I did a very in depth amount of personal research about insect repellent in preparation for a long-term trip into an area of the world where Zika, Dengue, and M

I did a very in depth amount of personal research about insect repellent in preparation for a long-term trip into an area of the world where Zika, Dengue, and Malaria are all endemic. To summarize my findings I would say the following: 1. Spray your clothes, not your skin. 2. If you don't want to overdo it, make sure in particular to spray your neck/collar, your cuffs/wrists, your ankles/socks/shoes. As you might imagine, most bugs get to your skin where it's exposed and get under your clothes at the openings, and the areas closer to the ground are more exposed. 3. Use Picaridin (sometimes called Icaridin). It needs to be a minimum 20% concentration by volume to be effective. 4. If you are willing, pre-treat your clothing with Permethrin 6+hrs prior to wear 5. If you are going to apply insect repellent directly to your skin, don't use a spray, use a lotion, sprays are for clothing. 6. Wear a hat that's been treated with Permethrin That's pretty much it. If you do these things you'll be fine. Obviously you don't want to put repellent on your entire skin every day, but having your outer clothes treated with Permethrin and then putting a small amount of repellent lotion on your skin where your outer clothes have openings and wearing non-treated underwear/undershirt can do a lot and is relatively safe. DEET is very effective, but toxic to humans, and some insects are becoming resistant, Picaridin is similarly effective but with a shorter fall-off time (needs to be re-applied more often) and significantly lower toxicity and without natural resistance in the insect population.