Before backpacking South East Asia I didn’t realise quite how much money I needed to save before the trip even began! I knew I had to get insurance and vaccines etc but I didn’t realise quite HOW much these things were; you can imagine my surprise when the vaccines alone cost almost more than the flights to the other side of the world! We started a spreadsheet to work out our total budget, but realised that I really needed to see the bigger picture of the total budget which included the pre trip expenses.
Vaccines
This was definitely the biggest shock expense at £648 for us both, especially considering our flights were £796 between us. I knew the vaccines would be costly, and yes we could’ve potentially gotten some through the NHS but considering neither of us are besties with needles we decided to just get them all done at once.
I had 3 vaccines and Reilly had 4 initially and then Japanese encephalitis required a second either 30 days or 7 days later, we went with the latter to just get it over and done with. We had hoped to get the rabies vaccine, however it’s in a national shortage and they didn’t have any which is something to bear in mind. The nurse did tell us that with or without the rabies vaccine, it doesn’t prevent you from getting it and you’ll get the same hospital treatment so we weren’t too concerned about not having it. At the moment they only recommend it if you’re going away specifically do work with animals, e.g. volunteer vet programmes etc.
We booked our vaccines online with boots and the process was super simple as well as, we were able to book back to back appointments. This was super helpful because the 90 minute session was definitely needed (between the information she needed to gather and the process of vaccinating) as it took the full session. It’s also good to note that you can scan your boots card when paying and depending on the deals going on at the time you can earn A LOT of points; I earned about £35 worth!
Insurance
I struggled a lot finding insurance as it was difficult to find a company that catered to all our needs. We needed a company to cover one way tickets, pre-existing conditions, baggage and the activities we planned to do whilst away. We potentially didn’t need to get the pre-existing coverage as neither of us have ended up in hospital for our conditions, however with my very temperamental uterus it wasn’t a risk I was willing to take.
We went with Big Cat Travel Insurance, and I will be honest it was a faff as we had to purchase a policy and then another policy to cover pre-existing conditions on top. The general policy for 2 people with gadget cover cost £643.53. The additional cover cost a further £205.23, which consisted of £161.51 and £43.72 for Reilly. Sadly it costs to have a temperamental uterus!
The main reason we went with Big Cat was because we could be covered with our medical conditions. However, they also offer extendable policies, no return date, baggage coverage (it shocked me how many companies didn’t offer this with our additional costs!) and we can come home as many times as we want (or need) as the policy is over 4 months.
Shopping
Over the years I have purchased many things to use on my travels as I’ve always known I was going travelling. During working for an airline I obviously had to purchase more things along the way, and I learnt what I used, what I didn’t and what I still needed to buy.
We set aside a day to purchase everything else we needed and we spent about £160 on the last few bits, like clothes, first aid supplies and other small things. However, if we hadn’t had our backpacks we would’ve spent much more. My osprey Aura 65 cost £250 (with a go outdoors discount) and Reilly’s Berghaus 65L cost £100, so that’s something to definitely consider.
Medications
With my chronic illnesses I have a LOT of prescriptions I need to have on hand at all times, and because hormones are so unpredictable and we’re going for so long I needed a large stockpile. In total I’ve spent between £50-£60 give or take on hopefully more than enough prescriptions, it would be more if contraception wasn’t free in the UK. I’m lucky that the medications I take come in large quantities (56 and 32 tablets) or it would’ve been more. It wasn’t something I really thought about until it started adding up cost wise.
In total between us we spent probably £80-£100 on prescriptions to take away with us. If you need a doctors note, that’s also something additionally that could cost, they’re generally around £45 but depends on your GP surgery.