Rick Steves Reveals His Best Tips For Staying Clean When Traveling

Staying clean is key to healthy, happy travels abroad. Traveling for long periods of time can make it difficult to keep your laundry and your body in peak condition. Following these essential steps when packing dirty clothes can stop bad odors, but staying clean goes beyond just smelling nice on the plane ride home. Long-time travel expert Rick Steves offers some tips for staying clean and healthy while traveling that you can incorporate into your own routine.

On the most basic level, Steves recommends keeping clean to stay healthy during your trip. "Wash your hands often, keep your nails clean, and avoid touching your eyes, nose, and mouth," he advised on his website. "Carry and use a hand sanitizer, such as Purell (must contain at least 60 percent alcohol to be effective against coronavirus). Remember that hand sanitizers are an adjunct to, not a replacement for, hand washing with soap and warm water." Stay clean on your flight by using hand sanitizer to ensure you start a trip fully healthy. 

Masking up on your flight is just one way to avoid getting sick while traveling between different climates, and is also recommended by Steves. While other choices won't make you sick, on flights, Steves recommends that travelers "eat lightly, stay hydrated, and have no coffee or alcohol and only minimal sugar until the flight's almost over." This will allow you to hit the ground running at your destination while feeling your best.

While you can take steps to avoid getting sick on your next flight, maintaining good hygiene while traveling is just as important. Keeping things clean goes hand in hand with keeping illnesses at bay — especially if you plan a multi-week or months-long trip, where endurance is just as important as fitting in everything you'd like to see. 

First and foremost, Rick Steves says you should eat well. Especially if you're traveling for an extended period, cost-efficient carbs may be appealing, but make sure you're getting some protein in your diet. This will help you avoid illness. Steves also recommends taking vitamins and supplements (like vitamin C) while abroad to stay as healthy as possible during long stretches of movement and stress. Getting enough sleep is also key to staying healthy. You don't want to miss anything while traveling; making sure you're getting enough sleep each night will allow you to experience more, stay fresh and coherent while exploring, and be healthy enough to enjoy your trip.

Going sick goes beyond the common cold. When traveling, making sure you eat and drink safely is key. His advice to travelers is to avoid restaurants that look "unhealthy." He explained that "meat should be well cooked (unless, of course, you're eating sushi, carpaccio, etc.) and, in some places, avoided altogether." He suggests that travelers can "write the local equivalent of 'well done' on a piece of paper and use it when ordering. Prepared foods gather germs (a common cause of diarrhea). Outside of Europe, be especially cautious." Of course, use your best judgment and follow the advice of local authorities on the safety of street food and drinking water.

Especially if you'll be traveling for more than a week, make a plan for how you'll do laundry. Having clean clothes while traveling not only feels good, but is also one of the easiest ways to stay clean on the road. Rick Steves recommends either using a launderette abroad — which will often provide detergent — or learning how to do small washes in your hotel room. Laundrettes are extremely prevalent in Western Europe but may be harder to find elsewhere, so do your research or ask a hotel attendant when you get to your destination. 

While they may vary from location to location, laundrettes work the same way they do in the U.S. if you're used to doing your laundry outside of your home. If not, Steve says, "better launderettes have coin-op soap dispensers, change machines, English instructions, and helpful attendants. Others are completely automated — but many of these have pictogram instructions that usually aren't too hard to parse. Look around for a sign listing the 'last wash' time, and stick to it."

If you won't have access to a washing machine during your trip, Steves recommends washing some items in your accommodation (even if the hotel frowns upon it). "I keep it very simple, using hotel laundry bags to store my dirty duds, washing my clothes with hotel shampoo, and improvising places to hang things," he noted of his own practice. If this doesn't appeal to you, you can also travel with a small laundry kit (easy to purchase online) or a small bottle of detergent and a drain stopper. Washing clothes in the sink is fairly easy; just make sure you have somewhere to dry your items when you're done and respect the space you're in.