Backpacking Travel Health

Backpacking Travel Health Tips

You will probably find that on a daily basis you feel better, healthier, more alive than ever while backpacking in Thailand. The combination of sunshine, always walking or doing activities away from screens, and eating fruit will give you more energy than ever before. You will constantly be sweating out toxins and drinking mostly water (save for a Thai bucket or two).

Simply put, unless you are fighting a dreaded “Chang-over”, its easy to stay healthy and feel great.

Here are some backpacking travel health tips:

Welcome to the jungle baby, you’re gonna fry! Unless you come from down under, the sun is probably stronger than it is at home so use stronger sunscreen. The locals are nice and brown already so they don’t use it – it will be expensive if you don’t pack some from home.

Prostitution is big in Thailand, but so is HIV. Don’t let a thin piece of latex separate you between life and death.

The cheapie local brand condoms are not stored properly in the heat and have a failure rate that would make you want to turn celibate.

When swimming in the ocean, stay away from drainage ditches and pipes that might be pumping a resort’s “poo river” into the water.

Ginger is a great natural remedy for motion or sea sickness. You can also take Dramamine but it will make you so drowsy that many people use it as a sleeping pill on long bus rides.

You receive plastic drinking straws no matter where you order a drink (and no matter what kind of drink). I have found rat droppings sitting on top my coke can when it came out of storage – you figure it out.

The rumor is that the cheap local beer “Chang” does not master how much alcohol content goes into each batch. The result is that you may have 2 and feel like crap while your mate drinks 6 and feels fine. Most backpackers will tell you to avoid the dreaded “Changover” like the plague. Coincidentally, Chang means “elephant” in Thai and that is what you think is standing on your head if you drink too much of this cheap brew.

You can find excellent backpacking travel health tips and travel medicine advice by an MD here: http://adventurehealthclinic.com/

You definitely need travel insurance for Thailand – World Nomads is the leader for backpacking health insurance and I always use them.