Traveling can greatly increase your risk on contracting contagious or mosquito-carried illnesses, which can not only put a damper on your trip but also could seriously impact your health. There are various precautionary measures you can take to prevent illness (check out our “Tips For Healthy Travels (Part 1)” if you haven’t already caught it). Some things you can do to decrease your chances of sickness during your vacation are:

Be Careful of Local Eats

Food poisoning due to contamination is one of the leading causes of traveler gastrointestinal distress via such bacteria as E. coli, shigella and salmonella. Be careful what you are eating by watching food choices and checking out the cleanliness of the establishment before placing your order. Avoid pre-made salads, foods that could have been sitting out all day (like at amusement parks), meats that could potentially be under-cooked or shared buffet-style foods.

Don’t Let The Sun Make You Sick

A couple other types of illness that can ruin your trip and cause you undue strife are caused by the sun. You can easily get heatstroke if you are spending longs days in the hot sun, or exercising in hot weather without proper hydration or sun protection. Heatstroke can be mild, causing nausea and discomfort or it can be serious, causing syncope (fainting spells), vomiting and diarrhea, fevers and worse. Similarly, bad sun burns can be debilitating, causing similar symptoms. If both of these conditions are severe enough, they may even require hospitalization. Be sure to protect yourself against the sun with plenty of sun block, hats, proper clothing and perhaps most importantly, adequate hydration (with clean bottled water, not foreign tap water).

Protect Yourself Against Mosquito-Carried Illness

Mosquitos can strike anywhere, but if you are traveling to a high-risk part of the world you have a higher chance of contracting unpleasant or dangerous illnesses like the Zika virus, Dengue Fever or malaria. Some preventative measures you can take against mosquito bites are to sleep under mosquito nets when needed, continually coat yourself in insect repellant, hang out in air conditioned spaces when the mosquitos are especially bad (they won’t follow), and wear covering clothing when possible.

Get Up-To-Date On Vaccinations

Possibly the single most important preventative measure against getting sick while traveling is to get the proper vaccinations and immunizations, especially region-specific vaccines to protect you against conditions such as yellow fever when traveling to places where it is especially prevalent. Be sure to visit your doctor about 2 months before traveling to ensure you get the proper vaccinations in time before traveling.

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