The One Most Important Travel Hygiene Safety Tip
Take an hygiene kit for any travel
Are you afraid to travel? Are you afraid your vacation or business trip will cost you your health, or your life? Your fears are not unfounded, especially with the coronavirus recent developments. I understand your fears. I had to confront them too, hence this travel hygiene safety guide.
You can't keep yourself 100% safe from illness while you travel, but there are things you can do to stack the odds in your favor, including disinfect phone and taking an hygiene kit with you wherever you are traveling to:
- sanitizer wipes
- hand sanitizer
- surgical mask
- body soap
- face masks
- digital thermometer
- PVC gloves
- children mask
- alcohol pad
Most important Travel hygiene tip: always have sanitizer wipes with you, use them before touching anything
Why is hygiene important when traveling?
As a rule, holidays are planned in advance - busy work schedules are adjusted to the holidays of children. And hardly anyone wants to “sit out” on sick leave precious days of rest due to an intestinal infection or acute respiratory infections. Therefore, hygiene while traveling is necessary to protect the health of your family.
Airports, train stations, public transport, amusement parks, cinemas, cafes - all these are crowded places. It is not always possible for service personnel to carry out sanitization in a timely manner. And, therefore, all surfaces with which a person comes into contact are literally teeming with a variety of bacteria and pathogens. And if they may not be so terrible for an adult organism, then children are more susceptible to infections. Therefore, hygiene while traveling is very important.
Cruise hygiene precautions
I recently took a cruise (yes during the coronavirus scare). My husband and I discussed canceling, but decided to go, with extra precautions. Normally my routine when walking in to a hotel room or cabin is to unpack and organize everything, instead we first went through and wiped down all surfaces with cleaning sanitizer wipes or alcohol pad.
He started at the door wiping down the doorknob/ handle and I went through to the balcony wiping down the railing and worked my way back toward him.
A travel hygiene kit
We cleaned the tables, lamps, chairs, light switches, closet doors and bars, remotes, faucets and anything else we could think of all before unpacking. We both carried a couple of sanitizer wipes in snack size baggies in a pocket.
My husband can walk down the stairs without holding the railing, I had a wipe in my hand every time I held a railing and wiped it as I went. We also wiped down the buttons on the elevator every time we used one.
Nobody gave us strange looks, one woman said it was a good idea when we wiped down the panel on the elevator. The canister of sanitizer wipes in my carry on did prompt a bag check at the airport (the flat packs didn't). the agent pulled it out and said, Good idea, then put it back. We had no problems at the boat.
Cruise hygiene on boat
On the boat there were several motion activated Purell stations with hand sanitizer in the hallways leading to the eating areas and by the elevators, we used them, many others didn't.
I also had hand sanitizer with facial moisturizer that I took with me. Wash your hands! Wash before and after eating. Wash after using the bathroom. Wash your hands before applying or touching up your makeup. Wash your hands every time you return to your room.
We also wiped down the door handle, light switches, phones and cards every day. You need to be aware that other people are not doing what you might consider common sense travel hygiene.
We have all seen that person at a restaurant or movie theatre that leaves the bathroom without washing their hands. There were signs in every bathroom on the ship advising people to use a paper extra towel or tissue to open the bathroom door, most people didn't.
Bottom line of travel hygiene
I realize that this may seem like a lot of work, but the initial wipe down of the room took less than thirty minutes with two of us. We were on vacation for 12 days and by day three we were in the routine.
We came back healthy, we've been back 3 weeks now. We had a wonderful trip and didn't bring back any nasty illnesses with us, so it was worth the extra care, all thanks to our travel hygiene kit:
- sanitizer wipes
- hand sanitizer
- surgical mask
- face masks
- digital thermometer
- PVC gloves
- children mask
- alcohol pad
The most important being to wear your covering face masks at all time while not only in presence of your close ones, and to wash your hands as often as possible, and especially after having touched anything. Safe and hygienic travels with your travel hygiene kit at hand.
Take yours with you!
Main picture credit: Photo by Kelly Sikkema on UnsplashFrequently Asked Questions
- What is the single most important travel hygiene safety tip that travelers should always adhere to, and why is it critical?
- The most important tip is frequent and thorough hand washing, as it significantly reduces the spread of germs and the risk of getting sick. This simple practice is crucial for personal health and public safety.