Staying healthy has felt like an increasing issue lately, since Covid we’ve been seeing outbreaks of hantavirus, measles, and now, apparently, diarrhea-lettuce and foot-fungus scratchers, which is on top of the standard outbreaks of norovirus and flu that we see somewhat rarely, but often enough to make the news on cruise ships.
Yes, staying healthy at home feels challenging enough, now add in travel, and it’s even harder. You’re coming into contact with tons of new people and food sources you’re unfamiliar with. Tons of people have come home from a trip sick. But, I promise you, all is not lost.
Airports are so full of people it makes it hard to stay healthy when you travel. They’re a common hotspot where a lot of airborne illnesses can spread. It pays to be careful!
As you might imagine, I’m traveling more than the average person. I write about travel and that means that I need to, ya know… travel. I research destinations, cruise lines, resorts, hotels, but to do that, I need to be there. I also can’t afford to get sick when I’m on the road, so I take precautions to make sure that I stay healthy and, since I started doing these things, I’ve never gotten sick when I’m traveling.
I’m not doing anything special either, I’m just taking easy, reasonable steps to keep myself safe from other people’s… less sanitary habits and there’s no reason you can’t do the same if you want.
Wash Your Hands
Yes, that’s really the first thing I do and it’s also the easiest thing I do. Using simple soap and water, along with about twenty seconds of scrubbing, goes a long way to keeping you healthy. There’s all sorts of nasty stuff that your hands come into contact with while you’re out and about and keeping your little fingies clean keeps the grossness out of you.
Aside from all the usual prodding by doctors and such to wash your hands, here’s one particularly good reason to grab the soap and water – norovirus. That little bug is one of the most unpleasant illnesses you can contract and each year, millions of people around the world experience all the fun there is to have with it, including nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. Best of all, the disease is spread through human feces and vomit! That means that if you have the disease, it’s because you put those things in your mouth.
Airport lounges are great, just make sure to wash your hands before you eat!
Guess what hand washing does! It cleans your hands and kills norovirus!
Just keep that in mind when you do things like, handle a serving spoon at a buffet, hold onto the rail at the escalator, or tap on the seatback screen on a plane.
Now, you can still contract norovirus even if you wash your hands because it can also be spread through food or beverages prepared by someone who has norovirus and hasn’t cleaned their hands of their… poop or vomit. It can also be spread through places like pools because norovirus can live just fine in your standard chlorinated pool water.
Sanitizing Wipes and Such
This is why things like hand sanitizers and wipes have their place, but it isn’t at the top of my list. The cleaning agents deployed in these wipes are typically an alcohol and they often cannot kill norovirus, which is why hand washing is still the champ. Still, there’s lots of other nastiness that these things do clean up that protects you. Some strains of common viruses are killed by sanitizing wipes and gels, but they need to be used properly and contain high levels of alcohol to be effective. The figure that I see commonly quoted for minimal effectiveness requirements is to make sure that your sanitizer contains at least 60% alcohol.
Touchscreens literally have “touch” in the name, Who knows how many fingers have been there.
The best time to use these products is when you cannot wash your hands or clean a surface with soap and water. Yes, that means that when I get on a plane, bus, train, etc., I wipe the seat down with a sanitizing wipe. I also hit any surface that I touch, like the tray table, and armrests with it. Take a close look at the usage instructions for whatever product you have because some sanitizers need several minutes to be effective, especially the wipes.
Also, as a courtesy for your fellow travelers, try to get unscented products. Some people are very sensitive to scented products and you are all about to share an often cramped and closed space. Don’t get me wrong, I love my vanilla scented stuff, but not everyone does. Being courteous costs nothing so it’s what I try to do.
Avoidance
The phrase “discretion is the better part of valor” comes to mind here. Sometimes my strongest defense to illness is to simply avoid things that make you sick.
Hear someone coughing? Move away from them. Is someone sniffling repeatedly? I’ll go the other way. Just looking sick in general? Just back up.
Again, this is not complicated. Put some distance between you and whoever is showing signs of illness.
Sometimes some space is better than… flocking… together!
That’s not the only thing to avoid though. You can also avoid interacting with common surfaces. One of the most notorious places for spreading disease are buffets. Tons of shared serving utensils and lots of people. When I’m traveling, buffets are everywhere. Cruise ships, hotel breakfasts, even the precious airport lounges. Obviously, you’ve got to eat, but do everything you can to wash your hands both before and after you touch the serving utensils.
Right now, you’re probably thinking, “Why before and after? Isn’t after enough?” Well, yes, but you don’t know what you’ve been touching and what’s on those surfaces. Again, it’s a bit of courtesy to others to clean your own hands before handling a common surface. If you need to rebel against something though, just rebel against the washing before and please, please, please, wash your hands after you touch it.
