The hidden costs of exotic travel

As we prepare for our journey to Sri Lanka, we are slowly ticking off all the necessities for a journey to a country far away and with a different culture. We made the first priority travel insurance to cover our trip. That was straightforward, simply upgrading our European annual policy to cover the rest of the world excluding USA, Canada and Mexico. That was surprisingly cheap as an upgrade (Thank you Saga!) and so we were happy to pay the additional fee, particularly considering the advanced years of one of the party!

Then came the visas to gain entry to the country. Again, this was not too bad: around £50 per person. Having this in place before travelling means there is no waiting around at the airport while your application is processed.

Finally, it was important to get the required vaccinations as we are about to venture into tea plantations, onto mangrove rivers and into uncharted territory (well, for us anyway). This was the shock. Although many of our vaccinations were still valid, others required boosters or completely new jabs. And so, Japanese Encephalitis, Rabies, Diphtheria all needed to be done, each of which had at least two jabs at separate times. Then came the cost, since your local doctors no longer provide holiday vaccinations, it’s a private prescription for each of them and, for the two of us, this ran to about £800!

Now one could say, “I’ll chance it,” but rabies is usually fatal for unvaccinated patients and the other diseases will do more than mess up your holiday. Moreover, the vaccines have a length of life that means you can benefit from them for future trips, so the cost gets spread. It’s worth consulting with your pharmacist to check what needs renewing each time you are about to head off. And, importantly, make sure you leave enough time for the course of jabs because ours took around four weeks to complete. You’re not protected by a partial course.

And just as an additional note, being who I am, there’s always a last minute emergency. This year’s was me breaking a tooth on Christmas Eve, biting on a cherry stone, directly after my daughter in law said, “They still have the stones in.” A quick trip to an emergency dentist before we fly then.