Pre-Travel Quick Guide

Your patients are going places: help them have a healthy trip abroad.

Many travelers don’t seek health advice when they’re planning international trips, even though their travel may put them at risk for preventable illnesses. Include travel questions in the routine history you gather from patients to assess possible risks and identify opportunities for patient vaccination, medication, and education.

  • Ask about underlying conditions, allergies, and medications.
  • Ask about special conditions, such as pregnancy, immunocompromising conditions, history of heart disease or stroke, and recent surgery.
  • Ask about immunization history.
  • Ask about prior international travel.
  • Get trip details, such as destination, trip length, and reason for travel.
  • Ask about travel style, such as traveling alone or with a group, staying at a hotel or with a host family, and modes of transportation.
  • Ask about special activities, such as providing medical care or doing disaster relief work, doing adventure travel/extreme sports traveling (skydiving), being on a cruise ship, traveling to high altitudes, or being exposed to open water (diving, rafting). Also ask if they expect to be in contact with animals.

Get your patients travel ready.

Go to cdc.gov/travel to get the CDC resources you need to help them prepare.

  • CDC Yellow Book
    US government’s most current health guidelines and information for international travel.
  • Pre-travel PREP Tool
    Free clinical tool works like an interactive, continuously updated CDC Yellow Book.

Plus, you’ll find destination-specific updates and tips, travel fact sheets, and more.