Motion sickness
Useless in the hold, and that is the entire point
The smallest module on the page and the one with the strictest packing rule. Whatever you carry for a winding coach road or a ferry crossing has to be in a pocket before the journey starts, because the moment you need it is the moment you cannot reach your luggage.
What belongs in this module
Ask a pharmacist, especially if children are travelling — the options differ by age and several of them affect how alert you are afterwards.
- Whatever the pharmacist suggests for the kind of journey you are taking
- Something to look at the horizon through, which sounds glib and is the cheapest thing that works
- A plastic bag, which weighs nothing and saves an upholstery bill
- Ginger sweets or chews, if they work for you — they are a food, not a remedy, and they travel well
How to pack it
One rule, and it is not about the suitcase.
- In a jacket pocket or the front of the day bag, before you board.
- Take it before the journey rather than during it — the leaflet says when, and it is earlier than people assume.
- Keep a spare in the main bag for the return leg, which is the one people forget.
- If it is the kind that makes you drowsy, that is a factor in what you can do at the other end — the leaflet says so.
At the airport
Tablets and chews attract no attention at all. This is the module that has to be in the cabin, which means it is also the module that never causes a security problem.
Buying it there instead
Easy at any pharmacy, and ferry and bus terminals in places with rough crossings often sell it at the counter. The trouble is timing: by the time you find it you have usually needed it for an hour.
Worth knowing
- Timing matters more than choice here — the same thing taken after the road starts winding does far less.
- Children and adults are not the same question, and a pharmacist will ask ages before answering.
- The front of a coach, the middle of a boat and the wing of a plane are the three cheapest interventions on this page.
packset.travel is an independent trip-planning tool, not a pharmacy or a medical service. This page is about packing — what form things travel in, which bag they belong in and what paperwork crosses a border. What actually goes in each slot is a question for your pharmacist or doctor, and the official sources linked here have the last word.
Questions about this module
The evidence is mixed and we are not the ones to settle it. They are light, cheap and reusable, so as a packing decision they cost you almost nothing to try.
Ages change the answer, so it is a pharmacist question rather than a page question. The packing part is the same: whatever you take, it has to be within reach before the journey begins, not in the boot.
For most people, no. This module earns its place on winding mountain roads, small boats and long coach transfers — the parts of a trip that are not the flight.
packset.travel is an independent trip-planning tool, not a pharmacy or a medical service. This page is about packing — what form things travel in, which bag they belong in and what paperwork crosses a border. What actually goes in each slot is a question for your pharmacist or doctor, and the official sources linked here have the last word.
Our planner puts the health pack next to everything else you are carrying, with a weight for the whole bag rather than a list you have to add up yourself.