Tips for Staying Healthy During Your Summer Travels

Headed out into the sunshine for a road trip this summer? If you are, know that travel comes with amazing benefits for the body and mind. The extra exercise of exploring a new location and the refreshed mental state that comes with breaking free of your normal routine can boost your mood and make you feel refreshed, but it can come with some significant risks and challenges, too. Stick with these six tips for staying healthy during your summer travels to ensure that you don’t need a vacation from your vacation once you return.

1. Don’t Skip the Sleep

This is easily the most important tips for staying healthy, regardless of whether your travel takes you near or far. Getting enough sleep every night is the best way to prevent exhaustion, sickness, and post-vacation hangover, so invest in your ability to sleep well.

If you’re camping, bring a comfortable inflatable bed for inside the tent. If you’re staying at a hotel, consider scaling up your room to ensure comfort. Restrict the amount of days you stay up all night celebrating, and if you do have a late night, try to sleep in to make up for it the next day.

You may lose a bit of fun time with this tip, but coming home rested, relaxed, and without a hangover will make your first few days at home much less stressful.

2. Drink Water (Not Just Alcohol)

You’re lying on the beach, sipping a martini. Blue skies, the summer sun, sand underneath your feet…what more could you ask for?

Proper hydration is a great place to start.

Hydration matters at all points throughout the year, but it’s especially important in warmer summer months when sunstroke and heat exhaustion are an issue. If you’re drinking alcohol, it’s easy to forget to hydrate with pure water or sports drinks along the way. Because alcohol itself dehydrates you, that can leave you even more dehydrated than you were to begin with.

Serious dehydration upsets electrolyte balance, producing symptoms like:

• Dizziness
• Nausea
• Confusion
• Extremely high blood pressure
• Heightened risk for cardiovascular events
• Heightened risk for strokes and seizures

Often, dizziness and extreme fatigue are the first symptoms.

To prevent dehydration whether you’re on the beach or driving, keep a bottle of water with you at all times. Sip from it frequently, and toss in the occasional sports drink when you’re highly active. Eat six small meals throughout the day to recharge salt, potassium, and other important electrolytes. If you’re drinking, toss in a full glass of water between every drink.

3. Slather on the Sunscreen

Headed to the beach? Driving in your car? Hiking Yosemite National Park? Either way, sunscreen will protect you from harsh UVA and UVB rays this summer. Apply your sunscreen at least 30 minutes prior to heading out, and reapply it after two hours. If you’re highly active, sweating, swimming, or toweling off sand, you should reapply your sunscreen again even sooner.

As for SPF, most experts agree that you should choose the highest SPF you can justify buying. SPF 30 to 60 is best, especially for those with fair, sensitive, or very young skin. For kids, toddlers, and babies, be sure to choose an age-appropriate sunscreen that doesn’t contain alcohol.

4. Bring a First Aid Kit

Whether you’re traveling by vehicle, boat, foot, or bicycle, being able to address minor illnesses and injuries along the way can be the difference between having to end your trip early and relaxing long-term. Carry a small first aid kit with you at all times. Some items that your first aid kit should include are:

• bandages
• gauze
• alcohol pads
• scissors
• anti-diarrheals
• OTC painkillers
• antibiotic ointment

If you take medication yourself, include a few days of your medication, too. If you get sick along the way you’ll have instant access to a wellness pack to help you recover. You can find these first aid kit items at your local pharmacy.

5. Stop Working (No, Really)

Our list of tips for staying healthy not only address your physical health, but your mental health as well. If you’re still checking your work emails, making telephone calls, or seeking out deals while you’re away, you’re not really vacationing at all. In our business-soaked job market, there’s a tendency to try and travel while we work. Killing two birds with one stone might sound like a good idea, but you’ll exhaust yourself and detract from any actual relaxation benefits if you do it. Instead, put the smartphone down and have someone else take care of it.

If you absolutely must stay in touch, schedule work-free periods even if it’s just a few hours per day. During the blackout times, ignore everything but serious emergencies. They’ll survive without you and you’ll get much-needed downtime.

6. Take Preventative Measures Against Communicable Diseases

Traveler’s diarrhea. Hepatitis A and B. The common cold and flu. These are all diseases you just might find yourself struggling with during your summer travels, and a little prevention can help you fend them off before they take hold.

If you’re traveling to the tropics, see your doctor in advance for a Twinrix shot — it protects you against both Hepatitis A and B, both of which are curable but serious enough to make you extremely sick. Your doctor may also prescribe you prophylactic antibiotics that fend off traveler’s diarrhea by preventing foreign bacteria from gaining a foothold in your gut. Supplement these with probiotics for the best chance at prevention.

For preventing the common cold and flu, just use a little common sense. Use the usual tips for staying healthy such as the following:

• avoiding heavily crowded areas if you can
• washing your hands frequently while you’re away
• bringing along hand sanitizer to concerts and shopping malls and use it before and after you touch surfaces
• popping a multivitamin for a couple of weeks before and during your vacation may also give you a much-needed boost to fight off illness

Conclusion

Nobody wants to spend their entire travel time worrying about getting sick, but the risk of contracting an illness or injuring yourself does rise when you’re away. This is especially true if you’re highly active. The solution to staying healthy, fortunately, is in preventative measures — there’s absolutely no reason to skip travel or celebrations just to say safe. Follow these tips for staying healthy during your summer travels will greatly decrease your changes of getting sick or hurt. If you do become sick, however, seek medical care immediately; often, doctors can help you overcome the illness quickly so you can get back in the forest or onto the beach again.