We have a whole ton of travel tips here.

Travel vaccinations. What’s the deal? Do you need them? Should you get them? Are they expensive? I get these questions pretty often. The short answer for all is, it depends.

You should always be up on your routine vaccinations. There is no debate about that. As for travel vaccinations, it really depends on where you’re going, how long you’re staying, and what you’ll be doing. Never let the decision come down to cost. Why? If you end up getting whatever you could have prevented, it’s going to cost a hellofva lot more. AND some of these vaccines are good for life. One shot, one cost, peace of mind.

If you do need to get vaccinated, make sure you start the process ASAP (more on this below). You would be surprised how hard it is to track down some of these vaccines. When I was traveling to Ghana, a country where the Yellow Fever* vaccine is required, I called at least a dozen places in the U.S. to no avail. I live near a major city and was pretty shocked that this was the case. I ended up getting the vaccine while I was on a different trip to Sydney, Australia instead, literally just in time for my trip. I know my own tendencies to scroll through a blog post and because this information is muy importante, I’m going to give you a bullet list plan of action when it comes to making this possibly life altering decision.

Do I need vaccines to travel to                      ?

1. Visit the the Center for Disease Control (CDC) website for your country and find the country you’re traveling to. Here you’ll see if any vaccines are required or recommended.
2. If vaccines are required, do not wait. Call your doctor, clinic, or travel clinic today to make an appointment. Don’t be surprised if the vaccine isn’t immediately available.
3. DO NOT WAIT. Some vaccines are required to be given anywhere from 2 weeks to 2 months before you arrive in the country.
4. If vaccines are recommended you could do a few things: 1) call your doctor or a travel health specialist and make an appointment to discuss the recommended vaccines or 2) do a little more research.
5. Whichever choice you end up making, it’s best to talk it out with a professional, a seasoned traveler, and a rational loved one. I say rational because your mom might be a worrier, in which case, why bother her? She has already created enough terrible fantasies about your demise. Be firm in your decision, if you’re wavering at all, just get the vaccines.

What vaccines are likely recommended?

• Typhoid and paratyphoid fever is contracted by drinking or eating the bacteria in contaminated food or water, which honestly means someone who prepared or touched your food had a little bit of infect feces on their hands. Eeeek.

• Hepatitis A is contracted through food or water that’s been contaminated with the stool of someone with the virus. Think fruit vendor goes poop and then sells you some papaya. Sorry. You can also get infected via the contaminated water touching any other food or surface that will go in your mouth. Ice could be contaminated even raw shellfish. Oh and sex.

• Hepatitis B is spread when people come in contact with the blood, open sores, or bodily fluids of someone who has the hep B virus. Think sex, but also think extreme activities, foreign hospital stays, motorbike accidents, who knows.

• Meningococcal disease isn’t spread as easily as the flu or common cold virus, but you can get it simply by sharing the same air. All it takes is one cough in the face (just kidding it takes a 12 hour plane ride worth of coughing, but still). Making out isn’t safe either, sharing respiratory and throat secretions aka saliva or spit, leads to infection.

• Yellow Fever is spread through mothafuckin’ mosquitoes. Ugh.

• Rabies is spread through the saliva of an infected animal. From what I’ve heard and read, it’s pretty obvious if an animal has rabies, however, if you’re in a foreign country and a stray or a wild animal bites you, you must immediately GO GET THE SHOTS. Don’t even play.

• Japanese Encephalitis is also spread through mothafuckin’ mosquitoes. Ugh x two.

If vaccines are recommended and not required:

• Ask yourself the following questions and you’ll better determine your risk for contracting a disease during your travels.
• Where am I traveling? Urban or rural areas? (Don’t let this fool you, sometimes your risk of disease is higher in urban areas so don’t assume city means safe.)
• What are my accommodations? Huts? Tents? or a sealed air conditioned guest house?
• Will there be running water? Are the conditions clean?
• How long am I staying?
• What season will it be? Rainy or dry? Mosquitoes or nah?
• What’s my mode of travel? Rental car? Public transit?
• What am I eating? Who is cooking it? Hotel kitchens, restaurants, street stalls?
• What are the planned activities?

Always Research Potential Risks Specific to your Destination :

Why? If you research the risks and you are familiar with the symptoms of any local viruses and diseases that are present, you will have a better chance of getting immediate treatment.  Getting ill while traveling isn’t rare. We all eat a bad egg roll or come down with altitude sickness. Because of this, it’s worth knowing what symptoms and especially what combination of symptoms are major red flags, that way you can seek help. For instance, did you get home from India two weeks ago and all of a sudden you’ve come down with a headache and fever? Not only that, but you’re confused, vomiting, and now you’re having difficulty moving? Better call 911 because your brain is swelling from Japanese Encephalitis! It seems like I’m joking, but really, a little research could be the difference between life and death.

Minimize Your Risk While Traveling :

1. Don’t become a paranoid worrywart, but do mind the things you can control.
2. Wash your hands, like twenty times per day.
3. Try to keep your hands away from your face, especially your eyes, ears, nose, and mouth.
4. Drink purified water and understand that fruit, veggies, and other foods washed in dirty water could be contaminated.
5. Wear bug spray. Sleep with a fan directed at you; this is the best protection against mosquitoes.
6. Don’t feed or pet wild animals, this includes street dogs, unless you’re prepared to get a series of rabies shots. That being said, I still pet puppers I think are nice, but I’ve witnessed seemingly nice dogs snap at people too.

Use a Travel Clinic

Are you procrastinating because you haven’t seen your doctor in over a year? Or you don’t have health insurance? Or you just don’t want to go through the insanity of our healthcare system that can sometimes require multiple appointments for seemingly simple tasks?

• Go to a travel clinic! Katie’s used Passport Health and had a really great experience.
• Travel clinics specialize in knowing the CDC information for foreign countries. They can tell you about all of the risks in the areas where you’ll be, and they can recommend the vaccines that you’ll need.
• You can get the vaccines at a single appointment.
• You pay out of pocket. They tell you the full price for the appointment and any vaccines BEFORE YOU PAY.
• The clinic may be able to take your health insurance information and send in the request for a refund to your insurer. If you are approved, they’ll send you a check.

*Katie here : Guys, the Yellow Fever Vaccine is still rather limited and can be hard to access. The reason? The company manufacturing the vaccine in the US closed their old facility while they build a new one. And guess what? No one else was making it in the US! WTF. Eventually the FDA stepped in, and now some offices have access to a limited supply of Yellow Fever vaccines that are being imported from France.