Staying healthy on your gap year

It’s become a rite of passage for young people to take a gap year these days, most typically just before or after university. More people are also taking career breaks and making the most of travelling opportunities on offer all over the world.

Emma Jayne Jones, author of Gap Years – The Essential Guide has visited over 40 countries and her adventures include volunteering in South Africa, working on cruise ships, driving across the USA and hitchhiking to Morocco!

Here's Emma's advice for making sure you stay healthy on your gap year:

• Make sure you visit your GP at least eight weeks before you are due to travel so you have time to get the medication and vaccinations needed for the countries you are visiting.
• There are lots of nasty diseases that could potentially ruin part of your trip, in areas affected by malaria wear long clothing, use a strong mosquito spray and a mosquito net. You should also be taking a course of malaria tablets prescribed by your GP.
• Some areas of the world require you to have been vaccinated against yellow fever, make sure you have your certificate to get into the country if this applies to where you’re going!
• Food, drinking water and personal hygiene are all very important, hepatitis A is contracted through contaminated food, water or person to person contact. Typhoid is also caused by contaminated food, both diseases can be vaccinated against and keeping an eye on what you eat and drink can help to avoid tummy upsets.
• You should bring along a basic first aid pack, it should contain the following: plasters, bandages, antiseptic cream, cotton wool, sterile dressings, adhesive tape, disposable gloves, scissors, tweezers and safety pins.
• It is a good idea to check what the local emergency numbers are in the countries you are visiting. Make sure you know how to contact the local embassy and have the number of your travel insurance company handy.
• Practise safe sex. Bring along condoms and/or the pill, but remember the pill does not protect you against sexually transmitted infections.

Extract taken from Gap Years - The Essential Guide. For more information and ideas on gap years, take a look at the book - available now in printed and large print formats.