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When people prepare to see a doctor before an international trip, vaccines usually dominate the conversation.

And while vaccines are important, many of the health problems most likely to derail a trip cannot be prevented with a vaccine: diarrhea, respiratory infections, motion sickness and flare-ups of existing medical conditions are all common—and none of them can be headed off with a shot.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that between 43% and 79% of travelers to low- and middle-income countries become ill during or after their trip, although most of those illnesses are mild.

As an infectious diseases physician who specializes in travel and tropical medicine, I counsel many patients before they leave the country and care for them when they come home sick.

A good pretravel visit to the doctor should end with more than a list of shots. You should know which illnesses you could encounter on your itinerary, which symptoms you can reasonably handle yourself, which medicines to carry and how to use them, and which warning signs mean it is time to find a doctor.

Infectious disease risks abroad are constantly shifting. A good health care provider who specializes in travel and geographic medicine keeps up with these developments so that the advice you get reflects what is happening now, not last year.

Since early 2025, South America has seen new yellow fever outbreaks that redrew long-standing risk maps and an unusual hantavirus cluster that spread from person to person aboard a cruise ship .

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