Taking care of my health

by rc

To prepare health-wise for this trip, I first went to Stanford’s travel clinic. I must have frustrated the heck out of the nurses there because I visited them 6 months in advance and said I’d be traveling for a year with no set agenda. To their relief, I narrowed it down to Nepal and southeast asia as my primary locations.

This is what I got and what it cost me.

Travel consultation – $45

Polio booster – $49

Typhoid booster – $72

Chicken pox titer – $38 (Mom said she was pretty sure I had a mild case, and the test came back “equivocal”)

Chicken pox booster – $0 (covered)

Seasonal flu shot – $0 (covered)

Total – $204

What I didn’t get:

Yellow Fever – will get if I go to Africa.

Japanese Encephalitis – rare and vaccine is costly.

Malaria – avoid mosquitos (ha!). I’ll use Picaridin bug spray (supposedly a better alternative to Deet). There are no vaccines against Malaria, but there are prophylactic drugs ($$$) that reduce the chance of infection. There are drugs to take if one gets Malaria as well. I opted not to purchase any of these, as I don’t plan on entering Malaria zones and will visit reputable clinics on the way if need be. Drugs and vaccines are oftentimes a fraction of the cost outside of the US.

Health insurance

Lastly, I bought a health insurance plan off World Nomads, which is recommended by the major companies (Lonely Planet, National Geographic, and Hostel World). Here one can sign up for plans at 2 different coverage levels for up to a year. The key coverage here is emergency evacuation (I got coverage up to $500,000). I played around with the pricing per duration and found:

6 months is the sweet spot! I can always go back and extend the coverage period. It’s amazing that the insurance will cost me $386/6 months. That’s many fold less than the cost I was paying for Stanford student insurance.