HERE COMES THE SUN•.•

AS WE HEAD TOWARD THE FAINT GLIMMER OF LIGHT AT THE END OF THE CORONACOASTER TUNNEL, THE THOUGHTS OF MANY BIKERS’LL TURN TO THE PROSPECTS OF ONCE AGAIN RIDING THROUGH MILE AFTER MILE OF SUNBAKED SCENERY.

Generally speaking, this means travelling abroad because, while Britain has some of the world’s most beautiful scenery to offer, it’s rarely ‘sun-baked’ long enough to get you through much of it before you have to stop to dig out your waterproofs! I’ve been asked by a number of people recently, how do they stand for medical cover while travelling in Europe, now that the UK’s no longer a member of the European Union?

Fortunately, the UK and the EU’ve reached a formal agreement on health care, so existing UK-issued European Health Insurance Cards (EHICs) are still valid in the EU. If your EHIC’s expired, or you’ve never had one, you should apply for a Global Health Insurance Card (GHIC), which is an updated version of the same thing that covers more countries. Be warned though – if you go looking online for how to apply for a GHIC, you’ll undoubtedly come across some sites that seem legitimate but they’ll charge you for making the application. Do not use any of these sites! All they do is charge you for taking you to an application that’s actually free. If you’re not too savvy with the vagaries of internet searching, here’s a link to help you: www.ghic.org.uk/Internet/startApplication. do This’ll take you to the official government website to apply for your FREE UK GHIC – don’t be conned into paying for something you’re entitled to have for free! The GHIC (or EHIC) entitles you to free, or greatly reduced cost, healthcare where treatment becomes medically necessary while you’re visiting the EU. Be aware however, though the GHIC (or EHIC)’ll cover the cost of emergency treatment if you fall ill or get injured in the EU, it doesn’t cover you for medical repatriation so you could have a long stay in a hospital abroad until you’re fit enough to travel on a standard flight or ferry crossing. I strongly recommend that, whatever type of holiday you’re planning, you take out a comprehensive travel insurance package rather than rely solely on the GHIC.

A good travel insurance policy should cover you for medical repatriation back to a UK hospital (once your condition’s been stabilised) by medical flight, and it should also cover you for the replacement of any costs you incur for medical issues, as well as against the loss or theft of cash, passports, cameras, etc. It’s always worth having and, if you shop around, it’s usually surprisingly cheap.

Some people might think that they’ll not qualify for travel insurance because they suffer from pre-existing medical problems, but this is rarely the case. In 2019 I was looking at travel insurance for my wife, Mandy, and myself, and the first couple of policies I looked at wouldn’t cover me for medical issues arising from any of my pre-existing health conditions.

However, after a quick search on www. moneysavingexpert.com (a most excellent consumer protection site) I found all the information I needed, and we took out a 12-month policy with LV that covered us anywhere in the world for about £90.

Back in those wonderful halcyon days when we used to run the BSH ‘Run to the Sun’, we had a case one year where one of the guys travelling with us fell very gravely ill while at Faro but, thankfully, he was covered by his EHIC, and the medical staff at Faro Hospital saved his life. Sadly, he hadn’t bothered to take out any travel insurance so he was there for more than three months and, as I understand it, members of his family went out to visit him there several times at undoubtedly great expense. If he’d invested just £25 on travel insurance for the trip, he would’ve been flown back to the UK on a medi-flight, and been in a hospital near his home withing two weeks of falling ill.

If you don’t have any serious preexisting conditions, and you can’t be bothered shopping around, the Post Office offer very good travel insurance at a reasonable cost.

Another piece of advice I can offer from experience is don’t rely on satnav systems if you’re contemplating a motorcycling holiday anywhere! While the technology’s pretty amazing, and you may’ve never been let down by it before, it only takes one signal blackspot to really ruin your day! And that is not the only issue – misspelling your destination can leave you totally lost, and postcodes in some European countries can also leave a lot to be desired. (Particularly in rural France, and on Portuguese mountains, in my experience!) Do yourself a big favour when planning your trip – download, then print off a decent-sized local map for each day of your trip, and use a highlighter pen to mark each day’s proposed route. You can bolster this by also using one of the route-planner sites on the internet to download and print off a step-by-step written route. Just remember to put the maps and directions in a waterproof folder, and don’t bury them at the bottom of your luggage!

Also, if you’re going to be travelling with a group of friends, make sure they each have copies just in case you get split up, or so you can share them if one of the group leaves their copies on the kitchen table as they leave home (as a friend of ours did when a group of us went on a touring trip across Spain and France).

A little bit of pre-planning can be worth its weight in gold on a touring holiday!