Questions about COBRA retroactive election and 1-day coverage gap

As background, we are a married couple, no kids, both late 30s, living in Massachusetts. We are currently both covered under insurance from my employer. My spouse is not employed.

I am changing jobs, and my current coverage will end 6/30/22. I am starting my new job 8/15/22, and coverage with my new employer kicks in 9/1/22.

Researching COBRA, it seems I have until 8/30/22 to elect coverage retroactively. Originally, we were going to only elect COBRA if we needed it at some time during the gap between my employers’ coverage.

However, it seems that, given the calendar we will have one day, 8/31/22, when we are not covered by my new employer, and will not have the option to retroactively elect COBRA.

Additionally, as a side note, we are planning to travel overseas in July.

Another option we explored is purchasing marketplace healthcare, which would be about 50% of COBRA premium for just the month of August.

Questions I have:

How concerned should we be about not electing COBRA coverage until it is needed during that 60-day period?

How concerned should we be about a potential 1-day period without coverage?

Does traveling to Europe without coverage (just option for COBRA retro election) sound like a bad idea?

Is it possible to buy marketplace insurance just for the month of August (not July) if we decide the coverage gap is unacceptable?

Thank you in advance to this amazing community. We are having a hard time navigating the intricacies of this, and greatly value the expert advice on here!