CDC TravWell App, recommendations for safe and healthy international travel

It's time for vacation, which means that you need to start thinking and planning a lot of things in advance, which can be overwhelming.
Luckily there are many travel apps available for smartphones that can help you with literary anything, from planning and packing, to currency conversion and translators to help you break the language barrier. 

But planning international travel is not just about booking flights and accommodations. You also need to think about your health and safety.

Depending on the travel destination, travelers may be exposed to a number of diseases. It's, therefore, important to take health precautions before travel, along with vaccinations and medicines. 

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is well-known for providing the general public with accurate and up to date recommendations regarding health and safety, particularly those who travel abroad. 

They're also known for the use and the development of information technology to help deliver these recommendations.

CDC developed free TravWell app for Android and iOS devices, which provides travelers worldwide with travel and health recommendations to help them prepare for their trip. 

The app lets you choose the destination, and then it provides specific vaccine recommendations, as well as a checklist of things you might need to do to or pack for your travel. It also allows you store important documents and set reminders for your vaccines and medications.

The app opens to the main screen featuring four sections, including New Trip, All Trips, My Profile, About, and Settings. If you just started using the app, the first thing to do is to create your trip.

To do that, simply tap on New Trip and then add your destination, along with start and end date of your travel. To add destination, start typing it in the search field and the autocomplete would populate the list as you type. 

After you're finished, tap on Create Trip button. You'd be taken to the new page with four main sections, including CDC Vaccines and Medicines Advice, To Do List, Documents, and Packing List. These sections provide information, useful resources, and alerts all specific to the individual user and the country you visit.

'CDC Vaccines and Medicines Advice' section allows users to view recommended vaccines and medications for the destination they've chosen. Each destination has its own recommendations that should be discussed with your healthcare provider before the trip.

Vaccines are provided in a list format. You can tap on a vaccine to learn more about each or to read further information on CDC website. There is Add to Vaccines button that allows users to schedule vaccine, chose right vaccine for each disease, set personal reminders, and add notes.

For example, for the purpose of this review, I've created a trip to Thailand and got recommendations for routine vaccines, which include MMR, varicella, polio, flu shot, and others. I was also recommended to have vaccines for Hepatitis A and B, Japanese encephalitis, malaria, and so on.

For the other trip I've created, this time to Barbados, I've got slightly different recommendations. As I said above, these recommendations vary from one destination to another.

The 'To Do List' section provides a list of suggested actions before the trip, such as filling prescriptions, seeing health care provider before the trip, getting travel insurance, preparing travel documents, and actions during a trip, which suggests using insect repellent or applying sunscreen. 

Users can create additional topics in both categories and set reminders and add notes for each action in the list. 

The 'Docs' section allows users to add copies of their travel and health documents, such as passport, prescriptions, vaccination history, and more in the app. Users can either use camera to photograph documents or add copies from the phone library. Documents could be added for a specific trip, or all trips (passport for example).

Finally, the 'Packing List' section gives suggestions of useful items for your trip from prescriptions and over the counter medicines, medical supplies, first aid kit, and important documents, again with the option to customize the content.

All trips you created would be visible in 'All Trips' section, while 'My Profile' section stores you travel health history and lists summaries of all vaccines you received and medications you regularly take, as well as copies of your documents.

With TravWell app you'd be also able to access latest CDC issued travel health notices, US State Department alerts, emergency phone numbers, and more. Also, the app provides emergency numbers for every destination.

As a conclusion, I can only say that CDC TravWell app is a perfect pocket companion for safer and healthier international travel. 

Benefit: All travelers who want to travel safe and healthy will benefit from this app