Low health risk MR destinations
 

I am looking for some ideas for long distance interesting MR destinations that one can do mini-vacation MRs (1-5 days), that generally meet the following criteria:

1. No vaccinations are needed, if staying only in the destination city (i.e., no visits to low sanitation suburban areas), with low risk exposure (avoiding street food, eating in high quality establishments, etc).

2. No risk from crazy scary exotic diseases (e.g., mosquito born hemorrhagic fevers, again, if staying in the city)

3. Do not have to tape mouth when in shower, when staying in 4-5 star major western hotel chains in the city (Hiltons, Marriotts, etc).

I take it as a given that all Europe and Australia are like that, but I would like suggestions for South America, Asia, and S. Africa.

I believe PEK, HKG, EZE, and TYO likely meet these criteria, and I am sure many more cities in these regions, and I would like additional suggestions. I understand this is somewhat subjective and perhaps a bit controversial topic, but I would like to hear some suggestions.

I guess these are valid concerns.. but how can you factor these into MRs?

Would you pay 6cpm for a "safer" destination when there's a <4cpm flight to Bangkok?

Anyway, here's a resource regarding countries: http://travel.state.gov/content/pass...h/country.html

Depending on your definition of Europe, this could be overly generous. One should be very careful about the water at SVO and IST for example. I would also be very cautions about water in parts of souther Europe, including southern Italy (NAP and south), rural Spain and Portugal, and at least some of the Greek islands. I'm also cautious throughout the region formerly known as eastern Europe or the Soviet block. [Austria wouldn't be included and I would assume that all of Germany is OK now.]

In Asia, SIN has very high sanitation standards, including for street food, but there are a few caases of insect borne diseases such as dengue fever (seasonally). HKG has high standards too, but there have been a few cases in the news recently of visitors being brutally quarantined under poor conditions when the authorities have suspected that they might have been exposed to some disease, such as from another passenger on a flight. To me, this is scary. I would fear the same potention overreaction in China, where the standard medical care is also bad so that I would also fear forced medical exams there.

I would have put South Korea into the same (good) category as Japan except for their recent highly publicized cases of MERS.

I don't drink tap water in Argentina or use it for bushing teeth, but I will use luxury hotel swimming pools there.

BTW, I've never heard of taping one's mouth shut in the shower, although I sometimes worry about waking up thirsty in the middle of the night and drinking tap water without thinking. I try to position bottles of water very prominently in my hotel room and bathroom as a reminder.

Go to Hong Kong. Period! Frequent great MR's, safe, fun for a few days, easy to get around.

Cities in South Africa are good choices. Cape Town is fabulous. Namibia would also be OK. SIN, HKG, Japan all work for Asia. There is no place in South America that I would drink the water.

That's my next MR. 4 days in HKG

Jealous!

Dunno about Italy, the latter two are all ok as of 10 years ago.

I also use bottled water for teeth brushing in IST, but not in EZE. I don't drink tap water pretty much anywhere in the world except a couple of places I have lived and can trust. I am a very careful traveler, but I am hoping to have a group of select cities around the world (in addition to Europe) that I can do regular mini-vacation MRs. It seems HKG and TYO are safe, ICN, SIN, and EZE are at least seasonally fine, and PEK cautiously, too.

Any other good cities in S. America? SCL perhaps?

Sounds good, I have my first booked already, but I would rather not have to do it more than once a year or so, I would prefer some variety.

The only other major health risk for HKG is yourSWUnotClearing-itis, which I have heard has painful symptoms, lol...

Yes to SCL, but I repeat my concerns about forced quarantine in HKG in response to irrational panics over certain diseases. A year or so ago a school group was forcibly quarantined against their will for almost two weeks in horrendous conditions because of a suspicion that someone on their inbound flight was ill.

That's not up to us. We're all beholden to the MR & Mistake fare gods ;)

For me, and I guess for some others, it is the interplay of many factors, such as novelty (for me) of the destination, touristic value, security (crime), health safety, cpm, availability of fares, season of the year, etc. I would almost never do a pure international MR or choose only on cpm, since I try to do a minimum of 1.5 days pure time in the destination city.

For example, I would not do at all a 2cpm trip to an unsafe destination.

Are you sure PEK is safe? I would not agree on that one :)

I haven't been yet but planning to, and it is my wishful thinking, as I don't want the world to shrink too much...What are the main concerns, you think?