Holiday and Travel Tips for Perimenopause: How to Enjoy Time Away
Travelling with perimenopause needs a little extra planning. These practical tips help you manage symptoms, pack well, and actually enjoy your holiday.
Why travel feels more complicated during perimenopause
Travel is something many women genuinely look forward to, but perimenopause can add layers of anxiety to the planning process. Hot flushes on aeroplanes, disrupted sleep in unfamiliar beds, the stress of navigating medications across borders, and the unpredictability of symptoms in environments you cannot control all feel more daunting than they used to. With a little preparation, most of these concerns become manageable, and taking holidays remains entirely achievable and genuinely worthwhile for wellbeing.
Packing for perimenopause
What you pack makes a significant difference to how comfortable a trip is. Prioritise moisture-wicking fabrics in your clothing choices, as synthetic athletic fabrics designed for temperature regulation work much better during hot flushes than cotton or linen, which retain sweat. Pack layers you can add and remove quickly. A small portable fan, whether a handheld battery-powered one or a folding paper version, is useful in warm destinations or during long flights. Carry any prescription medication in your hand luggage with a copy of the prescription, enough for the trip plus a few extra days in case of delays.
Managing HRT and medications while travelling
If you take HRT, plan your supply carefully before any trip. Request prescriptions well in advance to ensure you have enough for the duration, and if your trip is longer than a month, check whether your GP can prescribe a larger quantity. Some HRT products, particularly gels and patches, have specific storage requirements around temperature. Check the guidelines for your specific product and consider whether a warm destination could affect its stability. If you use oestrogen gel in a pump dispenser, pack it in a resealable bag in your hand luggage because it counts as a liquid under airport security rules.
Sleep and jet lag across time zones
Sleep is already challenging during perimenopause, and crossing time zones compounds this significantly. Adjusting gradually by shifting your sleep time by an hour per day in the days before departure helps minimise jet lag. On arrival, try to stay awake until the local bedtime rather than napping in the early evening, as this sets your body clock faster. Pack your usual sleep aids: earplugs, an eye mask, and if your normal bedroom fan is part of your sleep routine, a white noise app on your phone replicates this at no extra weight. A travel pillow that supports your neck prevents the stiffness that disrupts sleep in economy seats.
Choosing destinations and accommodation wisely
Destination choice matters more during perimenopause than it might have previously. Very hot climates can make hot flushes more frequent and harder to manage. If heat is a significant trigger for you, choosing destinations with moderate temperatures or travelling in shoulder seasons when temperatures are lower is worth considering. When booking accommodation, check whether rooms have air conditioning and functioning windows that open. A room on the cooler side of the building, away from direct afternoon sun, makes a real difference to comfort, particularly at night.
Keeping routines while travelling
Routines that support symptom management at home often fall apart on holiday, which can lead to a significant worsening of how you feel. Maintaining your medication schedule regardless of time zone changes, eating at broadly regular intervals to support blood sugar stability, limiting alcohol more carefully than you might at home given its effect on hot flushes and sleep, and fitting in some form of movement most days all help keep symptoms more stable. This does not mean your holiday needs to be rigidly structured. It means carrying the core habits that work for you rather than abandoning them entirely because you are in a different place.
Logging symptoms on the go
Travel can reveal patterns in your symptoms that are not obvious in everyday life. Changes in diet, alcohol consumption, activity levels, heat, sleep quality, and stress all interact with perimenopause symptoms, and a holiday often brings all of these variables into play at once. Keeping a brief daily log of how you feel, even just a few taps in PeriPlan, means that when you return you can see exactly how travel affected your symptom patterns. Over multiple trips this information helps you refine your preparation strategy and identify which factors matter most for your experience.
Related reading
Get your personalized daily plan
Track symptoms, match workouts to your day type, and build a routine that adapts with you through every phase of perimenopause.