I spend all year working hard to save up for my annual holiday, and the last thing I want is for it to be blighted with health issues, especially since I’m in a different country, with doctors speaking another language and a varied standard of hospitals.

This is my guide to help you have a healthy and safe holiday.

Vaccinations and medication

Firstly, contact your doctor’s surgery and ask for advice on what vaccinations and medication they recommend you have before travelling. Make sure you do this in plenty of time prior to your departure because you do not want to be leaving it to the last minute.

Some vaccinations can have side effects - you might find you get a cold, sore throat or achy body, and you don’t want to be ill on your holiday. It’s also worth having a tetanus injection if you haven’t had one in the last ten years but make sure you always take the advice of your doctor before taking any medication.

European Health Insurance Card

Holders of a European Health Insurance Card will receive free or reduced health care during your visit to an EEA country or Switzerland. The EEA consists of the member states of the European Union plus Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway. Switzerland is also covered with some exceptions.

The card is free and replaces the old E111 form. You can apply online, or call the EHIC Applications Line on 0845 606 2030. I received my card within 4 days of completing the form online – make sure you have your national insurance number to hand.

Travel Insurance

It is essential that you buy adequate travel insurance before you travel and make sure that you are covered for medical expenses, delays and lost luggage. If you plan to participate in skiing, water sports and other adventure activities make sure that the insurance covers you for this.

Shop around because the price for a single trip can range from £4 to £30 from my own experience. More of us are taking expensive gadgets like iPod’s on holiday so total up the cost of replacing any items that you plan to take with you, and if lost would the insurance cover the cost to replace it.

Know before you Go

Researching your holiday destination is a good idea and could save you a lot of stress. First point of call should be the Foreign, Commonwealth Office website. Read the information on your destination and check any warnings and essential telephone numbers like the local British consulate.

Use Google Maps to find the nearest hospital, chemist, doctors from the hotel and print out the map with directions. Find an online version of the local English speaking newspaper and read the news so you know what’s going on and where to avoid. Read guides on Lonely Planet and WikiTravel.

Deep Vein Thrombosis

Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT) is a blood clot, or thrombus, that develops in deep veins such as those in the leg. These are most common in damaged veins, or in veins where blood flow in constricted. To avoid DVT make sure you get up from your seat occasionally and walk around to exercise your legs. Read my guide to Deep Vein Thrombosis for more information.

Do not store hand luggage in front of you as this will restrict you from moving your legs. Whilst sat in your seat try and run through some stretching exercises by moving your legs, arms and neck. Try not to stay in the same position for too long.

Coping with Jetlag

Jet lag is a condition that arises from crossing multiple time zones in a relatively short time and consequently disturbs your natural body clock or circadian rhythms. Try and get some sleep. Sleeping on-board will not only help to pass the time, but can help you feel refreshed upon arrival. Drink plenty of water.

Avoid sleeping pills at all costs. When you arrive, getting a quick nap will seem very attractive indeed – but resist this temptation. Go to bed at your normal bedtime (based on local time). This will force your body to adjust to any new time zones far quicker.

Protection from the Sun

The sun is at it’s hottest between 12noon and 3pm so it’s best advised to stay in shade and try to keep out of the sun as much as possible. It’s a good idea to wear a hat and cover up with loose clothing, wear sunglasses with UV filters to protect your eyes.

Make sure you protect children and babies from direct sunlight, apply SPF 25 (or higher) cover their head with a hat. Drink plenty of water to balance the loss of body fluid through perspiration and avoid alcohol. If won’t have access to water for more than thirsty minutes, make sure you fill up a flask of water.

Awareness of others

It doesn’t matter if I am travelling alone or with friends I always make sure that I am aware of the people around me when walking around the streets at night. I try my best to get to know the local area and appear to know where I am heading rather than wandering around looking like a lost tourist.

I remember within 10 minutes of walking outside of my hotel in Kuala Lumpur, a Malaysian man approached me, welcomed me to the city, and asked if I would like to have a chat in a local coffee shop. I politely said no because I had read a news article about the increase of tourist robberies.

