Americans who have travelled abroad, what is your worst case of having travel sickness?

39 comments

1. Combination of alcohol poisoning and overexposure to the sun on spring break in Cancun. Midwestern college kids going wild in the Mexican heat in February is a bad combo. Spent about 36 hours half dead in my hotel room.

2. Was studying abroad in China and ate a ton of spicy Sichuan style food and anything that looked good and I could get my hands on. At some point, I constantly had the runs, to the point where I shat myself in public

3. like…. upset stomach?

   I generally have an iron stomach and have only gotten sick once while traveling. It was in the Philippines and I’m not sure what caused it. The most likely culprit was maybe a meal at an upscale place in Manila? not sure. Anyway, it kicked in the day I left, making for an unpleasant flight home.

   Edit: people talking about sunburns reminds me of the time I got a hella bad sunburn in Curacao. Did kayaking in an open-top kayak and both my sister and I ended up with our shins burned to a crisp. Turns out the skin on your shins is more integral to the walking process than I would have expected. We had to take a day off from tourist things the next day to lounge around applying and reapplying aloe to our burned legs.

4. Got food poisoning from asadito in Paraguay, had to fly out the next day. Tries to change flight but it would have been $3,000.

   15 hours of travel with food poisoning is…not fun!

5. Heat stroke + major sunburn in Aruba, Montezuma’s revenge in Baja

6. I partied hard the night before a flight from Shanghai to Newark. The flight was absolutely miserable and I spent about half of it hogging the bathroom. Now I refuse to drink before flying.

   It may have been food poisoning or a stomach bug rather than just the hangover, but it was a miserable experience either way.

7. Some food at a relatively upscale restaurant in Turkey gave me the runs. Spent most of the trip on the toilet.

8. Got sick the last day my ship was in Mexico. Two hours at sea and suddenly had the runs. Spent most of the trip back home on the shitter, as well as the following weekend – I couldn’t keep anything, not even water, in my stomach. Lasted 2-3 days total.

9. The only issue I’ve ever had while traveling was crazy sunburn my first time in Mexico.

   We went deep sea fishing one day and I applied sunscreen, wore a hot/sunglasses, etc. but my bathing suit pulled up when I sat exposing enough of my thighs that had nothing on them. I didn’t realize they were burning until it was far too late. It ended up being a painful trip because it was just in a spot that was constantly in contact with my shorts/bathing suit.

10. I had norovirus on a cruise once. I also caught a nasty ear infection swimming in the Belize river on another trip.

11. I’m not used to sunburn. I got sunburn in Puerto Rico last time I went, because we took a catamaran out snorkeling. I never assumed my dark skin would protect me, I was applying sunscreen every 30 minutes, but there wasn’t a cloud in the sky and it wasn’t enough. What I really needed was a rash guard and a wide brimmed hat.

    Thank god I had my (very white) wife with me. When my skin started peeling I was looking at it in horror, saying with a panicked voice, “What’s *happening* to me??” She still busts my chops about that one.

12. I got a pretty nasty cold/mild flu while road tripping through western Europe. Made it so one of the days I spent in Amsterdam was pretty much on bed in the hostel and I smoked way less weed than I likely would have otherwise.

13. It was particularly choppy waters at a tendered port, and I didn’t take something strong enough for motion sickness on time.

14. I don’t poop well when traveling. On a 19 day trip to Thailand and Vietnam i managed to poop 3 times. ALmost 3 weeks travel with rock hard intestines. now I bring smooth move tea with me everywhere i go.

15. Cancun during college. I was blackout drunk for 3 straight days, took me 2 weeks to recover. All I could eat when I got home was a banana and toast for like 4 days.

16. I have had a few issues in Mexico (out of about 25 visits). Luckily nothing really serious. Just felt like shit for half a day or so.

    I’m never careful and do things like eat at every hole in the wall and eat cut up fruit from the fruit sellers, etc.

    Oh, I did have a horrible night in Vermont after an obviously bad lobster bisque at Simon Pearce.

17. USA to Indonesia via Singapore. Had never had curry before in my life, but it was an excruciatingly long flight and what was offered and I was hungry. It seemed a little spicy, but apparently taste buds are off after a long time at 40k ft. Nothing like having explosive burning anus prolapse inducing fiery diarrhea for several hours aboard a tin can. I remember tears were involved. Blisters too, probably.

18. I’m pretty sure I came home with giardia from Mexico. I was so sick for nearly a month. I’ve been a few times but it was only the most recent time that I got sick.

    I was expecting to come home sick from India but I was delightfully surprised when I didn’t!

19. when I was very young, my family visited cyprus. I don’t recall what the cause was, but I ended up super constipated for the week and had to get a suppository

20. I got mild altitude sickness in Peru. A couple days of nausea, headache, and bloating. The latter caused from the pressure differential between intestines and atmosphere — if you remember high school physics, it makes sense.

