The Travel Vaccines Most People Forget

Everyone knows about Yellow Fever. It's the one with the certificate, the one border officials actually check. But ask most travellers heading to India or Thailand what other vaccines they've sorted, and you'll often get a blank look followed by "I think I had some stuff as a kid?"

These are the ones that genuinely matter — and that genuinely get missed.

Rabies

This one surprises people. Not because they haven't heard of rabies — everyone has — but because they don't quite believe it applies to them. "I'm not going to be handling animals," they say. And then they get bitten by a temple monkey in Bali, or a stray dog brushes past them in Kathmandu, or a bat gets into their guesthouse room in rural Southeast Asia.

India has more rabies deaths than any other country on earth. It's not a distant theoretical risk — it's a genuine, documented thing that happens to real people. The pre-exposure vaccine doesn't make you immune, but it buys you time if something happens and vastly simplifies post-exposure treatment. Without it, you need immunoglobulin injections that are hard to find and expensive outside major cities.

Three doses, 21 days minimum. Start early.

Typhoid

Typhoid gets overlooked because people assume it's an "old-fashioned" disease — something from Victorian novels, not modern holidays. Wrong. It's present in much of South Asia, Southeast Asia, parts of Africa, and Central America. You get it from contaminated food and water. Street food is a particular vector — which is unfortunate, because street food is often the best part of travelling somewhere.

The injectable vaccine lasts three years. There's also an oral version (capsules) that lasts around a year. Both work. Neither is 100% — which is why "avoid dodgy ice and don't drink tap water" is still good advice even if you're vaccinated. But vaccinated and cautious beats just cautious.

Japanese Encephalitis

Rarely talked about. Potentially fatal. JE is a mosquito-borne virus that's present across much of rural Asia — from Japan and Korea down through Southeast Asia, into India and parts of Nepal. It's more of a risk during monsoon season and in agricultural areas near pigs and wading birds (which is a specific detail that feels oddly specific but is apparently relevant to how the virus spreads).

Most short-term tourists to cities aren't at significant risk. But anyone spending time in rural areas, particularly over summer? Worth a conversation with a travel clinic. Two doses, minimum 28 days apart. This is another one where leaving it late isn't an option.

Hepatitis B

A lot of people had this as children — it's been on the standard schedule in most high-income countries since the 1990s. But if you're over 30 and grew up somewhere that didn't offer it routinely, there's a reasonable chance you haven't had it.

It's transmitted through blood and bodily fluids, so the risk comes from things like medical procedures abroad, tattooing or piercing with unsterilised equipment, or sexual contact. The standard course is three doses over six months — which rules it out if you're booking last-minute — but there's an accelerated schedule that can be completed in about a month.

The pattern

What these vaccines have in common is that they protect against things that feel unlikely until they happen. Nobody expects to get bitten. Nobody expects to eat something that gives them typhoid. Nobody knows about Japanese Encephalitis until they're looking at a map of affected areas in a travel clinic.

The travellers who get these vaccines aren't paranoid. They're just the ones who thought about it for five minutes before booking the appointment.

Check what vaccines you need for your destination on WhichVax →