How to Stay Healthy While Traveling

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Along with all the excitement and fun of visiting new places and spending time with family and friends, travel can also be somewhat of a physical challenge on the body. With long days, busy schedules, irregular meals and exposure to new microbes (aka unfriendly bacteria and viruses), traveling often includes some form of digestive distress, bloating, illness or trouble sleeping.

But don’t worry, there are a few simple ways you can limit these physical effects of travel!

How to stay healthy while traveling

Here are some simple wellness tips to stay healthy while traveling:

Stay hydrated

Staying properly hydrated is one of the simplest and most effective ways you can ward off the physical stress of travel.

Proper hydration aids digestion, reduces bloating and helps keep your immune system healthy (and thus ready to ward off any unfamiliar or unfriendly bugs).

While traveling, aim to drink more water than you usually would each day. A general rule of thumb is to multiply your bodyweight (in pounds) by 0.67—so if you weigh 120 pounds, you would aim for 80 ounces of water per day.

It’s a good idea to travel with a large reusable water bottle or, if you’re somewhere tap water is not an option, stock up on bottled water whenever you have the chance. Remember, proper hydration will help manage or ward off the other physical side effects of travel!

Boost gut health with a daily probiotic

Probiotic supplements are helpful when traveling for a couple key reasons: they boost your immunity (your gut is your immune system’s first line of defense!), and keep your digestive system healthy and happy—which is helpful when detouring from your usual eating habits and exposing your digestive system to new foods and microbes. (Learn more about the importance of probiotics for overall health and shop our favorite probiotic supplement.

Keep your hands clean with natural hand sanitizer

Travel to new areas (and especially travel on public transportation) exposes us to new germs we may not yet have immunity to, so our chances of getting sick increase. However, airborne pathogens (like the common cold and flu) are viral, not bacterial, so traditional anti-bacterial soaps and sanitizers don’t really protect against them.

Still, keeping your hands clean (especially before eating) is even more important when traveling, so try our recommended natural hand sanitizers that have natural antibacterial and antiviral properties—without the icky stuff that comes in conventional hand sanitizers.

Pack healthy snacks

Travel days tend to mean limited food options and processed snacks. Plan ahead to keep your digestive (and immune) system happy by preparing travel-friendly healthy snacks in advance. Think: high protein (curbs hunger and holds you over between meals) and fiber (keeps your digestion and elimination regular).

Some of our favorite healthy travel snacks are:

Trail mix (create your own with your favorite combination of walnuts, almonds, Brazil nuts, dried fruit, pumpkin seeds, etc.)
Raw fruit like apples, pears, oranges and grapefruit
Raw veggies like sliced cucumber, carrot sticks, bell pepper, cauliflower, broccoli, etc.
Homemade energy balls (lots of recipe ideas on our Healthy Snacks Pinterest board!)
Whole food bars like RXBAR, LÄRABAR or Epic

Set yourself up for good sleep

We’ve shared before how essential sleep is to overall physical and mental health. Proper sleep will help keep your immunity and digestion healthy, while lack of sleep will contribute to their distress. Travel is not known for being very kind to our sleep patterns—from jet lag to busy schedules to unfamiliar sounds, lights and distractions, there are many ways sleep can be disturbed while traveling.

Melatonin supplements can help overcome jet lag—ask your doctor about the appropriate dose for your needs.

Traveling with an eye mask, ear plugs and/or sound machine can help if you’re a light sleeper. For long haul flights or bus/train/car rides, packing a good quality travel pillow can help you catch some much needed zzzs.

Be mindful of caffeine and alcohol consumption if you’re having trouble sleeping while traveling—both are significant sleep disruptors. And, here are nine natural ways to get better sleep, which could be helpful to keep in mind if you struggle with sleep while traveling.

Bring a travel blanket

Fluctuating temperate seems more like a minor inconvenience than a health concern, but it actually does cause a bit of a physical stress in that it forces your body to expend energy keeping your internal temperature constant (our bodies do incredible unseen work keeping us a constant 98.6-ish degrees!). Airplanes are notoriously cold (yet also stifling hot before take-off), so it’s helpful to dress in layers and travel with a travel blanket to stay warm on long flights.