One of the world's more sinister diseases, sleeping sickness, scientifically known as African trypanosomiasis, begins with a single bite from an infected tsetse fly. If left untreated, the two forms of the parasite - T. b. gambiense and T. b. rhodesiense are almost always fatal. From a traveler's perspective, there is not much to worry [...]

Utah is a great place to take a vacation in the United States with its diverse environment and a wide variety of things to do. There aren’t many destinations where you can ski, go white-water rafting, and see dinosaur fossils in one state. And you can find the perfect cozy cabin rentals in Utah on [...]

The barbed stinger situated on a stingray's tail is something out of a guide to medieval torture. While they are not aggressive animals, stingrays have the unfortunate ability (for us, anyway) to almost complete disguise themselves while swimming around the ocean floor, and they happen to love hanging out in the shallow waters where you [...]

Named after the area around the Hantan River in South Korea, where an outbreak was recorded in the 1970's, hantaviruses find themselves in that fun category of viruses that are untreatable and potentially fatal. There is also no current commercially available vaccine. The good news is that hantaviruses are rarely contracted by humans. We will [...]

"Foot" and "fungus" are two words you never want to see paired together. Unfortunately, that revolting combination is precisely what happens under the right conditions. In many ways, you are more likely to come across the offending fungi while you are traveling. More time in shared spaces, hotel rooms, and possibly swimming pools and locker [...]

We recently wrote a post about spider bites, and afterwards we had several emails from readers asking us if we could write something on snake bites. It seems many of you want this site to turn into a very morbid place. Snake bites are certainly worth talking about. There could be as many as 5 [...]

Both authors of this site have had cases of cellulitis, so we can get particularly intimate with this subject. Let's get down to it. Cellulitis is a bacterial skin infection. It usually starts innocently enough with a little redness and perhaps some swelling. If left untreated, things can go south quickly. This is what happened [...]

Sea urchins are what you would call a passive, non-aggressive animal. In other words, it's up to you to make the mistake. And the mistake is a costly one. These little devils advertise their ability to wreak havoc with countless black spines that jet out of their round shaped body. Step on an urchin, and [...]

Who doesn't have an outsize fear of spiders? The things look they were specifically designed to terrify us. Eight legs, eight eyes, fangs. What else? Oh yeah, some of them are venomous. We are afraid of spiders despite the fact that we have countless encounters with them. We've also been bitten by spiders, and in [...]