Pain and fever
Small, weightless, and the reason people go looking at 3am
The slot everyone fills and nobody plans. It weighs almost nothing, it is available in every country you are likely to visit, and the only real decision is how much of it travels in your pocket rather than your suitcase.
What belongs in this module
Ask a pharmacist what suits you and the people you are travelling with — the answer differs by age and by what else you take, which is exactly why this page does not name anything.
- Whatever you would reach for at home, in its original box with the leaflet
- A digital thermometer — small, cheap, and the difference between guessing and knowing
- Children's forms if children are coming, which are a separate conversation with the pharmacist
How to pack it
The whole module fits in a pocket, so pack it as if the suitcase might not arrive.
- Keep a small amount on you, in the cabin, for the journey itself.
- Leave it in its original packaging: the leaflet is the only thing that identifies it in a country whose language you do not read.
- Photograph the box before you go. A picture works at a pharmacy counter when the word does not.
- A thermometer belongs in the hard part of the bag — the cheap ones do not survive being sat on.
At the airport
Tablets pass security without comment. Liquid forms — which is what children usually take — count as liquids, but the medical exemption applies: they can exceed the usual container limit if you declare them, and you should expect to show them separately.
Buying it there instead
Available in every country with a pharmacy, though not always off the shelf: several countries that sell it in supermarkets at home keep it behind a counter, and a few sell it only in small pack sizes.
Worth knowing
- Names change at the border even when the contents do not. The generic name on the box travels; the brand does not.
- Heat and a glovebox shorten the life of most things in this module, and the leaflet says how it should be stored.
- Two people packing separately for the same trip usually means four times as much as anyone needs — worth a conversation before you leave.
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
Enough for a few days, not for the whole trip. Anything you run out of is buyable at the destination, and the pack sizes sold abroad are usually small anyway. The exception is a remote trip where the nearest pharmacy is a day away.
A pill box is fine inside your own luggage for your own convenience, but keep the original packaging in the bag too. At a border, an unlabelled box of loose tablets is a conversation, and the leaflet is the thing that ends it.
With children, yes — it changes what you do next rather than confirming what you already suspect. Travelling alone as an adult, it is the first thing to leave out.
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.