Getting sick on vacation is like someone sitting on your birthday cake: disappointing, frustrating, and requiring a lot of cleanup. Crowded airports, packed planes, and endless surfaces coated in who-knows-what create ideal conditions for flu transmission.
While the 2025-2026 flu season has been classified as moderate, cold and flu viruses spread two ways: when you inhale droplets from an infected person’s cough or sneeze, and when you touch contaminated surfaces then touch your face. Here’s how to stay healthy during yur next trip.
Wash Your Hands
We’re not going to show you microscope images of doorknobs covered in writhing pathogens. Instead, here’s what matters: washing your hands regularly with soap and water or using alcohol-based hand sanitizer. This action won’t protect you from airborne transmission, but studies show that hand hygiene combined with other measures significantly reduces respiratory infection transmission.
The trick is doing it properly. The CDC recommends washing hands with soap and water for at least 20 seconds—long enough to remove germs. Additionally, you should keep hand sanitizer (at least 60% alcohol) in your carry-on. Use it after touching airport security bins, seat-back trays, armrests, bathroom door handles, basically anything on the plane. And don’t forget to wash your hands after using public restrooms.
Don’t Touch Your Face
Your cheek itches, you scratch it. Your eyes feel tired, you rub them. Each time you touch your eyes, nose, or mouth, you’re creating a direct path for germs on your hands to enter your body. Training yourself to keep your hands away from your face is tough. Researchers estimate we touch our faces 16-23 times per hour without realizing it, but training yourself to avoid the activity is free and effective.
This becomes particularly important during travel. You’ve just grabbed your suitcase from the overhead bin, steadied yourself on the seat in front of you, and collected your belongings from the seat-back pocket. Your hands have now touched multiple high-contact surfaces used by potentially hundreds of people. Before you rub your tired eyes or adjust your glasses, wash your hands or break out the hand sanitizer.
Get a Flu Shot
The CDC recommends an annual flu shot for everyone over six months old. For the 2025-2026 season, vaccines protect against three influenza strains that researchers expect to be most common. Even if you’ve already had flu this season, the vaccine protects against multiple virus types you may not have encountered.
Here’s the timing issue travelers need to understand: flu vaccines take two weeks to become fully effective. That means if you’re planning holiday travel or a spring break trip, get vaccinated at least two weeks before departure. Flu vaccine effectiveness ranges from 30-60% depending on the season and your age, but even partial protection significantly reduces your risk of severe illness or hospitalization.
Steer Clear Of Illness
You board your flight and discover your seatmate is coughing, sneezing, and generally distributing their respiratory droplets in your direction. Don’t just curse them silently, politely ask the flight attendant to move you to another seat. Airlines generally accommodate these requests when possible, particularly given heightened awareness of respiratory illness transmission.
If another seat isn’t available, modern aircraft ventilation systems provide some protection. Most commercial planes use HEPA (High Efficiency Particulate Air) filters that remove 99.97% of airborne particles, including viruses. The cabin air completely refreshes every 2-3 minutes during flight, mixing filtered recirculated air with fresh outside air.
Some experts suggest angling your overhead air vent slightly in front of your face to help deflect circulating droplets, though studies show that passenger-to-passenger transmission happens before air gets filtered by the ventilation system during boarding, taxiing, and the period between landing and gate arrival, when you’re breathing less-filtered air with reduced circulation.
Stay Healthy
Your immune system functions best when you’re well-rested, properly hydrated, well-fed, and not stressed. Unfortunately, the days before a trip typically involve finishing work projects, staying up late packing, eating poorly, and running on anxiety and coffee. You’re essentially weakening your defenses right when you need them most.
Aim for at least seven hours of sleep in the days before traveling. Dehydration impairs immune function, so drink water throughout your trip. Airport terminals and planes are notoriously dry environments. The CDC notes that people with chronic conditions (asthma, diabetes, heart disease), pregnant women, young children, and adults over 65 face higher risks from flu. If you’re in one of these categories, these preventive measures become even more critical.
The irony of vacation health: the time when you most want to be healthy is precisely when travel stress, disrupted routines, and exposure to crowds make you most vulnerable to getting sick. Planning ahead: vaccination, hand hygiene supplies, adequate rest, tilts the odds back in your favor.
