12 Mental Health Travel Tips

Last Updated on July 23, 2023

These mental health travel tips will help you maintain your mental wellness when you’re away from home.

My partner and I were driving a rental car through the desert of southern Jordan when the engine unexpectedly shut off. We pulled over on the side of the highway, seemingly in the middle of nowhere.

It was hot, and we were many miles away from the nearest city. We knew right away that our plans for that day were likely out the window.

We had no idea what was wrong with the car, no language to communicate with the drivers we flagged down, no idea how long it would be before our rental car company could come rescue us.

A couple years ago we admittedly both would have had an anxious meltdown in this moment. But after the hundreds of mishaps we’ve dealt with together, we were ready for this one. 

After a couple hours of Google translating, phone calls, and messing around under the hood of the car – with lots of help from local Jordanians who kindly stopped to help us – we were back on the road.

We high fived and commended each other for not panicking. We had faced the problem head-on while accepting that there wasn’t all much we could do to change it. Yes, the plans we had that day to swim in the Dead Sea were delayed, but that was okay.

Mental Health and Travel

Traveling, vacationing, going on a trip, all are associated with fun and relaxation. And while travel for the most part is fun and relaxing, mishaps and anxious moments do happen. International travel often means leaving one’s comfort zone, and so stress is inevitable. 

While travel has always served as a therapeutic escape for me, I have discovered that I have to manage my mental health while traveling just as I would while at home.

Diagnosed with a mental health condition or not, we are all susceptible to mentally difficult days, whether we’re abroad or at home. Encountering anxious or stressful moments, or feeling loneliness, fear, or homesickness while on vacation is perfectly normal.

When planning a trip I always make sure to plan how I will take care of my mental health. That way, if I encounter stress or other mental health hurdles while traveling, I know how to cope with them.

12 Mental Health Tips for Travel

Below, I’m sharing 12 mental health travel tips that I have found help to support my mental health when traveling. Hopefully they’re helpful for you, too!

1. Know your triggers.

One of the most important mental health travel tips is to know what disrupts, or triggers, a downturn in your mental health. This means identifying what triggers stress, anxiety, or panic for you. 

To figure out what your triggers are, you can reflect on past experience, and write down the things you believe have caused stress in the past. By identifying what triggers stress, you can unload that stress, and then think about how to handle it.

I think that knowing your triggers becomes easier as you get older. For travel, I’ve found that I’ve come to understand my triggers better as I have traveled more. Experience makes it easier to identify what exactly causes the stress.

For example, when I think about the bad travel days I have had, it’s often been related to food. I have very severe food allergies, and managing them while traveling can be tough. 

Many of my stressful or anxious travel days in the past have happened because I’ve been unable to find food that I feel is safe for me to eat, and I’ve ended up hungry. Once I figured out that this was a trigger, I was able to identify a solution for it. Which brings me to my next point!

2. Have a plan for stressful situations.

Once you know your triggers, you can put together a plan for coping with them. For example, once I figured out that much of my travel stress was related to food, I got into the habit of always carrying a supply of allergy safe snacks with me. That way, I always know I have safe food to eat.

Many travelers fear missing their flights, this is classic airport anxiety. If you’re one of these travelers, consider going to the airport an hour or two early. Others feel nervous about navigating to their hotel or hostel. If that’s the case, download offline maps to your phone, research transport options, and maybe print out a hard copy of a map, just in case. 

These are just some examples of how you can plan solutions for the parts of travel that cause stress or anxiety for you, personally. Of course, it’s not always easy to figure out exactly what triggers stress or anxiety.

If you’re like me, you might find you just tend to have anxious days. For those randomly anxious days, consider putting together a personal stress-relief toolkit.

3. Create a stress-relief toolkit.

This is one of my favourite mental health travel tips! A stress relief personal toolkit isn’t necessarily a physical kit of items. It’s more so a metaphor for knowing what I need, and making sure I have what I need to manage my mental health while abroad. 

For example, I take medication for generalized anxiety. Therefore, my medication is part of my toolkit. But another part of my toolkit is episodes of Arrested Development, downloaded to my phone.

I love the show and have seen it a million times. So knowing I can tune into an episode while traveling gives me comfort. I also always carry earplugs and a travel pillow, because I find these items help me have a good sleep no matter where I am in the world. 

Hot tip! Download your favorite shows, movies, podcasts to your phone. You can do this in the Netflix app, Spotify app, and many other media apps. That way, you won’t need to rely on WiFi to access your comforting media. 

Your stress relief toolkit should be personal to you. Think about what items or practices give you comfort, and incorporate those into your kit. That way, when a stressful day arrives, you can tackle it with some personal self care.

4. Talk to your mental health care provider before your trip.

It’s always a good idea to check in with your mental health care provider before heading out on a trip. That way, you can talk through any concerns or anxieties you’re feeling about upcoming travel, and discuss coping mechanisms. Your health care provider can help you identify potential stresses, and make a game plan for taking care of your mental health. 

5. Make sure you have extra medications. 

If medications are a part of how you manage your mental health, be sure to stick to that routine while abroad. It’s always good to bring some extra medication along, and in some cases it is wise to check on the availability of your medications abroad in case you need to re-stock. If you check baggage on flights, make sure you bring the medication on your carry-on as a precaution in case of lost luggage. 

6. Bring reminders of home with you when you travel.

One summer when I was a child, my mom brought me to my grandmothers to stay for a week. I was so young, the idea of being away from my mom scared me. When I told her I was scared, my mom consoled me by taking off the necklace she was wearing. She put it on me, and told me, now you have a piece of me with you.

Sure enough, wearing my mom’s necklace made me feel safe. And since then, I’ve always kept sentimental items with me, especially when traveling.