Useful Travel Health websites

BBC Travel Health
Health Advice for Travelers
Travel Health
Travel Turtle

Be Safe and please leave any health and safety tips for other holidaymakers.

I am sat in a bar overlooking the beach, harbour and sea. Palm tree’s and mountains in the distance, making this a scenic place to unwind with a nice cold fresh orange juice. For the first time in ages I don’t feel stressed, I’m relaxed.

A few tips for those looking to travel to Crete:

- Bring a jumper because its cold at night in October
- Don’t walk around unlit streets at night because the Greeks are crazy drivers
- If you are offered Raki [40% alcoholic drink!] accept it as locals will be offended
- Most of the island is very hilly so wear comfy shoes if going walking

I’ll be writing all about the trip when I get back home, I just needed to get out of the sun for ten minutes. This afternoon we are going to relax next to the pool and on the beach for a swim in the sea.

Yassou! For now..

One thing that many people fail to realize before traveling to Argentina is the magnitude of the country. It stretches 3,700 km from north to south and 1,400 km from east to west with every type of climate, scenery, and environment spread out somewhere along the way.

With these long distances, there is a lot of land to cover which makes transportation options an important issue. Here is the skinny on the best ways to travel in Argentina.

Most tourists arrive in Ezeiza, the Buenos Aires International Airport, and make their continuing travel arrangements from there. If you choose to continue on to your next Argentina destination by plane, you will be transferred to the Aeroparque National Airport.

Due to favorable exchange rates, flights are generally affordable to tourists, and may be well worth the money for those on a time crunch; however, it is by far the most expensive method of travel within the country.

Your next instinct may be to look for a rail system due to the familiarity and convenience of the Eurail that winds its way through 28 small European countries.

However, after years of neglect and lack of maintenance, the Argentinean railway is not very utilized nor is it a popular method of travel. There are some trains that have been reestablished for travel between few cities, but the best transportation option in these southern lands is the bus.

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In 2004, I was lucky enough to visit Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia; the people were so friendly, the skyscrapers even towered above the sixth floor of the Equatorial hotel opposite the giant Petronas twin towers. It was early evening, on my first day in the city, and I felt a little hungry, so off I went to find food and passed one small, local restaurant.

A friendly waiter came up to me and said in good English ‘You eat, curry, without no water, I give you meal and drinks free all night’ Been a regular curry eater on nights out back home, I took up the offer, and sat at the table, the fans whirling around me, which helped cool me down because it was an humid day.

The waiter brings over a dish of curry with a bowl of rice, and what made me suspicious was that he was sniggering as he brought over my dish. I saw out of the corner of my eye this older man sniggering too, so I became nervous.

I tucked into what was a very red curry, and thought to myself, this cannot be as hot as a vinderloo back home – BIG mistake, this was the hottest curry I have tasted in my life, apparently, it has 21 chillies in it. My eyes watered, and the waiter took great delight in telling me that my face was red, but then rushed up with a litre bottle of water, sniggering all the way.

Apparently, this gullible traveller had been tricked into eating a Devil Curry, I couldn’t eat it all, but I had a great time sat in that restaurant getting to know the locals, and finding out the best attractions to visit including Bantu Caves and the huge twin towers.

That evening in the restaurant it made me realise why I enjoy travelling so much – meeting new people, learning about new cultures and realising that you can’t beat the experiences that travelling abroad brings.

What’s your favourite travel moment?

I had a good idea what I wanted to do during my time in Oslo, and whilst I don’t want to be too organised [that’s just too boring huh?] I do like to spend the 1st full day wandering around the city, getting to know what is within a good walking distance of the hotel, where the attractions and public transport stops are located, plus mingling with the locals.

I don’t know why this is but whenever I go on holiday, I always get people coming up to me and asking for advice or directions. I don’t particularly mingle in that well, but I think a lot of it is because I appear to have confidence when walking around and I don’t walk around with my head in a map.

What I found different was that they were some attractions, like the Vigeland Sculpture Park would have been best seen from May to October, but the Holmenkollen Skiing Stadium was best seen this time of the year in the snow.

