Travel First Aid
Kits

Planes, trains and buses. Even urban nomads need a travel first aid kit.

Hotels can charge you a small fortune for bandages and ice packs (I was once charged $3 for a single band-aid!). And they won't even give you an aspirin because of the fear of lawsuits.

So unless you want to be running around a foreign city in your pajamas looking for an anti-diarrheal then bring your own.

On this page you'll get our recommendations for a travel first aid kit, questions you should ask yourself and some great travel tips.

We've put together a page to help you with vaccinations, health warnings, travelers insurance and traveling with kids. Check it out here.

Questions to Ask Yourself Before You Go

Answer yourself the following: (The questions is this section come from the great people at The CDC. Who in no way endorse us or our website.)

• When are you traveling, and how long will you be at each location?
• Where are you traveling?
  • In what countries will you be traveling?
  • Where within the country or countries will you be traveling?
  • Are these destinations urban areas or rural areas?
  • What are the conditions of your lodging (such as hotel with air conditioning, screened cabin, or open-air tents)?
• What activities will you be doing while traveling (such as hiking, backpacking, scuba diving, sightseeing, etc.)?
• Have you traveled internationally in the past?
  • Where did you go?
  • When did you travel?
• How old are you?
• What vaccinations have you had previously?
  • When did you have these vaccinations?
  • How many doses did you have of a particular vaccine? (for example, some vaccines, such as the hepatitis A and B vaccines or the measles/mumps/rubella-MMR-vaccine, require multiple doses for long-term protection)
  • Did you have any allergies or reactions to any previous vaccines?
• Do you have any other allergies (for example, medications, foods, or environmental)?
  • In particular, do you have an allergy to eggs, latex, yeast, mercury, or thimerosal?
• What is your medical history and current health status (for example, past illnesses and surgeries, chronic health problems, or other underlying medical conditions)?
• What medications are you currently taking or have you taken in the past 3 months?
• Are you immune deficient?
• If you are a female,
  • Are you pregnant now?
  • Are you trying to become pregnant, or will you try to become pregnant in the next 3 months?
  • Are you breast-feeding?

I know, I know you don't want to think about all this stuff you just want to grab a travel first aid kit and your glitter bikini and hit the beach.

Both my business partner and myself are travel junkies and I have personally lived through my own bouts of food poisoning, heatstroke, cuts and scrapes (a moped accident in Italy!) and the dreaded 'Montazuma's Revenge'. I've learnt the hard way to do a little preplanning.

The best part is you only have to do it once. After gathering up all the various bits of information and odds and ends you can use them again and again for any trip with only slight variations depending on where you're going now.

Travel First Aid Kit

Here is a travel first aid kit checklist that I use. It has served me well for years. It covers all the basic needs so I only need to add in a few extra items depending on where I'm going.

Keep these points in mind when packing your kit:

• Where am I going?
  • Will I be in the country, indoors, outdoors with lots of sun, what about bugs and mosquitoes?
• How many people are traveling with me?
• Will I be in a remote area or a metropolitan city?
• What prescriptions am I taking?
• Am I traveling with pets or children ?
• Do I or anyone in my group have special needs? Such as asthma, food or environmental allergies or diabetes.

With this information you can prepare yourself for just about any emergency that might arise.

Our Recommendations

We have been looking for travel first aid kits, but haven't found a great selection we really like.

They are either to big, don't have good quality items or stock things you could just as easily purchase on the road.

One we did like is made by First Aid Only. It's small, fits in my toiletry bag and covers all the basics. It's hard sided so I don't have to worry about things getting squashed and oozing in my suitcase.

Unless I am traveling to a remote location I just stock the basics. In a metropolitan area I am willing to brave the local pharmacy for any special needs I might have. The kit is for planes, buses, trains and hotel rooms.

A Few Parting Tips

• I created a page on the Best Travel Tip I Ever Received. Thought you might enjoy it.
• Before you leave set up a free email account like at Yahoo or Google. Email yourself a copy of your driver's license, travel itinerary, plane and travel tickets, credit card phone numbers, health insurance forms and information. That way you can access it from just about anywhere in the world. Email another copy to a friend or family member.
• Register your trip with the US Department of State. They offer a service that allows you to register your trip with the appropriate embassy. This can be helpful if you run into any troubles on your trip or if you need to be evacuated or contacted.
• You may also want to check out the US Department of State to see if there are any other concerns regarding the country you are visiting. Such as civil unrest and other travel warnings.
• The CDC has a colossal book called The Yellow Book. It is mainly for health professionals but can be useful for us lay folk as well.