See what I did with the title there? Who here saw Birdman? It was good, right? I haven’t felt that dizzy in an Emmanuel Lubezki movie since… oh wait, Gravity, which was a year ago! Ha ha! I wish Edward Norton won a best Supporting Oscar, though. I mean, JK Simmons was amazing in Whiplash, but he should’ve won in the Best Actor category. There’s nothing “supporting” about the role of Flecther, am I right!
Anyway, today I wanted to talk a little about an Unexpected Expense of Travel. By using our frequent flyer strategy we are able to travel a whole lot for very cheap. I’m talking free flights, free hotels, even free food and reduced transportation costs. Traveling is what we love to do. I love planning it and I love doing it. So I’m lucky that we can travel during all of our possible vacation time and still keep it on the frugal side.
Up until now, we’ve done a lot of touristing around the US, Canada and Europe, but this year we are starting to venture outside of those comfort zones, and with that brings a totally new set of rules. At the end of March, we are going to Peru for a week and a half. When I was booking it, I had no idea that Peru is still considered a “third world” county*. They’ve got diseases in Peru that you just can’t catch very easily in the U.S. And that means you need vaccinations!
They might look mean, but these goats won’t bite. No vaccines required in Switzerland!
Where you’re going in Peru determines which vaccinations you need. If you’re entering the country at all, the CDC recommends Hepatitis A and Typhoid vaccines. If you’re going into the jungle, they also recommend Malaria. And if you plan on having sex with strangers, they recommend Hepatitis B. Not that the CDC is recommending you have sex with strangers…
They also recommend you get a tetanus booster, which luckily I did have already after an incident where I off cut part my thumb, which sent me to the emergency room for the first time ever.
Vaccines for travel are not cheap. They’re not like regular vaccines. Since Hep A isn’t something you’re going to catch in America, insurance doesn’t cover it. You Have To Go Out Of Your Way To Catch Hep A ®. So we had to pay for these vaccines out of pocket. Luckily, Marge was very good about calling places and comparing prices to find the cheapest vaccine. I thought it would be the same everywhere! The absolute cheapest we could find, for Hep A and Typhoid vaccines, plus the office visit charge, was $219 per person, plus another $88 for the second hepatitis A shot in six months.
CDC also recommends a Hep A vaccine for Macedonia. Whoops!
Suddenly, the trip I was planning, featuring completely free flights and hotels averaging about $60 a night didn’t look so cheap! That’s over $600 in vaccines for the both of us! That’s the cost of all of the hotels for the entire trip!
But I bit the bullet and got my shots. And I’ll tell you why:
- You could get really, horribly sick without them. Do you really want to get typhoid while on the road to Machu Picchu, hours away from any city, shitting your anus inside out and ruining a perfectly fine trip? I don’t.
- It makes financial sense. The Hep A vaccine, after we get a booster in another six months, lasts 20 or 30 years! So if you take the Hep A vaccine cost of $176 and spread it out over 30 years, the cost is negligible. Less than $6 a year to travel freely and eat delicious exotic food while being safe from contracting Hepatitus A? Yes, please!
Another unexpected expense of travel? Luggage.
You would think that at this point in our lives, we would be all set with luggage. So I thought as well. But out of two international trips last year, our luggage was lost both times! Once, it was on the way home, so the pain was not felt. But the other time we were dropped off in Switzerland with no clothes. Two days later, we were about to head into the Alps and we were almost in panic mode! Stay filthy or buy insanely expensive Swiss clothes? There were no good options. But our luggage arrived just in time.
So I don’t want that to happen again during our trip to Peru. No checked luggage for me! I can easily fit a week’s worth of clothes into my awesome backpack, which was the only reason we had any clothes at all for those first few days in Switzerland. But we only have one backpack. So we need a second one so we can both have versatile, carry-on luggage that can hold enough clothes for each of us. Luckily, we will have access to laundry facilities halfway into the trip in Ollantaytambo, so we only need 5 or 6 days of outfits each.
A great travel backpack lists for about $100, but I was able to nab it for $65 thanks to a sale and judicious use of coupon codes. I don’t want to buzz market the backpack brand here, but needless to say, search around and you’ll find some. For us, it will be $65 well spent.
What’s the most exotic disease you’ve been vaccinated against? Are you a Checked Luggage Larry or a Carry On Carl?
* The definition of the “third world” is up for debate. Originally, it only referred to countries that were not allied with the US or Soviet Unions, which usually happened to be poorer countries. Today the “third world” seems to be judged on an “I know it when I see it” basis.