What has it cost so far?!?!?
Trip Start
Jun 11, 2008
1
3
349
Trip End
May 14, 2009
Mansfield,
United Kingdom
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Just thought I would log down some of the stuff we have had to fork out for. As we are amatuers to the year long travel scene, we have definitely overspent on a lot of things, but I suppose that's gets better with experience. I know we will probably overpay for stuff during the start of our travels as well, until we get a bit more savvy!
Anyway, some of the things that we have booked in advance include flights, travel insurance, injections, medication, a couple of tours, visas, campervan, bus tickets, accommodation etc etc. I will try and list most of the stuff we have pre-arranged and give a rough price we have paid.
Flights
We used STA travel for this and they sorted out a round the world ticket that included the main flights that we needed. These flights are :
London Heathrow to Hong Kong
Hong Kong to Bangkok
Singapore to Auckland
Christchurch to Cairns
Sydney to Santiago
Rio de Janiero to London Heathrow
These flights cost us about £1500 each including all taxes. The flights are all with either British Airways or Qantas and are in economy class.
We also got our travel insurance from STA Travel. This was a Worldwide insurance (excluding USA) and covered all types of sports as well, including winter sports in case we get to do a bit of skiing. This insurance is for one year in length but does cover the cost of the flights even though they are paid for in advance. So if we did have to cancel before we set off, we will get our flight money back - lets hope that wont be required though!!!
The travel insurance cost us about £350 each, which seems pretty steep but we just wanted to be sure we were fully covered as this is our first major adventure.
Then there was the jabs! We got most of these on the NHS. These were Hep A, Typhoid, Diptheria, Polio and Tetanus. We had to go to a travel clinic to get our Yellow Fever jabs and we also got Rabies jabs whilst we were there. The Yellow Fever jab was just one injection and cost about £40 each. This gave us our Yellow Fever Certificate which we will definitely need in South America.
We had the Rabies jabs after some advice off websites. You can get jabs after you have been bitten if you get to a vaccine place quick enough after you have been bit, however, we are aware that stock of the vaccine are low in South East Asia ever since the Tsunami all those years ago. Also, in South America, paricularly Brazil, there is the chance of catching Rabies from Vampire bats excremet. In instances like this, you wont know you have it as you haven't been bitten, so it might become too late for the vaccine. This isn't scaremongery, everyone has the choice on this. We just decided that due to t being one of the infections that can acually kill you, we would have the jabs. There were 3 jabs that we needed to have for Rabies. The frst one was followed 7 days later with a second one and then a final one 14 days after the second. This cost us about £35 each for EACH JAB!!! So all in all, these jabs cost us the bet part of £300 all together.
The travel doc was pretty good though. He gave us loads of advice and also gave us a load of sterile syringes and stitching packs for us to take with us. (Probably because he had just ripped us off with the jabs!)
The final thing was Malaria tablets. The travel doc gave us a private perscription (free) for 300 Doxycycline tablets. We need these for South East Asia and the Amazon. We have to start taking them a couple of days before we arrive in an affected area and then for 4 weeks after we have left. At the sme time, the travel doc also gave us a perscription for Ciprofloxacin which are for diahorrea. Apparantly these are better than Immodium as you only need to take one and you're all flushed out - we shall wait and see! Lorna's Mum works in a chemist and managed to get us a bit of discount for this stuff, so 300 Doxycycline and 12 Ciprofloxacin cost us £70.
We have also had to get some visas sorted before we leave. We have used Travcour for our China visas and our Vietnam visas. These cost us £30 each for China and £38 each for Vietnam. There was also a £25 service charge as well. We sent for these as we don't have time to get to the Chinese and Vietnamese embassies before we leave. We have had an email back to say our Vietnam visas have been approved so we are just awaiting the Chinese ones now. We downloaded the forms from the Travcour website, filled them in and sent them off by Special Delivery with our passports and 2 passport size photos for each visa. These visas are only valid for a specific period of time, o that's why we have left it until no to apply for them.
We have also used our old friends STA Travel to sort out our Australian visas. These cost £20 each and they did it there and then on the PC whilst I was sat there. I just needed to show them our passports. This visa lasts for a year and is just programmed into the system so that when your passport is swiped after we land in Australia it will just appear on their system. We have a reference number just in case though!
The other three places that we need visas for are Cambodia, Laos and Thailand. We are going to get the Cambodia ones online (its an e-Visa) in a couple of weeks. The Laos visa we are going to apply for in Hanoi. (If anyone has any tips on this please let me know). We don't need to get a Thailand visa for our first visit as we are only going to be in Bangkok for 4 nights until we fly to Siem Reap. However, we will need it for our 2nd visit in mid-September. Don't now how we are going to sort this yet though (any tips?).
We have been told we do not need visa's for Malaysia, Singapore, New Zealand, Chile, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil. I hope this is correct.
Anyway, that's enough for now. I will tell you all about the two tours we have booked and how much they cost in my next posting.
Cheers for now...
