Can I still travel abroad?

Many people with HIV enjoy foreign travel, on holiday, on business or to visit family and friends.

There is not a problem visiting most countries, especially for short visits of a few days or weeks, but there are some countries where this is a little more complicated. You can find more information about travel restrictions to different countries by looking at the Swiss AIDSnet website.
You also need to consider any health risks that might be greater for you when visiting some countries, especially ones where there are tropical diseases.

Tricia

I always had to travel a lot around Europe as part of my job. This wasn’t a problem until a business trip to the United States came up. Strictly speaking, someone HIV positive can’t enter the US without a special visa. I spoke to someone on the phone from Terrence Higgins Trust and she was able to tell me the different ways I could deal with this.

Patrick

I’d always wanted to visit South America. I’d planned a big trip with an old friend. But I realised I’d have to get injections against some diseases to visit some of the places we wanted to go. Some of the jabs cause problems when you are positive, so I had to get special advice from my clinic. In the end, it was easier to make some changes to our travel plans. Though we still had the trip of a lifetime.

Brian

We were travelling across three different time zones. I got into knots about the timings of my HIV treatment on the way there. I planned it better for the journey back. Planning ahead made it easier to work out how to do it pretty easily.

If you don’t have legal status to stay in the UK, one thing to think about before travelling out of the country is whether you will be able to come back in easily.

It is also a very good idea to get health insurance that covers you for an existing health condition. Most of the ordinary health insurance policies don’t cover people for ongoing health conditions, including HIV. It can be very expensive to pay for health treatment in many countries so make sure you don’t get caught out like this.

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