High altitude sickness?

Hi everyone!

While heading to a Galapagos cruise a few years ago, I found out that high altitude makes me ill when we had to travel to Quito, Ecuador on our way to the Galapagos. Quito is about 9500 feet above sea level, give or take a few hundred feet.

I don't know what my altitude limit is, as I haven't travelled to very many high altitude locations, but am wondering if anyone has had issues in Australia. We will be on B2B cruises out of Sydney on the Golden Princess. The first travels north from Sydney to the Great Barrier Reef. The second travels from Sydney to Melbourne and Tasmania.

We will also be spending our first few days in Sydney and have booked a Blue Mountains day trip. It looks like the highest point in the Blue Mountains is around 3,000 feet. I'm hoping I'll be OK with that, but will probably try to bring meds with me just in case.

Just wondering if there might be other locations I need to worry about...

We live at over 3000 feet without issue. So I don't think you will have a problem. 9500 feet is a different thing, and I have found issues at that height. Hope you will be fine.

Altitude sickness below 5000 - 7000 feet would be pretty rare. Above 10,000, you need to keep your eyes open for symptoms.

Sounds like you went from around sea level to about 9500 feet in a day. That's enough to give most people altitude sickness symptoms. You're not alone.

Most people are ok at 3000 feet. IMO the worst thing you would experience is some difficulty breathing but I'm not a doctor, much less your doctor.

One more thing...I see you're in Pa. Ever been to the Allegheny mountains ? Aren't they about 3000 feet?

I don't know what my altitude limit is, as I haven't travelled to very many high altitude locations, but am wondering if anyone has had issues in Australia. We will be on B2B cruises out of Sydney on the Golden Princess. The first travels north from Sydney to the Great Barrier Reef. The second travels from Sydney to Melbourne and Tasmania.

 

Australia doesn't have any large mountains. Mount Kosciusko, at about 7,000, feet is the highest.

Since that's inland and you won't be going anywhere near it on your cruise, I doubt that you'll have any problems.

Thank you for your comments, everyone! I'm feeling much calmer now.