No one wants to get sick while they are on vacation and even worse no one wants to return home with a souvenir in the form of a virus and then having to use sick days when you get back. We’ve detailed out some general tips for preventing illness while traveling. If you implement them in your daily life you might just find that your general wellbeing and overall health is improved!
Check out our tips for preventing illness while traveling:
Stay Hydrated
Making sure that you stay hydrated at all times is incredibly important. The level of importance increases when you travel. Stepping outside of your normal routine can cause you to become dehydrated quickly and illnesses can creep in when you aren’t properly hydrated. An important tip is to make sure that you are drinking filtered water or preferably bottled water.
Keep your diet as normal as possible
This is a hard one when you are on vacation, but staying as close to your normal diet as possible is helpful. The last thing that you want is to spend the better part of your vacation in the bathroom with gastrointestinal issues.
Avoid drinking from the glasses in your hotel room
This may seem silly, but I make it a point not to drink out of the glasses in the hotel room. Think about it, how do they get properly cleaned? Ask the front desk for some extra disposable coffee cups just to be on the safe side.
Get ample sleep
You are on a fantastic vacation, right? So naturally it makes sense to soak up as much of every day as possible. Except, if you return from your vacation extremely run down, you are likely to find yourself needing a vacation from your vacation or worse, sick. Making sure that you get plenty of rest while you are away will not only leave you feeling refreshed after your vacation but you will also be less likely to need to use sick days once you get home.
Sanitize where and what you can
Before you use a tray table, or even the nightstand in your hotel, grab some sanitizing wipes and get cleaning. You don’t have to be a germaphobe or anything to that extreme, but if you will be using surfaces that your personal belongings will be sitting on it might be a good idea to give everything a good wipe down.
Take your vitamins
It is a good idea to take a vitamin on a daily basis anyway but when you are traveling it is even more important to make sure you are taking extra care of your health in a fairly easy way. So stock up on your multivitamins and make sure you bring them along on your getaway.
Protect your skin
On my honeymoon, my husband assured me that his skin was used to the sun and he didn’t need to use sunscreen, in Hawaii, on a boat. You’ll never guess what happened. That’s right he got burnt to a crisp. Don’t let that same fate happen to you. Grab some sunscreen and lather up before heading out into the sun for the day.
Get exercise before and after you travel
Often, when traveling you find that your step counter has amassed way more steps than you typically see during the week. Which is a good thing because that means you’ve gotten more exercise than normal, right? Well, maybe not. If you aren’t ready for this increase in steps it could mean that you would be sore and might not be able to do as much as normal.
Wash your hands
This should goes without saying but making sure you are utilizing proper hygiene is incredibly important to make sure that you are preventing illness. Not to mention it is just a good general practice. Don’t forget to sing “Happy Birthday” while you are washing your hands to make sure you are getting the right amount of cleaning.
Avoid using airplane bathrooms (if you can)
Don’t make yourself totally uncomfortable on this one, but if you can possibly avoid using the little airplane bathroom you are likely better off. While planes in general can make folks nervous about the germs present there is an extra level of germs that are living in the airplane bathroom.
Have you found any ways that you try to stay healthy while you travel?
