When you're busy doing big-picture trip planning like buying tickets, arranging for a house sitter, making hotel reservations, and packing, it's easy to let other things slide. While health and cultural sensitivity issues pertaining to your destination are hardly trivial, you may not have time to address them.
Enter the International Society of Travel Medicine (ISTM). This organization for health professionals not only helps you take care of your health through affiliated organizations such as International Society for Medical Assistance to Travellers (IAMAT), it also helps visitors learn how to avoid any unintentional conflict or disrespect in their host country. ISTM points out that resentment toward tourists in some countries has become stronger in recent years, as development has taken away local land and natural resources such as water and electricity.
To help ease this cross-cultural interaction, the ISTM has created a Responsible Traveler guide to help make vacations safe and beneficial to tourists as well as to host countries. Here are some of their guidelines:
- Be informed. Knowing when and how much to tip, where you may and may not take photos, how to sit (the position of the legs is important in some countries), and other social niceties can help you avoid problems. They suggest utilizing all available resources, such as the Internet and guidebooks, in order to learn foreign cultural codes.
- Learn the Do's and Don'ts of a country, including the dress code -- bare shoulders or legs are offensive in some cultures, as are public displays of affection or anger. Gestures, such as pointing your finger, can easily be misinterpreted. (They recommend using your flat hand when gesturing or trying to point, for example.)
- Stay healthy, by avoiding unsafe sex, getting vaccinated against the flu, washing hands frequently, limiting personal contact, bringing anti-diarrhea medications, and so forth. When appropriate to your destination, consult a travel doctor for necessary advice, vaccinations and a prescription for malaria prevention.
Above all, remember you are visiting some else's home. Their website is www.istm.org.
IAMAT
Affiliated with ISTM is the International Society for Medical Assistance to Travellers (IAMAT), a registered charity in both the US and Canada, which offers free membership (though donations are greatly appreciated) to anyone requesting their assistance. By signing up, you get the following:
- world directory of IAMAT physicians, hospitals and clinics in over 125 countries and territories, the physicians having agreed to a set payment schedule for members
- A Traveller Clinical record, to be completed by your doctor before departure
- A world immunization chart for over 200 countries and territories
- A world malaria risk chart and protection guide
- A world schistosomiasis risk chart and information brochure
- A Chagas' disease risk chart and information guide
- AnID card
Those who make a substantial donation to support IAMAT's work also recive 24 world climate charts that report on climate in every part of the world, on the seasonal clothing required, and on the sanitary conditions of water, milk, and food. They show, for instance, that in St. Petersburg, Russia, water is contaminated, can cause chronic diarrhea, and should be boiled for ten minutes before use. Hot tea is advised as a drink (beer is even safer because it is too acidic for microbes to live in).
They can be reached at www.iamat.org or at their headquarters in Canada at 519/836-0102, fax 519/836-3412. (Full disclosure: I am a volunteer member of the board of directors of IAMAT, serving without compensation.)
