So, I’m going to Africa in a couple of weeks.

For a month.

Alone.

I swear I am not totally crazy (though we have established I am at least a little), and I swear that I’m not just being irresponsibly impulsive.

WHEN DID I START THINKING ABOUT THIS TRIP?

Well, when my ex and I sold our house in Maryland this past February, I set some of my money aside for a big trip. Though there are lots of places I still want to go (South America, the Stans, Scandinavia in winter, New Zealand and Australia…), I asked myself, “If I can’t ever travel internationally again because of my medical issues or because of money or because my spouse doesn’t want to or because I die, where do I want to make sure I go to in case I can’t go anywhere else?”

WHAT AND WHERE

I decided on Africa.

I’ve wanted to go for years and years, mainly for the wildlife but also for the landscapes and the people I’ve only just ever read about. I also wanted to go to a place that would challenge my perspective, poke holes in my American bubble, and make me think on my feet again.

I found an ethical tour company that was eco-friendly through Responsible Travel. I chose a trip that was leaving for South Africa in the October/November timeframe because I knew this would be a hard time for me (my ex’s birthday, our anniversary, Halloween, my birthday, Thanksgiving, etc.). I bought one of my flights, put a deposit down, started the vaccine process…and then halted the whole thing when I started job hunting full-time in April.

And when I supposedly got hired by that California law firm in June, I nearly cancelled the whole thing. I mean, I know it is unreasonable to expect an employer to be willing to let me go traipsing around the world for a month. I was in contact with my travel agent, and we discussed going for a shorter time and maybe doing a different tour.

BUT when my job that I worked for months to find and land, and then actually got hired for evaporated after 2 days of work (you can see my post on that here if you want), I careened swiftly into dark depressive thoughts.

And I started thinking…well, hell. If I leave this Africa trip to October/November, I may not ever get to go because, realistically speaking, I will find a job before October (surely! Even if I don’t feel like I will right now). And I don’t have the heart or the energy or the mental space right now to continue the demoralizing, dejecting process of finding another job. What’s keeping me from leaving right now?!

I was ready to go immediately, but vaccines got in the way (I’ll explain later). So, I am leaving on August 3rd instead. And the prep for this massive trip has proved to be the exact distraction I needed to not fall into one of my depression sloughs.

WHAT DOES THIS TRIP ENTAIL?

I will fly into Cape Town, South Africa, where I will spend a few days before and after my tour. I’ll be seeing penguins and cheetahs and whales, hiking Table Mountain, and drinking lots of wine.

Once I meet up with the tour group (there will be about 10 of us), we will travel up through the desert in Namibia, across the Okavango Delta in Botswana, and around Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe. In all four countries, we will be immersed in wildlife, which is what I am most excited about.

WHY TRAVELING IS IMPORTANT TO ME

I have always been a traveler and a wanderer at heart. It’s in my blood. I love to explore, to see places and things I’ve never seen before, and to immerse myself in ways that other people live. When I lived in Northern Macedonia for 4 1/2 years, I traveled all over Europe because it was cheaper already being across the ocean, and I had lots of teacher holidays. When I lived in Thailand for a year, I wandered all over the country on the back of a motorcycle, and I also spent some time in Cambodia. I’ve been to 31 countries, 35 US states and hopped around Canada multiple times. I can’t help it.

My ex always asked, “When will it be enough?! When will you ever feel like you’ve seen enough and you can just stay in one place?”

The answer is never.

Unfortunately, this part of me is really hard for romantic partners to understand. And I don’t know how to be true to myself and make them understand that I love them too. Distance does not mean lack of commitment. Them feeling like they aren’t enough to want to keep me at home does not reflect the truth that traveling is simply a huge part of who I am. It makes me happy, and if I’m happy, I promise I will make a better partner. I also truly can’t change this part of me, because I’ve tried.

Maybe it’s because I’ve had such a hard time finding a home and feeling at home in my life? Maybe it’s because I’ve never had a home for more than a couple of years. Maybe it’s because traveling in the past has sometimes equaled running away…it’s been a coping mechanism for when my life was falling apart.

But I honestly just think it’s embedded in my soul. I’ve been traveling since I was 9 years old of my own volition (I raised my own money to fly to Russia for 3 weeks in the summer of ‘96…you can read about that here if you want), and I’ve been dreaming about experiencing different worlds for as long as I can remember.

