How to stay positive when you get sick or injured while traveling
Injuries and illnesses right at the start of a long-awaited trip can derail plans and make you feel deeply upset after years of saving. Having to rest in bed for days or catch a viral infection immediately after recovering forces constant rearrangements and drains your morale.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
- 1resting in bed
- 2viewing obstacles as part of a bigger adventure
- 3eating good food or visiting the grocery store
- 4watching local tv
- 5taking bus or boat tours if walking is difficult
- 6Switching to mocktails or non-alcoholic drinks during bar crawls or lunch
- 7Limiting consumption to one or two drinks max at night
- 8Avoiding drinking the night before a flight
- 9Sticking to one type of alcohol and avoiding clubs
- 10Drinking more water and pacing drinks relative to others
- 11Partying completely sober
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“These days I feel like I’ll literally get sick if I party too hard.”source ↗
“My hangovers seem to last at least a full day these days”source ↗
“I am currently just over 2 weeks on my first ever travelling adventure.”source ↗
“6 days in I sprained my ankle which put me resting in bed for 5 days, a few rearrangements needed but staying positive.”source ↗
“Just as I’m moving around a little more on my ankle and starting to explore again I have caught a viral infection.”source ↗
“Please give me some advice on how to stay positive!! I feel like I’m starting to get really upset about the fact that I have saved up for this trip for 3 years and it has started like this!”source ↗
“As soon as I hit 35 I pretty much stopped drinking because I can’t stand how long the hangovers are and how it makes me feel”source ↗
“The first travel day/night in our new location ends up being like a 24 hour day awake. The last night usually ends with like 6 hours sleep. I've almost thrown up on a plane, and have thrown up in an airport from being too hungover.”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 2How to avoid getting sick when everyone at work is sick
- 4How to plan a long road trip when you have no clue
- 2Coping with a pet's terminal illness right before a major life event
- 3How to handle tension and disagreements during group travel
- 12How to recover from severe travel burnout and flight dread
- 6Is a week-long trip to Asia worth the jet lag?