Why You Should Download the TravelSmart App Now Before Your Next Trip

Back in 2007, in my early travel days, I went to Washington, DC for the Global Young Leaders Conference. The conference was two weeks long, brought together a few hundred teenagers from all parts of the world, and spent one week in DC and the next week in New York City. I was extremely excited about this conference for months leading up to it.
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The conference started out splendidly, but on the fourth day, while inside the Smithsonian, I felt sick all of a sudden. I was with a group of peers and immediately called my mom, who was a few blocks away, to come get me. Something just felt off. When she got to me, we loaded into the bus quickly and within minutes I started throwing up. Maybe this is TMI, but it was not your typical vomit. It was solid black and unlike anything I’ve ever seen.
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We went to the hotel and I got in the bed. I don’t remember much else, but I threw up this black stuff all night and passed out a dozen times or so during the process. My mom knew that something was seriously wrong and took me to the hospital. I actually passed out two or three times while trying to drive my wheelchair into the hospital. When the doctors saw the condition that I was in, they immediately admitted me and ran some tests. It turned out that I was severely dehydrated and had been aspirating food as well.
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For the next two weeks, I underwent operations, was the sickest I’ve ever been, and I literally almost died. It was scary. Luckily, I got better thanks to the incredible doctors and nursing staff, but that experience showed me that you just never know when something could go wrong. We can plan for many things when traveling, but health isn’t one of them. Of course, you can do things to stay healthier, but realistically something could still go wrong on any trip.
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Ever since that fiasco in Washington, DC I’ve depended on travel insurance almost every time that I travel. While I haven’t gotten that sick during a trip since, it’s nice to know that if I do need to go to the hospital, I’ll be covered. Typically, I use Allianz Travel Insurance because they cover pre-existing medical conditions and are reasonably priced. Recently, Allianz released their upgraded app TravelSmart and I want to tell you all about it because it truly is remarkable and could be a life-saver for you. It puts my mind even more at ease during all of my trips. Here’s why you should download the new upgraded TravelSmart app before your next trip –
TravelSmart best travel app
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Access Your Policy and Claims Status

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If you have a travel Insurance policy with Allianz, which you definitely should, you can access that policy information from the app’s home screen. So if you do need to go to a hospital like I did, all of your information will be easy to access. You can also file a claim and select how you want your claim to be paid within the app. There’s no need to wait until you get back home to take care of business; just do it in a few minutes within the TravelSmart app.
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Local Emergency Numbers

 

 TravelSmart best travel app

From the home screen, you can also quickly find the emergency numbers for wherever you may be. All you have to do is turn on your geolocation services and tap on “Local Emergency Numbers”. It will then show you the local numbers for police, ambulance, and fire. You can call these numbers if you need to from the app, so if you’re in a situation and need an ambulance fast, you won’t have to waste valuable time looking up the local number and then dialing it. Everything is in one place!
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Assistance Around Me

 

 TravelSmart best travel app

This is one of the coolest features about the TravelSmart app. By tapping on “Assistance”, you can find the hospitals, pharmacies, police stations, and U.S. embassies that are closest to you, wherever you may be. The app will track your location and show the assistance around you. It shows both facilities recommended by Allianz Global Assistance and non-recommended facilities, so you’re sure to see all of the possibilities. And to actually get to where you need to go, you can see turn-by-turn directions within the app.
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Track Your Flights

 

Instead of using an airline app to track your flights plus the TravelSmart app for everything else, why not just do it all in one convenient app? In the TravelSmart app, you can search upcoming flights from any itinerary on any airline, and add them with just a few taps. The app provides on-time status and gate information for flights departing within 3 days to help you prepare for the next leg of your trip. 
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Get First Aid Terms Translated

 

Imagine for a moment that you’re in Saint Petersburg, Russia and you need to know what “feel sick” is in Russian. Well, just open up the TravelSmart app and you can find the translation within a matter of seconds. You can get 60+ first aid terms translated from English to 18 common foreign languages for easy reference if you need to communicate about your health while abroad. Also, if you need to fill an emergency prescription overseas, TravelSmart gives you the universal name for more than 750 common medications so you can be confident you’re asking for the medication you need.
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Can you see why the TravelSmart app is my new favorite traveling companion?? If I ever get in a bind while on a trip, I know that I can get any issues resolved without having to research too much beforehand. I used to look up emergency information before going on trips, but not anymore. Now I know that all I have to do is open the app and tap my iPhone screen a few times to get the help I need.
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And the best part about TravelSmart is that it’s completely free and you can download it whether you have a policy with Allianz Travel Insurance or not. So what are you waiting for? Head to the App Store or Google Play and download TravelSmart!
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*Thanks to Allianz Travel Insurance for sponsoring this post and providing travel coverage for the unexpected. Curb Free with Cory Lee received financial compensation from Allianz Global Assistance (AGA Service Company), but all opinions are our own.