There are so many little things that you don’t necessarily think about when you start planning this kind of trip. The main costs we’ve come across (please feel free to comment at the bottom of this page if you can think of anything else and we’ll try and include it!) so far are:
- Flights
- Visas
- Vaccines
Flights. There are many options for getting around the world, so it’s important that you decide what’s going to be best for you. Due to the extent and the complexity of our trip, we decided it was best for us to buy individual flights and add them together to turn them into a round the world trip. We’re planning on doing a lot of overland travel, as travelling from country to country is all part of our travel experience. So for a ’round the world trip’ we actually have very few flights booked.
Visas. Yes you know that you’ll have to get some visas, but do you realise how many? How much they actually cost? And how much extra it costs to get them posted or the cost and time it takes to keep tripping to London just to get things sorted?!
www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice is a really good place to start looking for visa requirements in different countries, just select the country and it gives you information on entry requirements, local laws and customs and security issues.
The visas we’ve had to get in advance for our trip:
- Australian Working Holiday visa
- Sri Lanka
- India
- China
- Vietnam
- Nepal
There are a load more visas that we’ll be getting along the way which are just visa on arrival so they’re a lot easier to get but we’ll till be paying out £20 here and there – it all adds up and ideally needs to be budgeted for so you don’t get any nasty surprises along the way.
Vaccines: Obviously, the number of vaccines you need is very dependent on where you’re going and what you’ve previously had. It’s only the yellow fever vaccine that’s absolutely necessary to get into certain countries (mainly in South America) but we’re definitely in the camp of ‘better safe than sorry’ so we’ve had as much as we could which had certainly added up. Some vaccines are available on the NHS but a lot of them are only available privately and the charge is per dose with some needing 3 doses! The NHS website www.fitfortravel.nhs.uk is a great starting point for learning what vaccinations you may need depending on where you’re travelling to.
We both had already had plenty of vaccines over the course of our lives so some of what we had were just boosters but these are the vaccines we’ve had for this trip:
- Yellow Fever
- Japanese Encephalitis
- Tick borne Encephalitis
- Rabies
- Cholera
- Hepatitis B
- Meningitis ACWY
Malaria tablets: This is a very personal thing and you just need to see what works out best for you. As we’re planning on visiting a lot of places where there is a risk of malaria over a long period of time, cost was the main priority for us so we went for Doxycycline (we needed a private prescription but then bought them from Boots – available from most pharmacies (just check the prices) just be aware that you shouldn’t take any iron supplements with these tablets so the multivitamins are out! Malaria tablets are also available en-route but again, we’replaying better safe than sorry so although it may be costing us more, we’d rather start off with ones that we bought in the UK so we know exactly what they are and that they’re the correct strength.
NOTE: Malaria tablets are a very personal preference – talk to your GP or travel nurse!