Study Abroad planning help requested

Hello,

D16 will be doing a study abroad stint from April to June this year to Cape Town, South Africa. I would appriciate any info you guys may have. Here are the questions we have come across.

  1. Travel insurance: what are some trusted companies?
  2. Which airline do you suggest to travel from Miami to Cape Town?
  3. How much clothing do kids usually take to a 2 1/2 month trip?

I would truly appreciate any help and words of wisdom. Your child need not have necessarily traveled to Cape Town to answer some of these questions. I also hope to get more answers from the school. However, they won’t be open until next week and I have no patience. Plus, this is great place for information.

@cardinal2020mom - Congrats on the Cape Town study abroad! We have a family member that did that a couple of years ago and loved it.

Although I can see that you want to get an early start on the prep - IMHO the #1 & #2 bullet-point answers you seek will be found in your kid’s university info packet(s). #3 is more of a toss-up question/answer - but I recommend packing light. Kids will want t-shirts etc from the area, and I bet the info packet will discuss this all as well.

Relax & Good Luck!

That’s exciting! I’ve been to South Africa four times and am going back for a fifth time in June. Your daughter will have an amazing time! MAKE SURE she gets up to Kruger National park at some point for a safari. One of my favorite things to do in the world! The only danger is that she might like SA so much she decides to live there eventually. We have met young people from all over the world who have relocated there.

I agree that the college will be your best resource for information. We usually fly through London and stay a day or two to get over the jet lag before flying south to Johannesburg. We usually go by British Air. But I know there are direct flights to SA from the US if she wants to go that route instead.

How much clothing she packs depends on her access to a washing machine lol. One set of underwear, socks and shirts for each day she can’t or won’t do laundry.
Cape Town in winter can get COLD so pack a sweater and coat.

It sounds been a while…but our kid did a study abroad for a semester in London. His school had a really good suggested list of things they needed to bring. In his case, they arranged the air travel. We just had to tell them the departure city.

What kind of travel insurance do you want? The thing we wanted was medivac in case the kid needed to be flown out of the UK.

Capetown is awesome. When we went, we flew South African Airlines and it was great. Our SAA flight was actually out of Dulles to Johannesburg…but we were meeting a friend there. Are you arranging your student’s air travel, or does the school give you suggestions?

In terms of packing…our study abroad kid and our Peace Corps kid both took two 24 inch suitcases, and that was ample to hold all of their “stuff”. Carryon bags are often weighed so make sure it’s light…and only has essentials like medications, and things needed ASAP. We got the very lightest weight suitcases we could find.

Thank you all for putting me somewhat at ease.

@MaineLonghorn I will make sure to tell her the park’s name. She LOVES hiking and camping.

@thumper1 I am not even sure what we should look for when it comes to the travel insurance. Medivac will definitely be something we will want.

D16 did tell me they have a meeting about the trip when they get back to school. I hope the school gives suggestions on flights. We spent hours yesterday looking at different departure airports that had our heads spinning. The thought of her doing an over night in a foreing country scares me a bit. I’d be fine with it if she was with other students.

She is already a light traveler. One of my main concerns for her is her allergies. She’s been on allergy shots for a while. I think she should be done by the travel date. But, as any worrywart parent, i wonder how her body will deal with new surroundings. I presume she should take enough prescribed meds down there to last for 3 months.

I think that I may be overly concerned about this since we have zero info now, especially it being my first rodeo.

I would presume they will give inoculation info, health ins info, safety info, out of country cell phone info, etc.

Anyway, thanks again. I will give a follow up when we get more info.

Innoculation info…you can look for the international immunization clinic near you. They will have that info. IIRC, South Africa didn’t require a lot for added immunizations…but if she plans to go out of SA for any trips, she might need other immunizations.

The flight we took out of Dulles…was an overnight flight to Johannesburg via Dakar, Senegal. Continuing passengers did NOT deplane at all. We then spent s few hours at the J’burg airport awaiting our flight to Capetown. We had frequent flyer status so spent the time in the nice lounge there.

I know there are direct flights from JFK…no stops. To Johannesburg and maybe even to Capetown.

Why would she need to spend the night in some airport?

Re: medications…my kid took three months of meds on his study abroad. Actually, he took four months worth. It took some kind of override from our insurance to get that many months worth…but it is possible. I don’t exactly remember what we did…but we did it. This was pre-ACA. But lots of kids study abroad for a semester…so I would imagine this isn’t an alien thing for the insurance companies to deal with.