I’m going on THIS trip specifically for 3 reasons:

1. Last year was the worst of my life, and I survived a heartbreaking, heart-wrenching divorce.
2. I almost died last September. But I didn’t.
3. I am turning the big 4-0 this year and am not in a wheelchair yet (which means a lot because of my physical ailments!)

I am celebrating all 3 of these things with this trip. I am also going on this trip and focusing on just me…what I want to do and see, where I want to go, etc. I’m hoping it can reset a lot of things in my life.

PREPARING FOR THIS TRIP

I have spent hours and hours researching this trip. This is the longest and most expensive trip I have ever been on, and it has definitely involved the most work:

• ensuring I have four different visas
• confirming that I have enough meds (I’m on 13, so this is a lot) and refilling prescriptions ahead of time for the trip
• figuring out how to bring controlled substances across borders
• planning everything ahead of time when I’m alone in Cape Town so that I am safe
• getting fully vaccinated
• learning how to pack lightly but for a month because there’s little to no laundry opportunities
• getting travel insurance
• making copies of passports and other documents, and printing medical paperwork
• buying the right clothing for safari and winter, etc.

It has already been an adventure, and I haven’t even left the country.

THE VACCINE PROCESS HAS BEEN A NIGHTMARE

After checking the CDC recommendations, I made a list of vaccines I needed and took them to my doctor. He said, “Oh no, we don’t carry these. You should go to your pharmacy.”

So, I went to my Wal-Mart Pharmacy and presented them with my list. “Oh no,” the pharmacist said, “we don’t carry any of these. You should go to the health department.”

Are you seeing a pattern develop here?

I called four health departments and visited three in South Carolina, and they all claimed that they no longer gave out travel vaccines. (Which is untrue for at least one of these places because my mother got a vaccine there just some months ago!) They said I needed to go to the CDC in Atlanta, and I could get my vaccines there. Well, at that point, I was just angry because the CDC only recommends vaccinations, it doesn’t actually dole them out (duh! and I even checked just to make sure!), and how can these people not know that?! Does NO ONE travel around here???

I finally found a place called Passport Health Travel Clinic, which included an hour and a half consultation (and several hidden fees) with the nurse who provided a lot of information on each country I was visiting, what vaccines were needed, why they were needed, and other diseases I could catch that there were no vaccines for but I wanted to protect myself as much as possible from). We determined I needed the following:

• Hep A/B (my last ones were 11 years ago)
• MMR booster (which you can’t have any other vaccine within two weeks of)
• Polio booster (there has been a reemergence of polio all over the continent)
• Covid-19
• Flu (too early in the year to get)
• TDAP (my last one was also 11 years ago)
• Yellow Fever
• Cholera (a drink that only lasts for a couple of months)
• Rabies (which is a 2-shot series and is needed because I will be in the bush a lot, and apparently the seals in South Africa all have rabies at the moment)
• Malaria (consists of pills instead of a vaccine)
• Typhoid (thank God this was already taken care of last year when I had made plans to go to Morocco with my mom and mother-in-law, but ended up in the hospital instead)

The Passport Health place provided all of these vaccines, but was incredibly expensive. I got my yellow fever vaccine at that visit, but put a hold on all the others until I knew for sure for sure that I was going on the trip. In the meantime, my best friend told me that Walgreens (and maybe CVS!) offered all of the vaccines that I needed.

So! When I decided to change and expedite my travel plans in July, I restarted the vaccine process. I made a vaccine appointment at Walgreens online (so easy!), and went the next day to get stuck. The pharmacist looked at me and said, “Oh no, we don’t carry these vaccines [the more exotic ones]. We can’t even order them, and I don’t know why they’re on our website.”

I ground my teeth and asked if I could get the “normal” ones like COVID-19 there. He said yes, but then the next moment let me know they didn’t carry my insurance (which is the largest one in the state, I’m pretty sure).

So, I made an appointment at CVS. Same thing. I go in and the pharmacist says, “Oh, no, we don’t carry these vaccines [the exotic ones]. Sorry, darling.”

WHAT. THE. HELL?

They stuck me with MMR and TDAP and said I couldn’t have any more vaccines for 2 weeks. After two weeks, I went back and received my COVID-19 and Hep A&B. I asked if they could order the polio booster, and one of the pharmacists knew of a CVS 2 1/2 hours away where someone somehow got their hands on a polio vaccine that was going to expire in a few days. I made plans to travel there, but was then told that a nearby county’s health department (across the border) offered rabies and polio. Of course, when I called, they didn’t, but they told me of another health department in Georgia that did. And what do you know, they have rabies and polio, THANK GOD.

