People fascinate me. Perhaps that is why I love working as a GP. When I travel, I always want to ask questions and know what life is really like for the people I meet. Sadly, I am not much of a linguist but I smile and gesticulate a great deal and make the effort to communicate.

I try to explore, understand and write about difficult issues including corruption, prejudice, exploitation, caste and poverty. I know that for some this makes uncomfortable reading and even risks demystifying and undermining the image some travellers have of the simple natural existence of the rural poor in emerging nations. Nevertheless I fervently believe these issues should be understood by all who travel so my aim is to present the facts as sympathetic engaging stories about real people. I am frustrated by the look-and-point approach to travel.

Travel Health Books

The first time I really had to think about travel medicine was when - within minutes of my arrival in a sleepy town in Sindh - a brand new work colleague announced that he needed to be evacuated on medical grounds. I offered help and established that my new friend was not suffering from some horrendous tropical pox but he just had a nasty attack of sinusitis. It made him feel awful with frontal headache that recalled having a screwdriver rammed into his eye. The correct antibiotics were readily available over the counter in the local bazaar and he was well on the way to recovery by the next day.

What this, my first real travel medicine ‘case’, made me realise is that even the calmest and most sensible of travellers will nearly always become disproportionately worried about themselves when taken ill. In my friend’s case, he didn’t know much about the local health service and didn’t know where he could find a doctor he could trust. He just wanted to get home to his friendly British GP. That got me thinking about how liberating and empowering information can be and so I started writing what I hope is straightforward accessible travel health advice.