I like to carry a small photo of my family, and I often wear a piece of jewelry that has meaning. Bringing these reminders of people, or of home, can be super comforting.  If you’re prone to homesickness, this is an important one. 

7. Research your destination ahead of time. 

Most travelers research their destination for planning purposes, but there’s another great reason to do research in advance. Research helps set expectations, and prepares you for cultural differences. 

In the age of Instagram and TikTok, it’s so easy to set unrealistic expectations of a destination or travel experience. I’ve found that sometimes I end up feeling disappointed about a trip because I didn’t experience it in the way that social media suggested I would.

For example, an Instagram photo of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam often won’t depict the big crowds that are normally found in that museum.

By researching in advance, you can set the right expectations for yourself. For example, if crowds and overtourism create stress or disappointment, research what time of day is the least busiest in a place.

Or, research destinations that aren’t experiencing mass tourism and opt to visit those places rather than popular destinations.

Researching in advance will also help you to tackle culture shock. Culture shock is described as the feeling of disorientation experienced by someone who is suddenly subjected to an unfamiliar culture, way of life, or set of attitudes.

It’s experienced differently amongst people, and to varying degrees. For some, it will show itself in tiredness, irritability, or the need to cry (that’s me!). In some cases, culture shock is just an intense missing of home. 

Before heading to a new destination, research that place’s cultural norms, traditions, attitudes and general way of life. By knowing what to expect culturally, you can help to minimize the sometimes stressful effects of culture shock. 

8. Prioritize time for self-care while traveling.

I’ll be honest, I’m not the biggest fan of the term self-care. That’s because the concept has been commodified so that self-care conjures Pinterest perfect images. You know, images of beautifully curated skin care products, candles, bath bombs, and slippers.

This idea of self-care is by no means invalid, but I think it’s important to expand it. Self-care is very personal, and while for some people it might mean a luxurious bath, for others it might just mean getting a solid 8 hour sleep at night.  

The key to practicing self-care is knowing what you can do to feel relaxed. For example, I find it relaxing to read a book, or listen to a podcast. But my partner needs to have a good afternoon nap to recharge. Self-care is not one size fits all, it’s unique to each and every one of us.

Once you know what self-care looks like for you, factor it into your travels. Set aside some time every day to hang out in your hostel or hotel room and just relax. 

9. Stay in touch with your community while traveling.

A couple years back, I went on a 9 month long trip across Asia. My family had just discovered WhatsApp, and on that trip the family group chat became a regular part of my traveling routine. Every morning and evening I would check in with my family to see how everyone was, hear what was happening back home, and share what I was up to that day.    

Being away from your community while traveling can be tough. You’re away from the people that are there to support you during your regular daily life. But thanks to modern phones and communication apps, keeping in regular contact is possible from almost anywhere in the world.

So before leaving on a trip, consider making a group chat with friends or family, or simply make an effort to reach out to your favorite person or people on a regular basis. This can help to quell the homesickness!

Hot tip! Pick up a local SIM card when traveling abroad. They tend to be cheaper than purchasing an international plan through your service provider. With mobile data and apps like WhatsApp and Messenger, you can stay in constant contact with friends and family. A SIM card might also help to relieve moments of travel-related anxiety. For example, mobile data means you can use Google to access information, directions, and translate languages.

10. Keep a daily journal on your trip. 

Journaling is known to have a positive impact on our mental and physical well-being. Writing in a journal helps us to express ourselves and gives us an opportunity to unload our feelings. This is why journaling is one of my favourite mental health travel tips!

By writing things down, we can get to know ourselves better by organizing our thought processes and identifying patterns or feelings. And, keeping a daily journal of your travels does more than just support your mental health.

It allows you to preserve memories of your trip in a personal and meaningful way. 

The key to journaling is to do it in a way that feels right for you. For example, I don’t write a journal in a traditional format. I like to write bullet points that summarize where I am, what I’ve seen, and my feelings that day.

Sometimes these bullet points are very brief, and other times I go into detail. It all depends on how I am feeling. Your journal is a private space for you, so use it in whatever way feels right! 

11. Consider teletherapy for while you’re away.

There are lots of options for therapy, even when you’re traveling! Today, many therapists are willing to do sessions over video calls. So if you already have a therapist and would like to continue therapy while traveling, it’s worth asking if teletherapy can be arranged. 

Alternatively, you can use a teletherapy service. There are tons of convenient services to choose from, and they offer a variety of communication methods including video calls, phone calls, and messaging. Prices across these services vary. Here are a couple popular ones:

• BetterHelp
• TalkSpace
• Breakthrough
• Lantern

12. Create routine wherever possible. 

When traveling, almost every single day is different. Every day you’ll encounter new places, people, culture, and experiences. This is a big part of why we travel: it gives us an opportunity to break away from our daily routines at home.

But this doesn’t mean you can’t have any routine at all while traveling. 

Routines create structure, which in turn helps us feel calm and in control. So factoring a bit of routine into your travel schedule can be a fantastic tool for supporting your mental health while traveling. 

The routines you make for travel don’t need to be in depth or complicated. For example, when I travel with my partner we always make a point to have a late morning, sit down breakfast. During that time we can chat about what we’d like to do that day, make a plan, and get our sustenance in! This small daily routine is something I look forward to every morning. 

Here are some more ideas for travel routines:

• Setting aside a specific time each day to journal. 
• Going for an after dinner walk every evening. 
• Having a daily shower with your favorite bath products.

Mental Health Doesn’t Go on Vacation

Learning how to best take care of your mental health both at home and while traveling is an individual process, and it can take time. It’s also important to remember that mental health management isn’t one size fits all. While some (or all) of these mental health travel tips may work for you, some may not. The important thing is to figure out what clicks for your unique needs. 

Do you have a mental health travel tip or strategy to share? Feel free to share it in the comments below!

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