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You think you know what it means to be scared? Try to imagine being struck down by a nasty digestive illness while traveling in Pakistan, where the hospital bathrooms look like this. Travelers, especially those who venture off the beaten track, away from modern medicine, need to be aware of the possibility of sickness or injury and know the precautionary steps to minimize the risks. Just think of the Net as the world's largest travel health clinic. The foremost authority on travelers’ health is the Centers for Disease Control located in Atlanta, and should be every

traveler's first stop for health info. The CDC lays out the dangers and prophylactic measures needed for each region of the world in easy to understand language. Disease outbreaks are constantly updated and reference material on each disease is accessible. The CDC also conducts sanitation inspections of international cruise ships to ensure that the boats are not roaming the world collecting exotic bugs and amoebas. There are a ton of other sources for travel health info on the Net, but in the end they all wind up saying roughly the same thing. A couple of reputable health resources are The Virtual Hospital's Introduction to Travel Medicine and Lonely Planet's Health Check. Yahoo! has directories that point to all the major tropical diseases if you need specific info. For those needing malaria supplies, The Malaria Supply Store is awaiting your order for larium. No air traveler is immune to the effects of jet lag, but the No Jet Lag site is devoted to minimizing the debilitating consequences of being a jet-setter. Once your plane lands, you may be thankful jet lag is not a condition that requires hospitalization. There still are many places in the world where a trip to the hospital is a worse alternative to suffering. If you fall seriously ill in such a place you may want to consider evacuation. MEDEX Assistance Corporation provides emergency medical assistance and evacuation services worldwide. You also should consider acquiring some travel insurance to pay for the high costs of medical treatment. In the end, one of the most important pieces of advice that can be offered to travelers is to always have an easily accessible stash of toilet paper (it doesn't need to have Jesse Helms on it). Traveler's Diarrhea, also known as Delhi Belly, Montezuma's Revenge and numerous other euphemisms, is the most common affliction of those who travel. It generally is not serious, but you can expect to be well acquainted with the toilets of your host country and for bowels to become a major topic of conversation, even among strangers (take it from someone who knows). With an ounce of prevention and a chunk of luck, you can have a healthy, happy and hearty trip