Southeast Asia splits neatly into two kinds of trip, and they need different advice. A fortnight in a Phuket resort with day trips is one thing. Three months backpacking through northern Thailand, Laos and Cambodia is another entirely. The vaccines that make sense scale with how far off the beaten track you go and how long you stay.
Hepatitis A (£65, child £55) — street food is one of the great pleasures of the region and also the main route for hepatitis A. Get it done.
Typhoid (£35) — same reasoning, particularly outside the resorts.
Tetanus, diphtheria and polio (£35) — check your last booster. Scooter accidents and coral cuts are the classic reasons this matters here.
Rabies (£60 per dose) — dogs, monkeys at temples, and cats around beach bars. Genuinely worth it for longer trips, backpacking, islands where medical care is a boat ride away, and anyone riding a scooter.
Japanese encephalitis (£95 per dose, two doses 28 days apart) — a rural, seasonal risk associated with rice paddies. Considered mainly for stays of a month or more in the countryside, or repeated shorter rural trips.
Hepatitis B (£55 per dose, child £40) — worth it for long trips, and specifically for anyone considering tattoos, piercings or medical treatment while away.
Malaria tablets (from £30) — this is where honest advice saves you money. Bangkok, Chiang Mai city, Phuket, Koh Samui and the main tourist islands are generally malaria-free and do not need tablets. Risk sits in border areas with Myanmar and Cambodia and in some rural forested regions. If your trip is resorts and cities, you probably need nothing; if it is border trekking, you probably do.
Dengue is common across the region and there is no routine traveller vaccine. Bite avoidance is the whole strategy: repellent with 50% DEET, cover up at dawn and dusk when the relevant mosquito bites, and use air conditioning or nets. Take this seriously — dengue puts more UK travellers in hospital in this region than anything on the vaccine list.
Road traffic injury is the leading cause of death for travellers in Southeast Asia, and scooter hire is where most of it happens. Wear a helmet, check your travel insurance covers you and whether it requires a licence, and do not ride after drinking. No vaccine helps with this one.
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