Kenya and Tanzania

Starrmom999

My husband and I are doing the K&T on September 6, 2017. We are so excited. Anyone else on that tour? Does anyone know what shots and visas are needed? Love to hear from fellow travelers.

AlanS

You'll find answers to all your questions or where to find the latest info, on the K&T tour page. They can be found in the various sections under the "Before You Go" tab. You should read everything here as a general rule.

British

The paperwork from Tauck should certainly tell you about the visas you need and give you the option of using the visa service they recommend if you do not want to do this yourselves. Just remember you cannot leave the country while your passport is getting the visa on it, a consideration if you travel out of the country frequently, we have had to plan getting a couple of visa for trips very carefully because we have had other trips between ones which we need visas for.
Shots, look on the CDC and WHO websites by country and talk to your Dr who knows your health history, but you should already have most of your shots for this trip, Hepatitis A and B, current Flu, TDAP BOOSTERS, SHINGLES, Typhoid etc if you already care about your good health. There is controversy about the need for the Yellow fever shot, but we had it years ago with no problem and most African countries excepting Botswana now accept one lifetime Yellow fever shot, so the younger you are when you get the shot, the less chance of side affects and then you are covered for other exotic locations that you will surely be tempted to go to, especially when you have taken this great tour. Malaria protection is by pills and the type varies by country being visited.

Roe Foley

If you are US citizen there is an agency called Passport Health. You can make an appointment and they are versed in travels around the world - they will recommend all health precautions needed. We have an appointment with them to discuss needs but then will take their recommendations to our own family doctor who is more familiar with our own health. This was recommended to us by frequent travelers

British

We used Passport Health once or twice in our early days of exotic travel, and I would certainly recommend it for a novice exotic traveler, but there are a couple of drawbacks, they are very expensive, for example, they will charge you by the pill for your Malaria meds, whereas your regular doctor can just write you a script and you pay your regular co-pay. You must of course know which Malaria medicine you need and for how long you need to take it, which starts before the trip and for time afterwards. Your regular insurance may cover the regular shots like flu and shingles free, Passport Health will likely charge you. You need to take a detailed itinerary of where you are going to be going. If you have records and dates of past immunizations, it will save you have unnecessary and for what they charge, expensive boosters. They do tend to push the Rabies vaccine, which is almost never necessary--- though I do say this with caution, since on several trips we have seen fellow travelers petting stray dogs, if you are that type of reckless person then get Rabies shots. Final thing, schedule a visit months ahead of your trip, some immunizatioms require a course of injections several months apart.

Merlin321

Some specifics from 2 yrs. ago. Not sure if anything has changed, but this is how it was.

First, Visas. We were scheduled for the T&K tour in 2013. Sent our passports out to Tauck recommended Pinnacle Travel Document Systems (TDS). Cost for 1 person at that time was $337, for 2 $647. Had to be sent to them 40 days prior to departure or there was an expedite fee of $130 per person. We had to cancel that tour (wife broke her ankle) and so we had to get new visas for trip in 2014. We live in NY and weren't in a hurry, so we went online, downloaded the applications ourselves from the Kenya and Tanzania websites and brought them in to the consulates in NY. The Kenya fee was $50. Sorry, don't recall what the Tanzania fee was, but it was about the same. So I think we saved about $300 or $400 by going to the consulates ourselves.

Second, innoculations. We also went to Passport Health. We live in NY and there are a couple of Passport Health locations around NY. We live just north of NYC so we went to Stamford, CT. We were counseled in what was required (Yellow Fever) and recommended (9 immunizations in 6 shots, 3 in each arm). The cost was $900 for everything. We thought it was very expensive, but while we were there, we got it all done. I think we could have done it for a lot less at our own doctor, but it was convenient while we were there. You can go online on the CDC website and they will list what's recommended for each country. Many of the immunizations were boosters of standard shots. Our insurance did not cover "immunizations for purposes of travel," so we had to pay all out of pocket. Here's what we got: Hep A and B (Twinrix), Meningitis (Menomune), Polio Booster (IPOL), Tdap (Boostrix), Typhoid (Typhim Vi), Yellow Fever (Yf-Vax). In addition, we were given what's called a Z-pac, which is 3 doses of Azithromycin 500 mg. in case you get an infection you can start the antibiotics immediately, and Malarone tabs 250mg/100mg. for malaria. The Hepatits immunization requires 2 or 3 shots (I don't recall exactly) months apart, so this series should be started as soon as possible. As far as the Yellow Fever is concerned, no one asked for proof when we were in Tanzania. We were told we would be required to show documentation at the border when entering Kenya, but this didn't happen either. Apparently, this is inconsistent. There are times when you must provide proof and other times when it is ignored. From what I recall, there was a facility at the border where you could get the injection right on site. Hope this helps.

Permethrin. I ordered gallons of permethrin from Amazon. I hung all our outer clothes (not underwear) out on a clothes line and sprayed everything and let it dry. So all our clothing was treated. We went early-mid September which is dry season. I know someone on the forum talked about malaria mosquitos coming out at night and biting while you're sleeping, but I didn't see a single mosquito on the entire trip, and neither my wife (who mosquitos find irresistible) nor I were ever aware of waking up with a bite. So the whole permethrin exercise was apparently a waste of time. But given that, if we went again, I probably would spray everything the way I did the first time. But I'm just perhaps over-precautious and paranoid.

Merlin321

Just to clarify: I said Passport Health was $900. That was $900 per person.