June 26, 2018Stella

How to Stay Healthy on a Trip to Africa

My husband and I just got back from an incredible 10-day trip to Africa! One of my biggest concerns with traveling (always, but especially to Africa) is how to stay healthy. Prior to the trip, I did a ridiculous amount of research on how to stay on top of our health during our big trip.

Here is the breakdown of what we did and what we brought with us.

Before the Trip

We both scheduled calls with our doctor about 45 days prior to leaving. With our health plan, this was the earliest time we could schedule the call. I’ll preface this part by saying that it’s different for everyone and greatly depends on where you are going. Check out this list of destinations for what you could need and of course, speak directly with your own doctor. Several people we met along the way had taken variations of what we did, so I can’t stress enough how important it is to do your own research and do it early!

For our particular destinations and bodies, we were prescribed the following:

  • Hepatitis A – shot prior to the trip
  • Typhoid – pills prior to the trip
  • Malaria – pills prior, during and post trip
  • Diarrhea antibiotic – just in case, take as needed

A week before, I started taking daily Emergen-c packs and was really good about my multi-vitamins, this continued throughout the trip.

For the Plane

I am big on self-care no matter how long the plane ride is. The big two for me are hydration and sleep so that’s what I am focusing on below.

Hydration is key for staying healthy. I love the MegaHydrate pills and take them with me on every plane trip. I also bought reusable water bottles for both of us that included a filter since we’d be traveling through so many different places with different water conditions. I also packed super hydrating lotion, lip balm and face moisturizer in our carry-on bags to help with dry skin. I choose to take fairly cheap versions vs. my expensive stuff in case anything got lost along the way.

Sleep is another big one of course, especially if you plan to hit the ground running when you arrive. We were very lucky to have booked business class seats so sleeping was quite a bit easier than it normally would have been. I still packed my favorite herb for sleep, skullcap. I usually take the drops but they can be a bit bitter for some people, and I do like the capsules particularly for travel. I especially prefer this herb to other sleep aids because it is all natural and it does not make me drowsy even if I only sleep for a short flight.

Within hours of us leaving, my husband also purchased these homeopathic jet lag prevention pills. I now completely swear by them. With a 9 hour time difference between us and our destination, we were really concerned about not being able to hit the ground running when we arrived. After taking these, we barely noticed the time difference and were able to sleep through the night. That has never happened to me before with such a big trip.

Lastly, don’t forget to move around! Blood clots are a real health concern, especially on 4+ hour flights and even if you are young!

Post-Trip

Post-trip, we slept a lot. We drank a ton of water. And we kept taking our Emergen-c packs. I also was big on taking daily multi-vitamins and eating lots of leafy greens.

Our particular malaria pill prescription, we needed to continue taking once daily for seven days after leaving malaria zone. I set up iPhone reminders for this during and post-trip so we wouldn’t forget. 

Now, on to the official list! This is what we brought with us health-wise for our 10-day vacation.

The Packing List

Toiletries

Medical

Vitamins & Herbs

I also bought this little pill container with multiple compartments so that I didn’t have to travel with a million bottles. I didn’t use the little keychain-sized container it came with but did love that it came in a pack of 2 so that Sam and I could each have one in our bags. It was an excellent space saver!

Anyone else have big trip plans? How are you staying healthy while you travel?

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