Welcome to Travelturtle, the travel health advice site that provides you with country specific medical and vaccination reports usually only available to registered UK healthcare professionals.
Use this page to access key information prior to embarking on rural travel abroad.
- Find a full range of checks in regards to the risks associated with rural travel.
- Find information concerning all forms of medical care whilst travelling in rural surrounding.
- Encounter a checklist of measures that will help to prevent any illness when travelling in remote or rural surroundings.
- Find a comprehensive list of immunisations that are needed prior to rural travel.
Other useful rural travel resources:
- Backpacking Advice
- Food and Drink Advice
Staying in simple rural locations
Staying in simple rural locations
Travel to rural locations can carry an increased risk of disease, particularly when combined with rustic accommodation.
Risks associated with rural travel overseas
- Increased risk of transmission of diseases via livestock or wild animals. Rabies is a particular risk.
- Access to medical care may be reduced and travellers may struggle to get hold of even simple medications.
- Travellers to rural locations often stay longer than visitors to cities – and the more prolonged the exposure, the greater the risk of infection.
- Basic accommodation often fails to protect travellers against biting insects.
- Staying in close contact with locals can increase the risk of contracting diseases.
- Water may be drawn from wells or rivers too close to communal latrines.
- Contaminated food can also be a problem, particularly in areas that use night soil (human faeces) as fertiliser. Travellers may have to adapt to local diets and these may not be suitable.
- Rural roads can be extremely hazardous. They are often full of pot-holes and used by unlit lorries at night.
- Local condoms may be of poor quality or impossible to obtain.
Measures
- Travellers should conduct a thorough assessment of measures for medical and prevention needs well before travel.
- Visitors to rural areas should consider vaccination against diseases such as rabies and Japanese encephalitis which may pose a particular risk.
- Malaria prophylaxis and yellow fever vaccination may be particularly important.
- Travellers should take a well-stocked medical kit with a good supply of basic medications, bandages and condoms.
- They should take water purification tablets – and ensure water for washing food is purified as well as water for drinking.
- They should take measures to reduce the risk of being bitten by mosquitoes, especially while sleeping, using a mosquito net, repellent and burning mosquito coils.
- A dental check-up should be had before travel, as basic dental work can carry a risk of hepatitis B or even HIV.
- Travellers should think carefully about travelling the roads at night.