The one thing that stood out for me about Oslo was the amount of graffiti – most UK cities have it’s fair share of graffiti, but a high percentage of properties in the city centre have graffiti on the walls, which I thought was a shame, and I suppose you could say it gave the place a bit of character.

The ferry services to the Kon Tiki Viking museum and other parts of Oslo don’t start up until April, so you have to take the number 30 bus, which wasn’t a problem, but it would have been nice to have taken a trip there by ferry.

The Oslo City Museum was very educational, and I think I was the only tourist in the museum – it gave you a great insight into the history of Oslo. If you get the Oslo pass, you can get free access to all of the museums and attractions I have mentioned in this blog post.

Price examples:

Beer – between 60 and 80 nok [£6 to £7]
Hot Dog & Bottle of Coke – 30 nok [around £3]
Oslo Pass – 300 nok [around £30]
Internet access – 20 nok [around £2 for an hour]
1.5ltr of Mineral Water – 17 nok [around £1.80]

I’d recommend visiting Oslo and Norway to anyone – it’s a beautiful country, and I’d like to visit again and this time, take a trip up the Fjords and take in the magnificent scenery of the mountains and lakes.

Kevin May, editor of Travolution, recently blogged about the tough times ahead for travel guide books – interesting points raised and I have to agree with him. I remember a time when, whenever I went on holiday I would buy a travel guide book, to get to know the destination and plan my trip.

Nowadays, forget buying a book! I can find out about destinations via Lonely Planet online, Travel Wikipedia, and travel blogs. Why pay for a travel guide book when it’s free on the internet?

The advantage of a guide book is you can carry it around and not have to carry pieces of paper, but the cost of these books out weights that small annoyance. So, do you buy travel guides? What do you use to plan your holiday, or are you a I’ll see what is there when I arrive type of traveller?

A lot of people are put off DIY holidays where you book the flight and hotel independently but I actually enjoy organising my trip, and feel its part of the excitement about travelling.

Having landed at Torp Sandefjord airport from a very quick 1hr 40 flight with Ryanair from Liverpool’s John Lennon airport, I took in the fresh Norwegian air and was introduced to a very cold, dark and snowy airport departure park.

Thankfully, I had researched my trip beforehand and knew of a coach service that would take me to Oslo, but had I not done so I would have been looking at an expensive taxi ride, for what is a journey time of around 2 hours depending on the weather.

The cost of the return coach ride was only £20 which is great value for money considering how expensive Oslo can be for a traveller running on a travel bloggers budget. I got chatting to a girl from Brisbane who has backpacked all over the World, and she confirmed what I already knew and that’s England has Europe’s most unreliable transport system.

I feel like I am been anti-British when I am writing this, but travelling new countries really does make you realise how poor our transport system is considering we are one of the richest countries in Europe. Anyway, I arrived in Oslo, and thanks to a few locals found the City AS hotel which was only 5 minutes walk from the bus and train station.

So what were my first impressions of Oslo; I’d have to say the people are friendly, the coldness [minus 10 when I arrived in Oslo] and the shear amount of snow. It really makes you wonder why England comes to a complete standstill when it trickles a few snowflakes.

More to come tomorrow..

Yesterday was my birthday, and my 10 year old nephew and I took a trip to the city of York in North Yorkshire – a great time was had, with loads of walking, especially crawling up 275 steps up the narrow corridor up to the top of the York Minster tower. Actually, we spent a good 2 1/2 hours walking around the Minster, including an audio tour around the undercroft, treasury and crypt.

We took a ride on the open top bus tour which goes around the city walls, and I was very pleased to witness a bus driver that was pleasant, helpful and very friendly. I got talking to two American girls on the bus, who informed me that Yorkshire folk are much more friendlier than them Londoners hehe

You can view a small section of my photographs here – more will be added when I get back from my trip to Oslo, which is fast approaching, which reminds me I need to check if Ryanair have taken the extra air passenger duty off my debit card without my permission.