You will bust your butt at some point

Tripping with Lala is not just the name of the site it's also a play on words because anyone who knows me knows that I trip a lot. In fact, I just tripped and rolled my ankle the other day stepping off the curb in Maadi, Cairo. This is not a new phenomenon for me: I have flown down a staircase in Hanoi, and been pulled over a waterfall in Cambodia. Rob on the other hand was knocked off a motorbike and leaned against a rotten banister. Even our cat broke its leg in Hanoi.

Accidents happen. Accidents seem to happen more often when traveling and they always happen in inconvenient places and at inconvenient times. So, I always pack for ‘just in case’ and my Ace bandage is never far away. On the other hand, I’ve learned that travel medicines and vaccines, at least in the states, are extremely expensive and are not covered by insurers.

I have also learned to buy antibiotics abroad. Doctors in the states won't give you the prescription unless you are sick already. They are almost always readily available over the counter at local pharmacies. The one exception would be pain killers, in many countries painkillers are not as strong and often are just placebos.

PACK Ace bandage Band-aids Motrin/Advil/Tylenol Anti-allergen ex. Zyrtec, epi-pen Neosporin Bandana Prescription glasses and medicine written copies of all prescription

BUY LOCAL Local pain balm ex. Tiger Balm Iodine Bandages/Cotton Local disease medicine ex. malaria pills Travel vaccines Antibiotics

Be smart about it. If you're headed for just a short trip, pack a small medicine kit. Research the area for any local outbreaks. You probably won’t need malaria medicine in the big cities but you will in the jungle. A Dr. in the states once suggested I take enough Malaria pills for my whole two-month trip when all I really needed them for was for the one week I was in rural Northern Thailand. However, if you are going for longer and have time to search out local pharmacies just pack a small amount and get the rest there.

As I stated earlier accidents seem to happen more often when traveling and they always happen in inconvenient places and at inconvenient times. Insurance is important and more and more countries are requiring proof of insurance to enter.

For us Americans, this becomes a big problem. Especially when traveling for longer periods of time. I have found that local insurance options are usually not that expensive and will cover the basics. For ex. In Vietnam, a policy costs 5,000,000 dong ($200) for the year In Egypt it’s about 600 le ($40) a month. Unfortunately, you will have to be in the country to be able to get them so this won’t help you at the border.

While in Egypt we also picked up travel insurance for emergencies and for everything the basic policies do not cover. That’s costing us a little over $150 a month for peace of mind. We use SafetyWing as it allows us flexibility at a reasonable cost. We were able to purchase it while abroad and can pay for a week-long policy, a month policy, or a recurring policy. We looked into some of the bigger players Aetna, Partners,... but all of them were priced well into the hundreds of dollars per month and were not as flexible.