If she goes to Kruger, they will recommend she take malaria pills. They wouldn’t be needed if she stayed in Cape Town or Johannesburg.

My daughter studied abroad for 12 months, but the packing advice remains the same: bring enough for each season you’ll encounter, but no more than 10 days’ worth of clothes. She’ll certainly be doing laundry. If she enjoys clothes, she may want to make room for any new thing she buys. She can easily replace things like socks or underwear while she’s there.

Regarding medication, she should definitely bring a full supply of her prescription. My daughter brought enough to last from July to December, then came home for Christmas and brought back enough for January to July, when she returned home for good. You will need a note from your doctor both to get your insurer to pay for all the medicine up front, and to carry with her so that she has no trouble with customs or any other authority. Start early on this. It took my daughter a few weeks to get everything taken care of. She encountered no trouble at all, though.

The fees for my daughter’s programs (she did one in the UK in the summer, then went straight to France for 10 months) included insurance for emergency evacuation and for basic medical. She did end up seeing a doctor a few times and visiting the ER once, and the out of pocket was all surprisingly affordable compared to the US.

@ thumper, some of the flights we saw had 7 hour (or more) lay over. No way she’s doing that. We definitely need to do more research along with waiting for the info from the school. I just spoke with a rep at our health ins company. They only cover a true emergency, such as car accident, broken bone, etc. My dh has to contact his employer to ask if they provide extra internatl coverage for an addl fee.

Our health insurance did NOT cover our kid while he was abroad…except for emergencies.

Where is the seven hour layover? Can your kid fly from Miami to JFK and take the direct flight?

I can’t remember where it is. Miami is s definite. JKF possible, but only if we have to. Will look more into those later today. I was not completely focused yesterday while looking.

I always buy travel/medical insurance from Travelex because it’s primary - no messing around with your home health insurance, and because i actually had to use it for D about ten years ago and they were a dream to work with, covered everything without any out of pocket from me. She had to see 2 doctors, one was a surgical consult, and even though the medical issue was a false alarm, they paid both docs, immediately.

https://www.travelexinsurance.com/

The school should be quite used to answering a range of parent questions. In every case my kids travelled as undergrads, the college made the travel arrangements. All we had to do was get them to the departing airport, meet the group.

You can check weather in those months. It’ll be fall, initially warmer, but progressively cooler. She can always buy a sweater there, to add layers.

One of my girl’s bffs spent a semester there and was enthralled.

She is going to have a layover someplace. I googled and found a flight with a 7 hour layover in Zurich…then on to Capetown.

When we went, we flew from our local airport to Dulles…where we had a 6 hour layover… because we flew there in the morning, and the flights to Africa are almost always over night flights. Then we had a three hour layover in Johannesburg.

In our situation, we could have driven to JFK…no thank you…and the flight would have been direct to Capetown. But that was in 2011.

I agree with @lookingforward. Wait and see what the college gives for info. At the very least, they will likely have a preferred travel agent (yes, they still exist) who can help you,

@OHMomof2 thanks for the info and the link. I will research that now.
@thumper1, yes, that was one of them. From what I remember, there were some flights with shorter layovers. Either way, we are somewhat stuck until we get the information from the school. At least now I have plenty to keep me busy.

I knew I could get knowledgeable info here. You guys are an the info pot of gold! Thanks!!

It’s a VERY long trip. Very long. We didn’t get off the plane from Dulles to Johannesburg…and frankly, y that time, I was thrilled to have a layover, and be able to relax in the nice lounge. When the time comes…if the layover is really long, you might want to purchase a day entry to the lounge…might be worth it! Includes food!

The student I know who studied in South Africa had some last minute trouble getting her visa and had to postpone her flight a couple days. $$. Based on that I recommend starting the visa process as early as possible. Despite the challenging start to the trip, she had a spectacular experience.

@thumper1 A friend mentioned that too. We’ll definitely be doing that.

@rhododendron I would think that will be part of the process through the school. I know she had to send them a copy of her passport.

So many details.

Look out on the visa. D is spending just under 6 months abroad and if she’d applied for her visa too early it wouldn’t have lasted her entire trip - she had to time applying just right because once it was granted the clock started ticking. SA may do it differently.