Travel Tips

By TIM WATTS

Carry a small first aid kit with you
A packet of adhesive dressing, some insect repellent, antiseptic cream and water-sterilisation tablets will take up little space and could be useful. Emergency medical travel kits are available.

Ensure water is safe for drinking
Also check the water you use for cleaning your teeth and washing your mouth. Unless you know it is safe (bottled water usually is) sterilise drinking water. You can do this by boiling water or using sterilisation tablets.

Be careful with these foods
Raw vegetables, salads and unpeeled fruit, raw shellfish, cream, icecream and icecubes, underdone meat and fish, and uncooked, cold or reheated food generally can all be contaminated. Fresh cooked foods are safer.

Personal Hygiene is vital
Always wash your hands after going to the toilet and always before eating or handling food, particularly if you are camping or caravanning.

Swimming
Avoid swimming, bathing, and wading in freshwater streams, marshes or rice paddies. You may see locals doing it but they are more likely to have developed some immunity to the various illnesses which could place a traveller at risk. Swimming in salt water is usually safe. Check to ensure that there are no dangerous species in the swimming area such as sea snakes or crocodiles.

Skin Piercing
It is unwise to have your skin pierced (as in acupuncture, tattooing, ear piercing, etc) unless you can be sure that the equipment used is sterile. A needle wiped with an alcohol swab is not necessarily sterile.

Always keep a note on your person of any significant medical condition affecting you, eg. Diabetes, angina pectoris, haemophilia.