Travel Hygiene And Staying Germ Free And Healthy On Your Gap Year

Editor’s Note: This is general travel health advice and is not intended to replace individual advice from your GP, specialist nurse or another qualified travel health professional, that has been tailored to your past medical history, medication or travel plans. This article was reviewed and updated on November 2026. It is routinely reviewed every 3 years unless new clinical evidence emerges.

A few years ago a mass panic swept over travellers everywhere as a pandemic hit. Everyone acted as if it was the end of times, the world practically shut down and everyday hygiene was turned into headline news. Suddenly, covering your mouth when you coughed and washing your hands after going to the loo were being discussed as though they were revolutionary discoveries. Those of us who had spent years reminding people to do both could perhaps be forgiven a more than weary sigh. Travellers have been exposed to bacteria, viruses and other causes of illness for as long as people have travelled, and to an extent this is okay, the human immune system is a wonderful thing, but basic hygiene has always been one of the simplest ways to reduce the risk of getting sick. You do not need to fear every handrail or turn your hostel bed into a sterile field. You just need to understand how infections spread and keep a few sensible habits going, even when you are distracted by everything your trip has to offer.

As a retired nurse with experience in emergency care and travel and tropical medicine, I have spent years putting infection prevention into practice. After over 25 years of backpacking around the world, I also know how easily those everyday habits can slip when you are rushing for a bus or grabbing something to eat at a night market. Washing your hands might be the last thing on your mind, but it could save you spending the next few days getting far too well acquainted with the hostel toilet.

This basic hygiene goes well beyond coronavirus and the previous pandemic. Unwashed hands and contaminated food or water can spread infections including norovirus, hepatitis A, cholera and typhoid, as well as many of the bugs responsible for basic illnesses like travellers’ diarrhoea. You cannot always see the contamination, and food does not have to look or smell suspicious to make you ill. That is why a few basic precautions are worth keeping up even when everything looks perfectly clean.

Fortunately, you do not need to spend your trip treating every meal or handshake with suspicion, or wrapped in sterile bubble wrap. Good hygiene is something you can build into your day and then get on with enjoying yourself. Wash your hands after the toilet and before you eat, think about where your drinking water comes from and take a little care around food preparation. Simple habits, without the drama.

How Can You Reduce Your Risk Of Getting Ill While Travelling? Quick Answer

Wash your hands thoroughly with soap and water, especially after using the toilet and before eating or preparing food. Carry an alcohol-based hand sanitiser containing at least 60% alcohol for when washing facilities are unavailable, but remember it does not remove visible dirt and is not effective against every infection, including norovirus.

Choose food that is freshly cooked and served piping hot, check that your drinking water is safe and use clean utensils. Cover coughs and sneezes with a tissue or your elbow, and avoid prolonged close contact with people who are unwell. Fresh air and good ventilation also help reduce the spread of respiratory infections.

You do not need to disinfect everything you touch or avoid the people and experiences you came to enjoy. A few consistent habits can reduce your risk of illness without turning your trip into a cleaning exercise.

How Infections Spread When You Travel

A busy day travelling can take you from a shared hostel bathroom to a crowded bus and then straight to a street stall for lunch. None of those places is inherently dangerous, but any one of those can bring you into contact with people, food, water and surfaces that can carry infection. What? Did you think this was a new thing that began with Covid19? Understanding how that infection reaches you helps you choose precautions that are actually useful.

Having a little bit of knowledge and awareness about those routes helps you take precautions that actually address them. Washing your hands before eating can stop you transferring contamination to your food, while fresh air and ventilation help reduce exposure to respiratory infections. Different routes need different precautions; no single habit protects you against everything.

None of this means your surroundings need to be completely sterile. They never will be, at home or abroad, and encountering microorganisms is a normal part of life. You do not need to board a plane in a hazmat suit or soak your backpack in disinfectant every night.

Seriously, A few sensible hygiene habits is all it takes to reduce your risk while leaving you free to get on with enjoying your trip. Despite the media scaremongering over the last few years, you don’t need to mask up everywhere, you don’t need to stay 100 feet apart from everyone at all times and you don’t need to carry a scotch egg with you, just in case. So with that said, how do you protect yourself from all these germs, viruses and bacteria and avoid getting sick when you travel?

