So, you love to travel. Near, far, domestic, international: it doesn’t matter you just love to get the high that is wanderlust.

But, despite your adoration for country hoping, you have a chronic illness that often ruins the fun.

Be it migraines, celiac, IBS, endometriosis, POTS, or something else, your chronic illness drags you down while you’re trying to catch sun rays and waterfalls. Trust, we totally get it. Us over at pip are chronic travellers who also happen to be chronically ill.

So here are a few travel tips and tricks that we’ve learned over the years of town and country hopping that help us enjoy our traveling without that extra baggage of our symptoms.

Travel Tip #1: Always bring extra medicine

This is golden rule number 1 and to never be forgotten, be it a short one-night trip to grandma’s house or a month backpacking across Europe. Always bring extra medication.

This includes the medicine you take from doctors and specialists, but also every day over the counter medicine people of all walks of life take.

You can never anticipate how you will feel in a new place, nor how long you truly will be there. Any experienced traveler will know that even the best planned trips can be easily diverted from the plan due to weather, natural disasters, an under-staff plane or train, or an unforeseen illness.

This is the formula I always use with my prescription medicine:

– 1 day = 2 days of medication
– 5 days = 7 days of medication
– 1 week = 1.5 weeks of medication
– 2 weeks = 3 weeks of medication

Call this excessive, but I’d rather come home with extra pills than go even one day without my medication.

This is the formula I always use for over the counter medicine, such as Advil, Tylenol, allergy medication (if needed), anti-nauseant, etc.:

– For each day of travel, bring 2 doses of Advil / Tylenol
– For each day of travel, bring 1 daily allergy medication plus extra days worth as per prescription medication formula (ex: 1 week of travel would need 10 days worth of pills)
– For each day of travel, bring 1 anti-nauseant medication per day

If I know my period will be during my travel, I will usually add a few extra pain and nausea medications to be safe, as I may need to take more during those days.

While I know I won’t need to take a daily Tylenol, you never truly know what could happen during your travels. If I am gone for 5 days, I may not actually need 2 Tylenols a day (I hope I wouldn’t anyways!), but what if on day 3 of my trip, I come down with a fever? I could need to take 2 Tylenols every 6 hours to combat the fever for 2 straight days. That could be upwards of 12 Tylenols! By that math alone, I could arguably need more than I actually budgeted for.

Travel Tip #2: Always bring tampons and pads

I had a mother who taught me to always have period products with me at all times. And not just because I had wildly irregular periods as a teenager, but because you never know if someone around you – stranger or friend – may need a tampon, but also because you can use tampons and pads for other reasons.

Have you ever watched She’s the Man? If you have, you probably know what craziness I’m about to say:

Yes, you can use a small tampon for a nose bleed.

Should you? Probably not, but trust me when I say I have had easier access to a tampon for a nose bleed on an airplane than a wade of tissues.

Pads can also be used if needed for incontinence. While I don’t go around wetting the bed, traveler’s diarrhea and bladder urgency can be a thing, so having a thin panty liner handy can be helpful for this.

But the real reason to always travel with period products is because travel can impact your cycle and flow, meaning bringing your period a few days earlier, or creating a heavy flow than you’re used to. Because of this, you’ll want to always have some products on hand, whether your chronic illness affects your cycle or not, but especially if you have endo or adeno.

Travel Tip #3: Make sure your travel companions are well versed in your illness

While I typically travel with my husband who is more than well versed in my illness and various symptoms, your travel companion may not be fully aware of all your symptoms and illness manifestations.

And even if they are, if you’re traveling somewhere new, let’s say with foods you aren’t used to or altitudes / air quality that is different from yours, your illness may be triggered by something that it usually doesn’t have an impact on at home.

So, it’s always best practice to ensure your companion knows all your symptoms and triggers prior to travelling with you. Not as a means to deter or scare them into travelling with you, but to make sure they know how to react properly when you may show signs of a flare. They can help advocate for you should something happen, and hopefully be way more understanding if you have to cancel that planned boat day or club night because a flare came on.

Travel Tip #4: Plan your food

Some will need to take this tip more strictly than others. For example, if you have celiac. it’s probably best to make reservations at celiac-friendly places ahead of time so you are guaranteed a safe, delicious dinner.

For others, you can take this tip to apply to any snacks you may pack, such as on a train ride or a road trip, or to accomodations. Whenever I have a meal as part of my flight or train ride, I always call the provider ahead of time and tell them of my food sensitivities to ensure I get a meal that I can actually eat.

And even then, I will try to have safe-snacks for myself that I can eat if need be on the plane, such as a granola bar or two. If you have POTS, for example, packing salt packs is probably a really safe thing to do.

Travel Tip #5: Bring travel-friendly pain relief

There is little worse than being somewhere without your go-to pain relief methods in a flare. For me, that’s not having my heat pack.

The thing is, I can’t really travel internationally with my heat pack, because it just isn’t realistic to have access to microwaves all the time. So what I do is bring a pack of hot pain-relief patches from the local drug store. You know the ones? You put it on sore muscles or a tense low back.

While these aren’t nearly as good at delivering heat relief as a heat pack, they are better than no heat at all. They can be worn for hours, are small to pack in your luggage, and can be placed anywhere on your body you need it under your clothing.

I also travel with my portal TENS device for pain relief, but not everyone has the means to purchase one of these, and it can sometimes be an issue of charging it depending on my access to proper electrical adaptors.

These can be easier to travel with than pain cream as well, because you can’t always bring liquids with you – at least of a certain size. You can always place it in a smaller, travel size container if possible, but even then, depending on your length of travel, you may run out. Wearable patches can be a great back up in these situations, especially for sight-seeing packed days and long-travel nights.


There may be other tips you need based on your chronic illness, and whatever they might be, just know that travelling can still be in your life whether you’re sick or not. You know your body best, so make the plans that will best aid your traveling body.

And remember, no matter what, be open to seeing and experiencing new things. You never know how good travel could be for your soul until you go!