Guest Post by Adeline Kuroki of www.SavorandSoak.com
As a digital nomad who loves to travel, it is a bit surprising that I also have very bad motion sickness! Everything from swimming in the ocean to driving myself on windy roads can make me nauseous, and definitely don’t get me started on boats.
While I haven’t tried every remedy in the book, I have tried a number of natural remedies and a few medicines. While these are only my personal experiences (and I have no medical knowledge at all), I hope this can help you on your way to managing nausea while traveling!
Things to Try First
Before buying the whole pharmacy, try these changes first to help keep nausea down. I find that these changes are more effective than almost any remedy!
Travel on a full stomach: Sounds counterintuitive, but having a full stomach definitely makes me feel less nauseous.
Avoid caffeine: This can be hard before a full day of travel, but I feel about a million times better if I skip coffee in the morning before a flight or ferry ride. If I have coffee, even hours before a flight, I can absolutely guarantee that I will be sick.
Sleep (or pretend to sleep): Along with skipping caffeine, sleeping on a bumpy flight is a great way to avoid getting sick! If you can’t actually sleep, closing your eyes and pretending to sleep works okay too.
Look out the window: Looking outside the vehicle at the horizon or the road ahead rather than at a book or screen is a great way to help your eyes and inner ears sort themselves out a bit. Being able to look forward and anticipate the movement of the vehicle is so helpful!
Get some fresh air, or stay cold: If you can, open a window and get some fresh air. If you can’t, making your body a bit cold can help keep nausea down.
Focus on music or breathing: Instead of watching a movie, distracting yourself with an audiobook or music while breathing deeply definitely helps.
Natural Remedies
First up: natural remedies. These definitely don’t work as well as taking anti-nausea medicine, but it can’t hurt to try (or to supplement medicine)! I usually use natural remedies for transport that causes me only minor nausea, and take medicine on airplanes and boats.
Ginger tablets
You can buy these as small chewable tablets, made of 100% ginger. They work pretty well for me! 4/10
Essential oils
Smelling certain scents, like citrus and peppermint, can help calm nausea. For me, just the smell of the duty free shops and stale airplane air make my body feel nauseous in anticipation of flying, so I like to dab a few drops of essential oil on my scarf before I head into the airport. 3/10
Sea bands
Sea bands are worn on the wrist and target a pressure point on the inner wrist, about 2 finger-widths down from your wrist crease. For shorter trips (and hour or 2), I feel like these work reasonably well! After that, the little bead that hits the pressure point just ends up irritating my skin. 4/10
Earplugs
I was so excited to try this out when I recently saw it online: you put a foam earplug in just one ear. That’s it. Tons of people online raved about this but I recently tried it on a bus and I felt pretty nauseous. 1/10
Medicine
There is plenty of medicine on the market for nausea and motion sickness. Make sure to do your own research on the options and side effects!
Dramamine
Dramamine is my go-to for flights and boats! You do need to take it about 30 minutes before departure, and it doesn’t work if you take it after you’ve started feeling sick. On a long trip, you’ll need more about every 4 hours. Even the non-drowsy variety makes me tired, but pretending to sleep is really my go-to when traveling.
That ‘similar to Dramamine’ gum I had once in Greece
I ran out of Dramamine in Greece one summer after island hopping around the country. I got some anti-nausea gum at a pharmacy on the way to the airport, and took it before the flight. The gum did help with the nausea, but it also made my tongue completely numb which was terrifying. Plan ahead and bring PLENTY of your usual medicine with you when you travel!
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