7 Useful Tips For Staying Healthy While Traveling
While travelling may sound exciting, we often overlook the aspect of health that is directly connected with travelling. Neglecting your health can make your travel experience worse.
Most people are unfamiliar that overall well-being influences your travel experience. Simply ignoring health and its potential impact may not only disturb your experience but can also put you and your loved ones at risk.
Health is a priority no matter how far or whom you are travelling with. That is why it is always wise to add some health-focused tips to your travel plans.
Below, we will list some of the most important tips that everyone should be aware of.
1. Travel Starts With A Plan
Be it solo or group travel, planning is always an important aspect of travel. Most people relate to sudden travel, which is not only unrealistic but also dangerous. That is why you must always plan out everything ahead of the trip.
From the transport booking to hotel reservations and eateries, everything should fall into the travel plan. Not to mention, your travel plan must also include a travel health checklist. This includes your medications, condition cards, medical reports, first-aid kits and essential medical equipment.
Most importantly, your travel plan must also cater to every group member. Especially, if you are travelling with your family members, it is always essential to include a complete itinerary health kit.
Apart from the medical equipment, your transport service must also meet the health and safety requirements of your travelling companions. For instance, it is not always recommended to consider public transport when you are planning to travel with the elderly or toddlers.
Public transport does not promote the level of comfort and amenities for the elderly and kid groups. With the limited comfort and crowd, it adds a significant health risk to your loved ones. That is why you must consider reliable and amenities-focused transportation for a health-secured travel experience.
You can hire a minibus with driver, perfectly tailored to your requirements and promotes healthy travel. For instance, the minibus services come with a choice of wheelchair and toilet to support the travel needs of specific groups.
2. Visit the Family Physician For a Quick Checkup
Apart from all the excitement of booking your flights, transport, reservation and packing, we also recommend visiting your family physician for a health checkup. A quick checkup will help you to determine whether you need a change in medications according to the location or not. Plus, your doctor will suggest a handful of tips to maintain good health during your travel.
Not to mention, your physician can also write you a condition card or prescription that will get you privileged benefits to the location you are travelling to.
3. Do Not Skimp On Resting & Sleep
During travel, everyone’s initial course of action is to explore every sighting right after reaching the destination. But in reality, this may put you at the risk of severe exhaustion. The recommended action is to always have a healthy meal and plenty of rest before moving on to your adventurous journey.
Your travel group companions like elders and toddlers must get their complete rest before going to the next destination. No matter how energetic and excited you are, resting is the first step forward to making your overall journey safe and health-focused.
4. Opt for Healthy Meals Over Everything
Just like different locations, you might also want to try all the delicacies of the destination you are visiting. We know it is not possible to ignore all the delicious meals, and street foods during the trip. But it is simply not the healthiest approach.
One way to understand this is by looking at the climate, water conditions, and your doctor’s recommendation. Plus, not every savoury meal comes after a good hygiene preparation. You do not know all the ingredients in a meal and it may have something that you are allergic to.
For that instance, instead of increasing the risk of health emergencies, ensure to cut your meals to 1) delicacies that you are aware of and 2) Fall under your total travel budget.
5. Maintain Good Hygiene
Personal hygiene directly influences your overall health. We often tend to ignore the hygiene part while travelling. But in reality, we are most susceptible to infections or serious health concerns under stress and tiredness.
While one can not factor out tiredness during travelling, we can reduce the risk of infections by maintaining cleanliness. Always prefer hand-washing where accessible or use hand sanitizer before meals and surface touch.
Since one can not avoid interaction with surfaces, using wet wipes is always recommended for steering clear of infection-causing germs. Also, jet lag during a time-zone travel may lead to adverse side effects on health. Make sure to hydrate enough both by drinking plenty of fluids and taking baths to keep a safe side from climate effects on the skin.
6. Exercise If Possible
Exercise has always been considered a pioneer in maintaining sound health. While travelling is a separate activity on its own, it should not be a hindrance to your daily exercise routine or workout.
You can start with small exercise breaks just to maintain your routine and keep up with your workout. This way you are not impacting your overall health while maximizing your vacation trip.
7. Keep Health Vitals In Check
If you followed our initial recommendation of planning out your health checklist, you must focus on health vitals as well. A holiday or corporate group travel does not mean you can't skimp on the health checks all at once. With all the diet and time-zone changes, travelling significantly increases the importance of tracking your health vitals.
Keep track of your blood pressure, sugar levels or pulse rate in a vital signs sheet by your family physician. This tactic reduces the risk of encountering a serious health issue and helps one to make informed decisions.
Final Words
Health is as important as your overall experience of the trip. Everyone loves a good plan that involves good destinations, food, and culture, and when friends are along the way, you might even want to push it to a memorable experience. But since health is everything, you must prioritize it over the general travel experiences that may come across again in life.