How to Stay Healthy While Traveling: DIY Travel Health Kit

Learn how to stay healthy while traveling by plane, bus, train, and more.

How to Stay Healthy While Traveling

The holiday season is one of the busiest travel seasons during the year. It’s estimated that every year millions of Americans, as many as 90 million or more, travel 50 miles or more away from home between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

That’s a lot of potentially sick, germy air being passed around, especially on planes, in trains, and on buses. Yuck!

What can you do to make sure you stay healthy while traveling?

• First, you need to keep your hands clean. Why? Your hands transmit germs from any surface you have touched to your face. Think about all of the times you put your hands near your face during the day, and then think about how many things you have touched: door handles, railings, desks, light switches, etc.
• It would also help if you had a way to keep the surfaces you touch clean as much as possible. It may not be feasible in public places all of the time, but if you could use a cleaning wipe on arm rests or seat belts, you could reduce the number of germs you would be touching with your hands.
• Building and maintaining your immune system can also keep you healthy. To build and maintain a healthy immune system, it’s important to get enough rest every day. It’s also important to take a daily vitamin, especially one with Vitamin C to give your immune system a boost.

DIY Travel Kit to Stay Healthy

You can create your own healthy kit to help you stay healthy as you travel to your destination and as you return to your home this holiday season.

You can use a small toiletries bag to hold all of these items. Keep in mind that you might need it to be a clear bag if traveling by plane. You’ll also need to make sure you have the right size of any liquids. 

Inside this travel kit, you can add a few products to help you stay healthy when you travel, including:

• Cleaning wipes, to clean off arm rests, serving trays, buttons, knobs….anything you may touch during your travels.
• Hand sanitizer,  to clean your hands before you eat or after you use the restroom, or anytime your hands feel grimy,
• Ear plugs, help mute any sounds that may disturb you as you try to get some rest,
• Emergen-C, to help boost your immune system with vitamin C and to help you stay hydrated,
• Sleep mask, to help keep the light from disturbing you as you rest,
• Face mask, to keep you from spreading germs if you’re sick, or to protect you from any germs that might be in the air from others who may be sick. It might even be nice to pass on to a fellow traveler who may be sick and spreading germs!
• Band-aids, in case of any cuts or blisters. 
• Antibiotic ointment, to keep cuts and blisters from getting infected. 
• Dramamine, in case of any motion sickness. 
• Pain reliever, for any headaches or muscle aches while traveling. 
• Indigestion relief, like Nauzene, for when you have stomach troubles. 

All of these items are small enough to fit into a small travel toiletries kit, and would help you stay as healthy as possible when you travel. 

What else would you add? 

Is there anything that you would add to this travel health kit? Leave a comment below!