Hands, Food And Contaminated Surfaces

Hygiene standards vary wherever you travel, and other travellers’ personal hygiene habits are not always great either. Just think for a moment how many surfaces you touch during a journey: that screen on the plane, the tray you eat your barely edible plane food from, the latch for the overhead bin, door handles, those sticky buttons on the train or MRT system, the hostel bed rail or the lift buttons in your hotel. Think how many people have touched them before you, then remember that not everyone washes their hands after going to the toilet.

Now what do you do after touching all these things? Scratch your nose? Put your hand to your mouth as you yawn? Grab a sandwich and eat it with your fingers?

That is a fairly disgusting thought, right? Infections including cholera, shigellosis, cryptosporidiosis and many causes of travellers’ diarrhoea can spread through the faecal–oral route. And yes, that is exactly what it sounds like: tiny amounts of faecal contamination reach your mouth through contaminated hands, food, water or utensils.

You do not have to see dirt on your hands for contamination to be present. Something as ordinary as opening a toilet door and then eating a sandwich without washing your hands can give harmful organisms a route into your body. Your hands are not the only possible source, either: food and water can become contaminated before they reach you, which is why safe preparation and handling are important too.

You can still shake hands, hold the rail on the metro and sit down at the most basic street food stall. Just remember what your hands have been touching before you use them to eat. Washing them first is a simple way to avoid giving whatever was on the hostel bathroom door a free ride into your lunch.

Respiratory Infections And Shared Air

Most of us have had the pleasure of sitting near someone on a bus who seems determined to cough their way through the entire journey without covering their mouth. It is unpleasant, inconsiderate and an excellent reminder of why basic respiratory hygiene has always been important.

When you cough or sneeze, you release respiratory particles that can carry infection. Talking and breathing release particles too, so you do not have to be coughed on directly to become exposed. Some infections can also spread when contaminated hands transfer germs to your eyes, nose or mouth, which is why hand washing is still important.

Most of us have always known this, it’s common sense. If someone starts hacking up a lung in front of you, you take a step back. Giving someone who is coughing or sneezing some space is a sensible precaution.

Current healthcare IPC guidance has gone back to the normal suggestion of keeping at least a metre away from anyone coughing or sneezing where that is practical to reduce close-range exposure, but you don’t need to go overboard. You do not have to scream at everyone to keep their distance, carry a plastic face shield, follow a one-way route around the airport or hold out a two metre stick at all times like many did during the pandemic. Standard evidence based best practice that has been in place for decades has been in place for that long for very good reason.

Distance is just one consideration alongside how long you spend with someone and how well the space is ventilated. Briefly passing someone in the street is a different situation from spending hours beside a coughing and sneezing mess in a crowded, poorly ventilated room.

It is not always possible to avoid crowded transport or enclosed spaces when travelling, and you do not need to avoid them altogether. Just use a bit of common sense. Taking a train, sharing a dorm or chatting with other travellers are ordinary parts of a trip, not reasons to assume you will become ill and you don’t need to treat everyone you meet with suspicion. Cover your own coughs and sneezes with a tissue or your elbow, clean your hands afterwards and choose somewhere with fresh air when you can. These are straightforward precautions you can build into your day without avoiding the people you travelled to meet.

How To Protect Yourself From Infection When Travelling

This isn’t meant to creep you out or make you want to take a bath in disinfectant. I just want to remind all backpackers and travellers out there that so much of this can be avoided with basic common sense self hygiene procedures. And I do genuinely mean that. The entire reason I never fell prey to the fearmongering and hysteria over the pandemic is because I am trained in IPC and I follow simple, everyday hygiene procedures in my daily life which reduces any potential risk to reasonable levels.

Understanding how infections spread is useful, but protecting yourself does not need to be complicated. There are some simple, common sense precautions you can take to reduce your risk of getting ill and passing infections to other people, without getting in the way of enjoying your trip.

