Food and water safety abroad: how to avoid traveller’s diarrhoea, and what to pack if it strikes

The old advice still holds: boil it, cook it, peel it, or forget it. Bottled or treated water including for teeth, no ice unless you know its source, food served hot, fruit you peel yourself, and caution with salads, buffets that have sat out, and undercooked meat and seafood. Hand hygiene before eating does more than any of it.

Pack oral rehydration sachets, loperamide for long journeys, and hand sanitiser. Rehydration is the single most important treatment if you do get ill — most cases settle in two or three days on fluids alone.

For higher-risk regions or remote travel, a standby antibiotic is worth carrying. Azithromycin, started only for moderate or severe symptoms, typically shortens the illness to about a day. Our pharmacists supply it privately before you go — see the traveller’s diarrhoea service and when antibiotics help.

Blood in the stool, high fever, or not keeping fluids down means a doctor abroad, not the standby pack. Typhoid and cholera vaccines cover two of the serious food-borne infections — ask at our travel clinic.