Holiday Vaccinations & Travel Insurance

As we get braver with our travelling and start to explore a little further afield - and a little further off the beaten track - we’ve taken another look at the need for holiday vaccinations.

Whilst I’m not afraid of needles, I don’t particularly like them, and having a jab / shot / injection isn’t something I’d describe as fun.

I had previously used ChatGPT to “confirm” that no injections were necessary. This was achieved by making a generous number of assumptions and generally lying to myself.

But as our South American trip drew closer, I decided to take off the rose-tinted glasses and take a much harder look at the risks of being vaccinated - or not. I quickly realised that neither I nor ChatGPT was best placed to carry out that risk assessment. No surprise there.

Boots on the other hand did a sterling job of taking our trip details - where we were staying, what we were doing, and so on - and running them through their system to determine what was needed.

We also checked everything with the NHS.

Unsurprisingly, ChatGPT then agreed that this was a sensible strategy.

So you can imagine my shock when, after discussing our plans with Boots and the practice nurse, we both ended up needing three boosters / vaccinations from the nurse (free on the NHS), plus a yellow fever vaccination sourced from the travel clinic at Boots.

As an aside, since I asked the question: apparently there isn’t an upper limit to the number of vaccinations that can be given in a single visit — so I’m glad we stopped at three.

I’m writing this now with two sore arms.

Having realised I’d slightly underplayed the vaccination side of things, I thought it best to review our travel insurance as well.

We’d been relying solely on the travel insurance that comes packaged with our AMEX Platinum card. On closer inspection, it isn’t quite what many people would consider five-star, particularly as several of the non-medical benefits are tied to paying for the holiday with AMEX - which isn’t always how we do things.

So I used TopCashBack to compare policies that suited us better and have now topped up - or augmented - our existing AMEX cover with an additional policy.

With the right vaccinations sorted and more than adequate insurance in place, I’m feeling very adult indeed - and just hoping the aching arms wear off soon.