Keep Your Hands Clean

It really can be this simple. Wash your hands, especially after you have been to the loo and before you handle or eat food. You might not have much control over who last touched the hostel bathroom door or how thoroughly the overnight bus was cleaned, but you can clean your hands before picking up your lunch.

Washing your hands is so important we even had a practical exam on it during my nursing degree! Seriously! If it is drilled into healthcare staff as the number one basic essential, that should tell you something! But knowing you should do it and actually cleaning every part of your hands are not always the same thing.

How To Wash Them Properly

Use soap and clean running water and wash thoroughly for at least 20 seconds. Pay attention to your thumbs, fingertips, between your fingers and the backs of your hands, rather than giving your palms a quick rub and calling it done. Rinse well and dry thoroughly. Warm or cold water is fine, so do not skip washing just because the hostel sink does not have a hot tap.

Wash after blowing your nose, coughing or sneezing into your hands, after touching animals and before and after caring for a cut or wound too. You do not need to wash after every object you touch; concentrate on the moments when clean hands can interrupt the spread of infection.

When Hand Sanitiser Is Useful

Let’s be honest, washing your hands is not always convenient when you are travelling. Not every street food stall has a sink nearby, and you are unlikely to find a soap dispenser halfway along a mountain trail. Carrying a small bottle of alcohol-based hand sanitiser gives you a practical option until you can wash properly.

Choose one containing at least 60% alcohol. Apply enough to cover every surface of your hands, including your thumbs, fingertips and between your fingers, and rub until dry. Follow the instructions on the bottle rather than wiping it off on your trousers while your hands are still wet.

Sanitiser does not remove dirt, so if your hands are visibly dirty or greasy, wash with soap and water. It is also not effective against every cause of illness: alcohol hand gels do not kill norovirus, for example, which makes proper handwashing particularly important after using the toilet and before eating.

Think of it as a useful backup, not a reason to stop washing your hands. There is no set number of times you can use it before you must wash; take the opportunity when suitable facilities are available.

Keep Yourself And Your Belongings Clean

Keeping yourself and your belongings reasonably clean can make life on the road more comfortable and help reduce the spread of infection. You do not need an elaborate routine or a backpack full of antibacterial products. A few everyday habits will do, even when facilities are basic.

Washing, Showering And Clean Clothes

I know backpackers have a reputation for being a little relaxed about personal hygiene and most of the time that is absolutely undeserved, but we all know the odd one or two stinking hippies that bring the rest of us down. I really shouldn’t have to tell you this, right? Just get a wash you hobo!

There is a difference between travelling light and making everyone in the dorm wish you had booked a private room. After a sweaty day exploring or a long overnight journey, a wash and a change of clothes can leave you feeling considerably more human.

Shower when you can, paying attention to sweaty areas and drying thoroughly afterwards, especially between your toes and in skin folds. If facilities are limited, a wash with soap, clean water and a cloth is a useful alternative. Ordinary soap is fine; you do not need to scrub yourself raw or use antibacterial products all over your body.

Change your underwear and socks daily where possible, and wash sweaty or dirty clothes rather than repeatedly putting them back on. Give clothing and towels time to dry properly before packing them away. A damp bundle fermenting at the bottom of your backpack is unlikely to improve either your skin or your social life.

Keep your towel, razor and toothbrush for your own use. Sharing travel stories is encouraged; sharing everything in your washbag is considerably less sensible.

Phones, Electronics And Other Frequently Handled Items

Be honest, when was the last time you cleaned your phone? It goes from your hand to a café table, onto your hostel bed and possibly into the bathroom with you, before coming straight back out when you sit down to eat. Your hands may be freshly washed, but is that little plastic infection source sitting on the table next to your plate? You were sitting on the loo holding that ten minutes ago!

What about your laptop keyboard? I don’t even want to know what is on that.

Give your phone and other frequently handled items an occasional clean, particularly when visibly dirty. Don’t go overboard, spraying disinfectant into a charging port is an expensive way to discover that cleaning products are not interchangeable. Just a quick wipe is often enough. Just include it in your normal cleaning habits and avoid handling things unnecessarily while preparing food or eating with your fingers.

