Travel preparation

When preparing my trip, it took me a lot of time to find reliable information on the internet, especially about injections, visa and travel insurance. Here is some of the information which I found, and think might be useful when planing a long term trip, especially to Asia and South America:

Injections

The basic injections for most (especially underdeveloped) countries should be hepatitis A and B (3 injections, around 60 Euro each, takes 6 months), typhus (1 injection, around 30 Euro), tetanus and polio (1 injection, around 30 Euro). For some countries in South America yellow fever (1 injection, around 30 Euro) is required in order to enter the country. In southeast Asia japanese encephalitis (2 injections, around 90 Euro each, takes 21 days) is recommended especially after the raining period. Rabies (3 injections, around 60 Euro each, takes 28 days) is still existing in many countries, but especially a problem in India.

Visa

Remember that your passport is kept at the embassy for one week on average for each country you get a visa for, so start early enough if you need several visa.

Russia (30 day single entry visa): An invitation is required to get a visa. I got it at

http://www.ovir-gmbh.de/index.php?mode=konsularservice_2,

where it costs 30 Euro. It takes about 2 days to get the invitation. The price for the Visa itself is another 35 Euro and it takes 10 days.

Vietnam (3 month single entry Visa): The normal price is 87 Euro, but with invitation (reference number) the price is only 43 Euro. I got the invitation at

http://www.vietnam-destination.de/

for 26 Euro. If you don’t cross the border by land you can also get a cheaper visa.

China (30 day single entry Visa): The price is 35 Euro and it takes one week to get it.

Travel Insurance

The travel insurances included by many credit cards are actually not so bad compared with other insurances. And normal travel insurances are very expensive when the trip lasts more then around 3 month (around 50 Euro per month). The catch is, that most credit card insurances are only valid for a maximum travel period of 3 months. The only credit card I found where the insurance is actually valid for an unlimited time (as long as the country is changed every 3 month) is the Visa card offered by card complete.