The All-In-One Travel Medicine Kit

Written By Ashley Jaramillo

A few years ago, we spent our only day in Korcula, Croatia at a local urgent care just to get hydrocortisone for a very uncomfortable heat rash. Never again.

Now we travel fully stocked medicine kit on every trip. With new foods, germs and climates (plus all sorts of indulgences) the likelihood of getting sick while on the go is much higher than while at home. Our advice? Prepare for the worst (but of course seek medical care if you are feeling ill)!

Containing Your Kit

Domestic Travel (Shorter Trips): For domestic travel, the TSA generally does not require pills be kept in their original case, so we like using these compact pill organizers especially for shorter trips. A good practice is to print a label including the expiration date for each compartment to make sure you can tell pills apart and know everything you have is good to use.

International Travel and Longer Trips: For travel abroad, US Border Control and most other customs agencies require that medication be stored in its original packaging. We pack our travel necessities in a pouch to keep everything contained in case it needs to be inspected (this has never happened to us, though my jewelry pouch seems to get inspected every trip…). We recommend stocking up on individually wrapped medications like these when they are on sale or travel size tubes like these (you could even refill with the same medication, we won’t tell!). Blister-packaged medication is also particularly useful here as you can just pop out as many pills as needed and keep them in their packaging.

OTC Medication List

  • Cold medicine

    • Pain medicine - Ibuprofen and acetaminophen

    • Cough suppressant

    • Cough drops

    • Decongestant - We like 24H Sudafed-D from behind the counter as well as the readily available version that doesn’t keep us up at night

    • NyQuil

  • Allergy & rash medicine 

    • Benadryl and Zyrtec

    • Hydrocortisone

  • Stomach & digestion medicine

    • Pepto Bismol

    • Gas X

    • Tums

    • Laxatives:

    • Imodium (especially when traveling to countries with different water filtration than your home country)

First Aid List

  • Thermometer

  • Bandaids

  • Antibiotic ointment such as Neosporin or Polysporin

  • Bug spray (especially in the summer) + after bite

  • Aloe vera

  • Eye drops for redness and dryness

  • Vaseline

Prescriptions & Other

  • Location specific prescriptions (z pack, prescription Imodium)

  • Your own prescription medications (even if you only take as-needed; assume you will need this!)

Ashley Jaramillo
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The Wish-I-Had-That Packing List