*How to stay healthy when you travel

*This post is written in collaboration with Day Lewis Pharmacy. All thoughts are my own, and this is a post I feel is very very useful for readers of Inside Laura’s Head-or I wouldn’t have written it!

Thinking about being poorly isn’t glamorous, but getting ill happens to the best of us, and it’s often more likely when you’re away from home and out of your usual routine. As I also deal with Fibromyalgia, travelling can be difficult for me at times and I’ve even cut a trip short due to Fibromyalgia before, which I was really sad about. There are things we can all do to help to stay healthy, and decrease our chances of getting sick, and this post talks about the things I do.

Food and water

I never, ever drink enough water. At home I carry my bottle around and forget it exists, and on trips I don’t always want to carry it when I also have a chunky camera with me, so I’m worse. I try my best to drink when I’m at my accommodation, and when I stop for a coffee I aim to have a water too, with varying degrees of success. Be better than me, make sure you drink enough because if you don’t, you’re likely to be needing treatment for uti before you know it!

Also on the subject of water, check if the tap water is safe to drink, rather than assuming. Drinking litres of tap water when you’re not meant to is the fastest way to a bad belly, and no one wants that!

I’m a fussy eater, too, so I can go days without eating a piece of fruit or a vegetable, depending on where I am and what’s on the menu. I do my best to sneak in fruit and veg when I can, grabbing an apple from a supermarket or a pear at breakfast, but I also take vitamins with me on all my trips, so I get the essential nutrients even if the food is something I’m not a fan of so I’m surviving on chips!

Take a fully stocked medicine bag

I have a zipped canvas bag that says ‘may contain drugs’ that comes on every trip with me. As well as the essentials (paracetamol and ibuprofen) it has my anxiety medication, my inhaler, stronger painkillers for fibromyalgia flares, plasters, antiseptic wipes and antiseptic cream. I also have ibuprofen gel, a covid test, allergy tablets, steroid cream and an emergency tooth repair kit. Bonjela and dry mouth gel is also in there, and some eye drops too. Fibromyalgia causes all sorts of awful symptoms, so I have to be prepared.

Get enough rest

This is the hardest one for me, but something I naturally do more of now I travel with J, rather than solo. I have a tendency to charge off around a new city, cramming in as many things as I can, walking 25-30,000 steps a day and then after three days I crash, hard. I did realise this after a few years of travelling solo and aimed to either come back to my room early evening to watch something on Netflix or have a lie in each day, as well as booking things like boat tours, open top buses etc so I could sit down whilst exploring for at least part of the time, but I still crashed regularly.

Now, I plan better, so that I’m seeing the things I really want to see, and not bothering with the ‘must sees’ I’m not bothered about. J usually needs to work for a few hours at some point, and I use that as down time in our hotel or apartment, and I take as much public transport as I can, to do less overall steps. Getting enough rest is crucial for me with Fibromyalgia, but it’ll help anyone to be less likely to get poorly too. Definitely plan in rest, and actually use it!

Get your jabs

If you’re going somewhere you need injections, get them! I KNOW it can be expensive, but in my opinion it’s just a part of the trip cost. It’s not worth risking getting poorly when you should have had a jab. Looking into these at least three months before a trip means you’ll have time to get them, as some are ‘one jab now, one in six weeks’ sort of injections, and your body will thank you for it.

Do you have any top tips to avoid getting poorly on trips?