Reduce Your Exposure To Respiratory Infections

Catching a cold halfway through your trip is nobody’s idea of fun, and neither is sharing it with everyone in the dorm. The same basic habits you use at home can help reduce the spread of respiratory infections while travelling, without getting in the way of meeting people or enjoying yourself.

Cover Coughs And Sneezes

Cover your mouth and nose with a tissue when you cough or sneeze, put it in a bin and clean your hands afterwards. If you do not have a tissue, use the crook of your elbow rather than your hands. Otherwise, whatever you have just coughed into your palm can end up on the next door handle, handrail or hand you shake.

It is a small courtesy that makes shared journeys considerably more pleasant. Nobody on the overnight bus volunteered to be coughed on for six hours.

Give Ill People Space And Consider Ventilation

If someone is coughing and spluttering, avoid spending longer than necessary in close contact with them. Move seats if there is room, or choose another spot to sit. You will not always have that option, and being near someone with a cough does not mean you will inevitably catch something.

Where you can, choose somewhere with fresh air rather than a stuffy, crowded room. Sitting outside at a café or opening a window in shared accommodation, where safe and practical, can help reduce the build-up of infectious particles. You do not have to avoid indoor spaces altogether; just make use of the choices available.

Take Extra Care When You Are Unwell

If you have a fever or feel too unwell for your normal activities, rest and postpone onward travel where practical. Trying to drag yourself through a full itinerary is unlikely to be enjoyable, and spending hours on crowded transport gives you more opportunity to pass an infection to others.

Reduce close contact while you recover, particularly with anyone at greater risk of serious illness. A private room can help if it is available and affordable, but if you are sharing, let fresh air in where possible and be considerate about using communal spaces.

Eat And Drink With Sensible Precautions

Trying local food is one of the best parts of travelling, whether you are pulling up a plastic stool at a street stall or discovering what everyone is queuing for at a night market. You do not need to miss out through fear of getting ill. Pay attention to how food is prepared and served, make sure your drinking water is safe and wash your hands before eating.

Choose Food That Is Cooked And Handled Safely

A busy stall cooking food fresh in front of you can be an excellent place to eat. A queue is a useful clue to popularity and turnover, but take a moment to watch what is happening too. Is food being cooked thoroughly and served piping hot? Are raw ingredients kept separate from cooked food? Is the person handling money then picking up ready-to-eat food with the same unwashed hands?

Gloves are not a guarantee of cleanliness. Someone wearing the same pair to handle raw meat, collect money and assemble your lunch can transfer contamination just as easily as someone using bare hands.

Be cautious with cooked food left sitting lukewarm, including buffets. The concern is how long it has been held at a temperature that allows harmful organisms to multiply, rather than whether it came from a street stall or an expensive hotel. Choose fruit you can peel yourself, and avoid salads or raw produce if you cannot be confident they have been washed with safe water.

Check Your Drinking Water

Check whether tap water is safe to drink where you are staying. If it is not, use sealed bottled water or water treated by a reliable method. Check that bottle seals are intact, and use safe water for brushing your teeth too. Ice also needs to have been made from safe water; freezing does not reliably make contaminated water safe.

A suitable filter or purifier can reduce plastic waste and save money, but check exactly what it removes. Some filters remove bacteria and parasites without reliably removing viruses, while other devices treat all three. Follow the instructions, including treatment times and maintenance, rather than assuming every bottle sold for travel offers the same protection.

Check Cutlery Before You Eat

Have a quick look at your utensils before tucking in. If they are visibly dirty, ask for clean replacements. There is no need to produce a washing-up bowl before every meal, but dried-on food from the previous customer is a reasonable cause for objection.

Carrying your own spork or chopsticks is an option if you find it convenient, provided you keep them clean between uses. If you use a wipe on utensils, choose one explicitly suitable for that purpose and follow its instructions, including any requirement to rinse with safe water.

How Much Cleaning Do You Really Need To Do?

You cannot control how thoroughly every bus, hostel or café is cleaned, and you do not need to take responsibility for cleaning the whole place yourself. A few wet wipes can be handy for the things you will be touching or eating from. Beyond that, keep washing your hands and use a little judgement.

