International medical travel – patients traveling in order to pursue diagnostic and therapeutic options in other countries – has become a worldwide phenomenon over the past decade. Studies of this phenomenon, commonly referred to as “medical tourism,” have also proliferated. Many of these studies have focused on patients from relatively wealthy countries seeking care and recovery in equal or less wealthy destinations. Few studies have examined the motivations and experiences of patients from low-income countries (beyond the elite) who sacrifice greatly to travel abroad for care that is unavailable in their own countries. This paper revisits over two years of ethnographic data from the 1990s in Yemen and among Yemeni medical travelers in Jordan and India in light of recent scholarship on medical tourism in order to underscore important commonalities and differences within the trend of international medical travel. For example, medical journeys worldwide entail the common logistics of transportation and accommodations, although the specific ways of meeting these needs can vary dramatically. Medical journeys are often motivated by the desire to alleviate suffering; the particular circumstances and procedures involved are worth illuminating, however. Medical journeys are usually undertaken because of the unfulfilled expectations that patients have for their nation-state and its provision of care; the expectations themselves and the reasons behind the lack of care locally need to be uncovered. Except for medical journeys for “natural” therapies, international medical travel often involves procedures that are technological; the specific technologies and their development are worth exploring. Finally, medical journeys occur within a common global arena; however, medical travelers, as well as their nation-states, have differing access to the resources available within this global arena. As this paper demonstrates, ethnographic data on the international medical travel of patients from Yemen highlight necessary complexities within the global phenomenon of what has been called medical tourism.