Month: August 2016

We made a day trip to Washington, DC last week to apply for our visas at the French Embassy. We flew from Buffalo into a lovely sunrise…and into BWI in less than an hour.

We both got long-stay visas, but only for 5 months, rather than the year we had requested.  The glitch was that the health insurance we had purchased was only effective through February 2017 and the requirement is that you present acceptable health insurance that is in effect for the entire duration of your visa.

We’re looking at this as a speed bump and not a road block.  We were already planning to come back to the US for a visit in late February anyway.  And, after that, there are plenty of places that we can go, including France, using the automatic 90 day visa that US passport holders get in most European countries.

In the interest of helping others to do this more smoothly, I will say that I knew this requirement but that I had great difficulty finding affordable health insurance that met the visa requirements AND that lasted more than 6 months.  However, at the Embassy I picked up a clearer description of the health insurance requirement (why can’t they put this on their website?!) and have now found two companies that offer longer term policies that don’t break the bank.  They are TravelSafe/Seven Corners and IMG (International Medical Group).  When we reapply, we’ll be better prepared.

One additional thought about health insurance.  We intend to keep both our Medicare and Medigap policies here in the US.  We’re both ridiculously healthy and don’t really intend to seek health care overseas.  The only provision of the required expat insurance that we see as useful is that it pays for evacuation to  your home country if you are really ill. That would put us back here with our US coverage if necessary.

I was reading an interview with the novelist Russell Banks in the Wall Street Journal last week in which he distinguished between a traveler “…tends to be running away from something” and a voyager “…tends to be running toward something.”  I believe that we are, finally, voyagers, with nothing to run away from and everything to run toward.

Banks also had a wonderful definition of the perfect traveling companion, “optimistic, energetic, not easily discouraged, not inclined to depression (and yet not naive or sentimental either), skeptical and up for anything.” As I talk to friends and acquaintances about our upcoming adventure, I have become very aware of how lucky we both are to have found in each other the ideal traveling companions!

Our time after Paris (post 10/23) is beginning to take shape.  We think we’ll head south toward Chinon, in the Loire Valley, for a couple of days, then to the Moulin du Roc near Brantôme for a romantic dinner and overnight, and on to St Emilion for a few days.  We are planning for our next long stop to be in the Languedoc, north of Spain near the Mediterranean.  With help from a friend of Ray & Tori’s who lives there, we expect to spend November exploring the entire area, probably from a base in Narbonne.