On Planes, Trains And Buses

Aeroplanes carry plenty of germs along with their passengers, and a tidy-looking cabin does not necessarily mean everything you touch has been thoroughly cleaned.

Cleaning varies between airlines and schedules. Aircraft may receive a more extensive clean during longer stops or overnight, with deeper cleaning scheduled separately. Between flights, however, there may only be time for a quick turnaround clean. Rubbish is removed and obvious mess dealt with, but that is not the same as thoroughly cleaning every screen, armrest and tray table. Tight turnaround times leave less opportunity for that work.

So when you board, you do not know who last used the equipment you will be touching or what they did with it. I have literally seen people put dirty nappies on a tray table before now, so think about that before you tuck into your stale sandwich!

That is why, when I board a plane, I spend a few minutes wiping down the screen, armrests, tray table and window blind handle or button with disinfectant wet wipes, following the packet instructions. Then I use alcohol gel on my hands, because getting up to wash them is not always practical while everyone is boarding.

It takes a few minutes, my immediate surroundings are cleaner and I can get on with the journey. The same approach can be useful on a train or overnight bus, particularly if you will be eating from a fold-down table.

You do not need to clean everything you might touch, and wiping surfaces will not protect you from infections carried in shared air. But cleaning the area you will be using and keeping your hands clean before eating are straightforward precautions, without turning your journey into a deep-cleaning exercise.

In Hostels And Shared Kitchens

Have a look around before you start preparing food. If the worktop, chopping board or utensils are dirty, give them a wash, and clean up after yourself too. Keep raw meat and its juices away from food you will eat without further cooking.

If the fridge feels warm or the kitchen looks as though nobody has cleaned it since the hostel opened, tell the staff and eat elsewhere. You are there to make lunch, not rehabilitate the building.

In shared bathrooms, keep your toothbrush and toiletries off dirty surfaces and wash your hands after using the toilet. Report vomit, faeces or other significant mess to the staff rather than trying to tackle it with the last three wipes in your pack.

If You Develop Vomiting Or Diarrhoea

Sometimes you can do everything right and still be unlucky. You wash your hands, take care with food and water, and then spend a day becoming far better acquainted with the hostel toilet than you ever wanted to. It does not mean you have been careless or failed some basic test of travelling. Stomach bugs happen at home too, and sensible precautions reduce your risk rather than eliminate it.

Most episodes settle with fluids, rest and time, so give yourself permission to put your plans aside while you recover. Missing an excursion is frustrating, but it does not mean your trip is ruined. Taking a little extra care with hygiene can also help stop whatever you have caught making its way around the dorm.

Wash your hands thoroughly with soap and water after using the toilet and before eating. Do not rely on alcohol gel, particularly when norovirus could be responsible. Keep your towel to yourself and avoid preparing food for other people until at least 48 hours after your last episode of vomiting or diarrhoea.

Where possible, postpone onward travel while symptoms are active. Give yourself somewhere comfortable to recover rather than attempting an overnight bus journey that neither you nor your stomach is ready for.

Keep drinking, taking small, frequent sips if you feel sick. Oral rehydration sachets mixed with safe water according to the packet instructions can help replace lost fluid and salts. Most stomach upsets can be managed yourself, but get medical help if you cannot keep fluids down, have signs of dehydration, bloody diarrhoea or severe abdominal pain, or your symptoms persist or worsen. A fever during or after visiting a malaria risk area needs urgent assessment, even if you also have diarrhoea.

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Enjoy Your Trip Without Obsessing Over Germs

Travel will bring you into contact with unfamiliar places, people and food. That is part of the pleasure of it, and you do not need to approach every shared bathroom or street food stall as though you are entering an isolation ward.

Wash your hands, take sensible care with food and water, and be considerate when you are unwell. Once those habits become part of your day, you can spend far less time thinking about germs and far more time enjoying wherever you happen to be.

And if you do get ill, do not beat yourself up. Even the most careful traveller can be unlucky. Give yourself time to recover, get help when you need it and adjust your plans along the way. There is still a whole trip to enjoy beyond a frustrating couple of days feeling under the weather.