Going to that health department was an experience in and of itself. It made me feel like I was in a 60’s sitcom – replete with never-repainted walls and tiny television sets that still had VCRs in them. What I could have done in 7-10 minutes, tops, took them an hour. But hell, I’m just glad they had the vaccines.

In the past 2 1/2 weeks, I’ve had 6 vaccines, and my body has decidedly been unhappy with me. My mother quipped, “Well, what do you expect, Rachel? You’ve been a human pin cushion.” She’s right as always.

I am scheduled to take the second rabies shot today. Only, I realized that my intercostal nerve block procedure I had yesterday used medication that is not recommended with the rabies vaccine. Sigh. Who knows what will happen?

After today, I just have malaria and cholera left. The vaccines alone have cost me over two THOUSAND dollars, and if I had realized all this before I had paid for the trip, I definitely would have reconsidered this specific trip.

*Note: I realize I am maybe being impatient and unfairly sarcastic about these medical professionals. This comes from a long life of lived experiences where the medical field has been ignorant and even harmful to me, and this whole process has been a huge trigger. I promise I was kind and polite to everyone despite the rage inside of me.

MENTAL HEALTH PREP and FEAR MITIGATION and GUILT MANAGEMENT

The benefits of going on this trip outweigh the disadvantages, but I’m not going to lie. This trip has definitely increased my anxiety because of the worries I have about my health and safety while over there, as well as the guilt complex that has unfortunately been triggered and is blaring like a bloody siren in my head.

Why do I feel guilty (besides the fact that I have an overactive guilt complex, like some people have an overactive bladder)?

• I feel guilty because I haven’t worked for over a year and am living on savings, but I’m choosing to spend some of what I have on a trip. It just seems extravagant.
• Despite my fears and trepidations about the future and my finances, I still have the resources to go on this trip. So many, many people don’t.
• I feel guilty because I’m going to be gone for a whole month. Not many people can ever take the time off from work or their families to do this.
• I am worried that I am only going to be contributing to the overwhelming harm that tourism is causing all over the world.
• I am genuinely concerned about my health and being in developing nations that have little to no health care. Am I being irresponsible? Am I in denial…do I just want to go on this trip so much that I’m not being honest with myself that I may not be ABLE to do this trip? Since my illnesses are mainly invisible, am I not being as honest with the tour group as I should because I’m afraid they won’t let me go? Am I being hypocritical? Do I bitch and whine about my pain and EDS to only go gallivanting around the world like I don’t have those issues at all?

I think my guilt stems from my expectations that these are things other people will think of me. I assume this is what everyone else will think. I always feel like I have to justify every action of mine, and I have to convince other people that I am being genuine and honest. These thoughts and feelings undoubtedly stem from multiple avenues of trauma in my life. But I am also recognizing that I am indulging in emotional reasoning and jumping to conclusions/mind-reading, which are cognitive distortions. We’ve talked about some cognitive distortions in previous posts - at worst, they are lies that we tell ourselves that fuck us up worse than we already are. At best, they are simply unhelpful.

BEING MY OWN THERAPIST

At the end of the day, I am going to have to choose not to cater to the cognitive distortions that jump into automatic gear. Essentially, I am going to have to choose not to feel guilty. So, as a reminder to myself:

• I have had a very, very, very difficult year/decade. It is ok for me to have something nice happen to me.
• I love/need to travel, and this is something I’ve wanted to do for a very long time. It is ok that I am letting myself go.
• I may not always have the money or the time or the physical ability to travel. I do right now, in this moment, though. It is important to me that I live now, not waiting for later or for retirement. This is living life to the fullest extent that I can (for me)! It is ok that I am choosing to use my resources in this way.
• I am slightly terrified of traveling on this trip. It’s been a long time since I’ve traveled internationally on my own. I am no longer young or stupid like when I was traveling extensively back in the day. I am physically and mentally a lot less capable. The world is also a crazier, more dangerous place. It is ok to be afraid…hopefully that will just make me more prepared and more safety-conscious.

To be continued in Part 2 (where I actually give you the good stuff)…

Keep on keeping on, friends.