The medical advice for travellers into tropical and subtropical climatic zones is essentially a task of the physician. Thereby the medical advice and the prophylactic measures should restrict themselves not only to risks of infection, but they must--as far as possible--comprise all health risks. The travellers who bear with themselves a health risk deserve particular attention on the side of the physician. Precarious from the medical point of view are travels with infants and babies as well as travels of pregnant women. The personal, age- and sex-specific health situation, the subjective behaviour as well as style of travelling and lifestyle play an essential role. The personal situation of the traveller is to be taken into consideration concerning the risk of the travel, so that the advice regarding the travel can in every case be only an individual medical action. According recommendations in the field of tropical medicine the performance of protective inoculations the prescription of a suitable chemoprophylactic drug against malaria as well as if the occasion arises of a medicine cabinet for travelling is necessary. The postexpositional after-care after the return, the so-called returners' examination should not be neglected.