Masks
Yes, I use a mask when I travel. The moment that I hear coughing on the plane or bus, which is usually all winter long, I throw my mask on. When you’re on a moving vehicle, there’s no option to leave or get some distance and masks are a line of defense from breathing in the floating particles of mucus that someone else just hacked up into the air. Even if they aren’t sick, I don’t want to breathe in someone else’s snot! Yeah, humans are kinda disgusting!
This is an N95 mask I use for yardwork, though I often use a lighter surgical mask to ensure I don’t get sick when I travel.
To be crystal clear, the mask isn’t something that I bother with in places other than small and enclosed spaces. Airplanes, buses, trains, that’s when I think about it. This is doubly true if the coughing or sneezing culprit is the person next to you.
Sleep
Alright, not everything on this list is easy to do, I admit. Getting good or enough sleep is the hardest on the list to do, but it might actually be the best. Being well rested when you travel earns dividends for your immune system.
Again, I understand, this one is hard. Flights are early, last-minute packing keeps you up, travel anxiety is commonplace. Oh… and children. Every parent I’ve ever known has some amount of sleep deprivation. The point is, there’s lots of reasons you might not get great rest, before and during a trip. So, here’s a few ideas that might help with that:
- If you have an early flight, falling asleep early often doesn’t work for folks. Just because you need to be awake at 4AM doesn’t mean your body starts getting sleepy at 7PM. Instead, try to make sure that you get enough sleep the two nights before you fly. It’s not perfect, but it’ll help and it’s easier to achieve.
- Make your hotel rooms as dark as possible. Humans typically sleep better in dark rooms. Close the curtains (using a chip clip can help keep the drapes together), use a sleep mask, and turn off or hide bright blue LED charging lights on devices.
- Keep your room cool. If you can get your room temperature below 70 F (19 C), there’s evidence showing that cooler environments improve your overall sleep. Hotel rooms are often quite easy to get to these temps but, your home bedroom might be harder.
What Are the Dangers on a Cruise?
I’ve given you my advice on how to stay healthy while traveling, but there’s one last topic I want to touch on – cruises.
A lot of the most head turning, attention grabbing news in the world of health have come from cruises lately. The hantavirus scare back in April was enough to make the world freak out about another pandemic. Just a little while back, there was this video from a cruise of a woman scratching her foot with a fork in the dining area. It’s enough to make you swear off sailing.
Those incidents are actually why I wanted to update this article, because we’re shown a lot of reasons to be scared of cruises specifically. Headlines are rarely reflective of the whole story, though, and it’s worth diving into what the reality is.
Right away, there’s no denying that cruise ships can have a slightly increased risk of things like norovirus and some respiratory diseases, like the flu, because of the large number of people in communal spaces. However, this is true of any similar situation. Conventions, concerts, amusement parks, all are large gatherings of people for extended periods. Using communal spaces in places like that brings similar risks.
Cruise ship buffet areas can be a hotbed for transmissible diseases, so make sure to take percautions when you go.
Why do we hear about people getting sick on a cruise then? Well, the cruise industry has to report it. If you get sick on a cruise, the ship needs to report any outbreaks to the port. In the US, that means the Centers for Disease Control or CDC. They monitor cruise ship health, advise on and sometimes oversee cleaning of ships with reported illnesses, and publish when outbreaks happen. All that means that we hear about illnesses when they happen.
If there was a similar outbreak at a convention, we probably wouldn’t hear about it on the news because there are far fewer reporting standards for events on land.
Don’t be scared, though, because health experts don’t see cruising as a risk to public health. There are elevated risks to being on a cruise ship, but they are similar to risks you face at other large gatherings. If you are comfortable going to Comic-Con or seeing Taylor Swift in concert, you should feel comfortable on a cruise.
Is the Hantavirus scary? You bet it is! Did that have anything to do with cruising? No. Those people got sick before the cruise when they engaged in dangerous activities while not heeding safety warnings. They literally went to a place with known Hantavirus issues to try and see a bird. I love birds and go birding myself, but there’s nothing that could convince me to do what they did.
Concert venues and other public gatherings can be just as dangerous, They’re just underreported.
Cruise ships have fully trained and licensed doctors onboard, and on the larger lines, a surprising array of impressive medical equipment to help diagnose all sorts of issues. In more severe cases, they can even medevac patients off the ship with a helicopter onto the mainland. We’ve been on a cruise where that happened so I can verify they will do it. It wasn’t for anything infectious, by the way, the person had a heart attack and needed immediate, advanced medical care.
All of this is to say, that as long as you are taking responsibility for your health and being considerate of the health of others around you, you can easily have a safe, and enjoyable journey on a cruise anywhere around the world. If you follow the guidelines I’ve set out, you can effectively mitigate your risks of illness anywhere you go. Whether it’s a cruise or a concert, you’ll be safer.
