So I’ve written a lot about staying in hotels and other various accommodations for shorter periods of time, but not about longer trips away from home. There are additional challenges to travelling for longer periods of time when you suffer from nocturnal enuresis. Now I’ll admit that the majority of my travel has been the shorter business variety, but have had had a couple of longer trips, typically for vacation purposes, and have learnt something from these. I will admit to having less experience with longer trips, so I would value other people’s tips. As always, feel free to email me with your experiences, hotel reviews, and in this case, tips for protracted travel.
Just for clarity, when I say longer trip, I’m thinking of the kind of trip which is longer than 2 weeks. I’m also thinking of trips that generally go to one location and stays put, rather than say a tour which moves about every few days.
Some of the challenges you might encounter on a longer trip will include a limited ability to bring the necessary supplies with you and the need to do laundry. These will be confounded if you are moving about on a speedy grand tour.
Let’s start with basic supplies.
Medication: For those who use different medication to treat or reduce the symptoms of their nocturnal enuresis it is important to get an adequate supply of this medication. You should know this already but bring this medication in your carry-on, losing a bag is stressful enough without the added worry of losing access to important medication. I will often bring a couple of spare diapers in my carry on as well, enough to get me through a couple of nights, just in case my bags go missing.
Mattress Covers: Bring your own mattress cover. Depending on your access to laundry facilities and weight restrictions, you may want to bring disposable bed pads. There are lots of options available (Goodnites, Tena, Depends, and generic brands), and these are relatively well-available, so you may be able to purchase them wherever you are staying, eliminating the need to pack a bunch of these with you.
Ordering Diapers: It’s easy to bring along exactly what you need when you go on a short visit, however, packing a month’s supply of diapers is not realistic, space conscious, or cost-effective. My recommendation is to bring at least a week’s supply of supplies with you, and then purchasing what you need while you are away.
The quickest solutions is to pop into a medical supply shop or pharmacy and purchase whatever you need however this may not be reasonable for a number of reasons; language barriers can make purchasing what you need difficult, buying diapers in public can be very embarrassing, shops may not be easily located and may not have brands with which you are familiar, and finally, you may not want to spend a portion of your trip hunting down obscure medical supply shops and carrying around bulky bags of diapers.
Just because you are travelling, does not mean that you can’t order things online. This involves a little more work then clicking the re-order button on your regular suppliers website, but is well worth the trouble. Here are some tips for ordering diapers to your accommodations when travelling, these work particularly well if you are staying in one place, but if you are moving about, you can order supplies to meet you in various locations, so long as you have set points on your itinerary.
- Find out the mailing address of where you are going to stay. You may need to call (or email) ahead to find this out, and also to let them know that you are expecting mail. It took me far too long to realize that hotels regularly receive packages for their guests and are well-equipped to handle this sort of thing. Just let them know beforehand. Some online sites may not have forms that can accommodate addresses in hotels, if this is the case, just email their customer service and let them know, they are usually accommodating. Some order forms will also have a ‘notes’ section, and this is the place to put something like ‘This order is going to a hotel, and the guest will be arriving on such and such a date, etc.’
- Order in advance if possible. A lot of medical supply sites have next day shipping or will ship within three days, which is very convenient. However this is not always the case. If you lack confidence in the rapidity of delivery, order in advance. Just let your accommodation know the window in which your order may be arriving, to make sure they are waiting for you when you arrive.
- Order as much as you need. While you may buy in bulk while you are at home, carting around a case of diapers is not conducive to easy travel. If you are going to be away for a month, order a month’s supply (and perhaps a couple extra, just in case).
- Research brands. While some brands are pretty widespread, different countries have different brands of diapers, and you may not be able to find your usual brand. It can be stressful experimenting with new potentially unreliable diapers while travelling, so where possible, I would recommend that you don’t spring for the local generic brand. You may need to take advantage of Google Translate services to read reviews.
- Order from a local site. This should be a no-brainer, but don’t order from your site back home and pay tons on shipping. Instead, order your supplies from sites in the country you are visiting. This may be difficult, as some sites will identify your location using your IP address. If this is the case, just download a free VPN program (like Windscribe) and set your country to the country you will be visiting.
Doing Laundry: Unless you are travelling with a massive wardrobe, if you are travelling for longer than a couple of weeks, you will likely have to do laundry at some point anyhow. Ask around in advance about laundry options. Many hotels will offer a laundry service, though it is often rather expensive. Laundromats are also quite prevalent around the world, a little bit of research in advance will help you find these. Laundry detergent often comes in huge boxes or jugs, to avoid wasting money on a big box of detergent that you will only use a couple of times, I recommend bringing along your own, with just enough for the duration of your visit. Remember, you can always do laundry in your sink or tub if need be.
As always, be confident, plan ahead, and have a great trip!
The Bedwetting Traveller 