Travel Betty

There are two things that turn me off about international travel: long haul flights and inoculations. Sadly neither can really be avoided. And aside from maybe losing weight in an effort to create more room for myself in coach, I don’t see the long haul flights getting better any time soon.

Fortunately though, I’ve found my new favorite place to get shots. It’s the San Francisco Department of Public Health’s Adult Immunization & Travel Clinic. It’s everything you want a travel clinic to be. Clean. Informative. Thorough. And speedy. And in addition to super friendly staff and having a large stock of Lonely Planet guidebooks to peruse while you’re there, the best part is that it is housed in a government building near Civic Center. This gives you convenient downtown access as well as the feeling you’re doing something grand and official.

As the woman waiting next to me chats on her cell phone in an Australian accent about her tiger cubs back home(!), I do deep breathing exercises to try and keep my shot phobia at bay. I needn’t have bothered. The nurse calls for me right at the appointed time. She then explains to me and Travel Boyfriend (already vaccinated, but there for hand-holding and moral support) all of the biological enemies we might encounter in Egypt: Typhoid, Hep A, Polio (no Malaria, thank god). She offers to let me lie down instead of sit and then proceeds to inject me with the most delicate of needles. It must have been a hair’s breath thick and it was over so quickly I didn’t even have time to wince. I’m not lying when I say I didn’t even feel it and trust me, I always feel it.

Thanks to this Angel of Inoculation, I may now lap up steaming bowls of Polio Soup without fear. And you can be sure, should I need a hit of Yellow Fever cultures anytime soon, I will definitely return. Maybe not with overly giddy excitement, but also not with the gripping fear or the kicking, biting, begging and screaming that usually accompanies such tasks.

Travel Betty Basics

Adult Immunization & Travel Clinic
101 Grove Street, Room 102
San Francisco, CA 94102
(415)554-2625
Appointments recommended

Safe & Happy Travels
-TB