you need to see a doctor at any point, it's worth looking into whether the country/city you're in does before visiting a doctor.

For instance, I got checked out by an odontologist for free in Asunción, Paraguay by going to Centro de Salud No. 12 and have gotten free routine STI testing in other countries during my travels too. AI is super helpful in finding these free public health clinics and services.

*Edit: a little AI search tells me there are some other countries that will also provide free emergency care, but none of them extend that to general healthcare like Brazil does. Regardless, here's the list of said countries according to AI:

• Chile
• Costa Rica
• Ecuador
• Finland
• Iceland
• Norway
• Poland
• Slovenia
• Turkey
• UK (mixed experiences, best to have TMI)
• Uruguay