5 Tips To Staying Germ-Free While Traveling

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If you’ve ever been on a day-long trip, you probably know how disgusting you feel after getting off the plane. Your body is achy, you may feel congested and you just want a shower. It’s not coincidence — airplanes are so disgusting.

From the tray tables basically never being wiped down to the headrests carrying harmful bacteria, airplanes are so dirty that you’re very susceptible to a lot of unwanted bacteria and germs despite how clean the airlines say they are.

CNN reports that Travelmath.com sent a microbiologist to take 26 samples from five U.S. airports and four flights by two major carriers. What he found was terrifying. Tested tray tables were found to have an average of 2,155 colony-forming units (CFUs) per square inch, meaning 2,155 colonies of potentially harmful bacteria go from that tray table to your hands, to probably your mouth. Yikes.

So what can you do? Follow these five tips and we promise you won’t regret it.

1. Keep sanitizing wipes on you at all times.

Washington & Jefferson College

Hey, remember those tray tables? Yeah. Also, the bathroom door, the flush button and the overhead air vents are filthy. You’re gonna want to wipe down pretty much everything you touch.

2. Bring your own pillow or blanket.

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Unless you take your pillow or blanket directly out of air-tight sealed packaging, these babies have probably already been used by someone else. Also, chances are that those helpful head rests don’t get the chance to be shampooed and thoroughly cleaned between flights, which means the risk of head lice is a possibility.

3. Drink more water than you ever have…like, ever.

Huffington Post

Other than the fact that you often get dehydrated on a plane, chances of catching a cold or a stomach bug only increase when you haven’t hydrated enough. Ask for water every chance you get, and make sure to bring some onto the plane with you.

4. Don’t bother touching those magazines.

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They’re definitely not cleaned, either, so you’re probably touching a magazine that dozens of other people touched. And you can’t exactly guarantee that all those people were perfectly healthy.

5. Pop those vitamins.

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Getting your Vitamin C is never more important than when you’re on a plane with a sneezing passenger right behind you. You’ll want to keep your immune system strong to ensure you don’t pick up whatever the others have.

If it were up to us, flying would be a breeze. And sometimes it may feel that way, but your body will often be saying something else even just hours later. Keep yourself healthy, no matter the cost.

After all, you wouldn’t want your trip to Cancun to be ruined by a stomach bug, right?