21. Southern China, followed by northern China.

22. I had asthma for several years after a two-week visit to Cairo.

23. Lived in Guatemala for a summer with a family while working in a health clinic. First week I tried some of their milk that comes at room temperature in a box. I was shuke-ing my brains out within an hour. The mother of the family hears me dying and just forces me to drink this awful concoction of lime, Alka seltzer, salt, and some other stuff. Within 20 minutes my stomach sphincters closed and I was good to go. Gracias, Doña Silva!

24. I made it 2.5 years without catching covid til returning from Germany. Luckily it was at the very end of my trip. Literally didn’t test positive until the afternoon when we got home from the airport.

25. The worst was probably a seriously upset stomach I had after eating at a restaurant in southwestern China. The food was amazing, but the hygiene at the restaurant was probably quite questionable if it caused me this, even though the restaurant did not feel utterly unhygienic.

    On the other hand, I have never gotten really sick from eating street food anywhere, even from places with pretty bad hygiene. The worst I got was light stomach trots.

26. I have been a lot of places and just didn’t get travelers diarrhea anywhere I have been.

    I recently read a book by Mary Roach called “Grunt” about the science of soldiering. It had a whole chapter on travelers diarrhea. One of the experts said that about 20 percent of people seem to just not get it. I think I lucked into that category and I have eaten at a few pretty rough places.

27. I once vomited all over the border patrol guy at US/Mexico border in San Luis. Huevos Rancheros I had for breakfast gave me food poisoning and when we we crossing the border the border patrol guy was being a dick and wanting to search my friends parent’s RV and he made us all line up (parents and 5 kids between 13 and 4) I asked to sit down and he YELLED at me in my face about how if I was his kid I would have more respect because he would beat me (YIKES) and his breath just triggered me and I projectile vomited directly into his face, He wanted to arrest my friend’s parents because he said I was drunk (I was not, I was 12, scared and super sick) His supervisor came over and laughed at him told him I was obviously ill and not intoxicated and told us to move along.

28. On Rarotonga in the Cook Islands I ate something, not sure what, and within an hour started to feel bad. A couple of hours later I was hugging the toilet.

29. A US Navy ship full of sailors who got to spend a weekend in a… 3rd world port…. Fast forward a bit and we’re back at sea…. And we had 1,000 guys fighting for access to the toilets; every one of them being “urgent”. Oh, that was not good.

30. I ate some grilled chicken at a restaurant in Acapulco. The drumstick looked like it came from an ostrich – it was ginormous.

    I flew to Germany the next day. I logged some serious bathroom time over the Atlantic Ocean due to that chicken. I spent most of the flight with the type of issues that are fun to describe because it grosses everyone out.

    It was a long miserable flight.

31. I drank the tap water in Namibia once without thinking and…nothing happened. Then like 2 days later I’m on a flight back to the US and all hell breaks lose. I’ll not describe it here but it was bad. The only plus was that the flight attendant managed to move some other passengers around so I actually ended up with a whole row to lay down on. It was like a 15 hour flight and I was sick for all of it.

32. Not me, but my dad. He was on a business trip in Germany and most of his group was traveling on the same flight home. They all had the same chicken dinner the night before. They all got food poisoning the next day. It hit them all on the flight home. I can’t even imagine.

33. Got bit by a spider. I needed surgery once I got home to scoop the venom out. It ate through muscle tissue and nerves, so now I have a scar on my thigh that’s just numb. Feels weird

34. As someone who lived sea level for my entire life I had server anxiety attacks in Puno, Peru due to the elevation lmao

35. I rarely, if ever, get anything more than some occasional tummy trouble when traveling. Usually resolves itself within a couple hours. The only time I can really point to where I got something more severe was a 24hr bout of food poisoning from mall food in Indonesia.

    For some reason, I *do* get aggressive respiratory infections every 5-or-so years from traveling. Got a sinus infection in Israel, and by the time I landed in the US three weeks later, I was in the beginning stages of sepsis. Highly recommend not ignoring a sinus infection.

    Also got pneumonia in India. Food never bothered me (thank god, because it was delicious) but the dry, dusty air in the Himalayas did a number on my lungs.

36. Got Covid.

37. In Canada. Three days of the raging squirts on my honeymoon. Thanks a lot, eh?

38. got ecoli twice in a week to the DR

39. November 2019, Australia. Month long chest infection after nearly a month of constant breathing of horrible bushfire smoke with no ability to escape it because there was no AC in the house and it was approaching to the hot season so I had to keep the window open. I still have a persistent cough because of it.

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    Close second would be New Zealand, September 2019. Checked into hotel. Ate at hotel restaurant, was deathly sick less than 24 hours later. Bed ridden, felt like I was going to die, intense brain frog and sweating puddles, yet felt like I was in the middle of Antartica with no clothes on. However, less than 24 hours after the onset of symptoms, they disappeared and I suddenly felt better. Most intense 24-hour illness I have ever had. Pretty sure it was food poisoning from the hotel restaurant.