Overcoming Travel & Packing Anxiety

I overcame packing anxiety and travel anxiety in the last year or two. Through 7 years of travelling full-time, anxiety was my constant companion. Most of this post was written back then, when I was suffering from anxiety. I’ve kept it on this page so that you can see how bad it was. Firstly, I’m going to explain how I overcame travel anxiety and packing anxiety in recent years. To some extent, I’ve also overcome my fear of flying.

None of this is medical advice, just my personal experiences. I am from a medical/scientific background – hospital pathology, so I know a lot of things, and I’ve done a lot of research on the rest.

Travel and Packing Anxiety

I developed anxiety when I was going through perimenopause, between 40 and 50 years old. I was travelling throughout that period, plus being mum to two small children, I didn’t even know perimenopause was a thing, nobody talked about it back then. It wasn’t on the university curriculum either.

I went to the doctor because of these weird feelings, fears, racing heart, palpitations, and shortness of breath. I was diagnosed with anxiety in a five-minute consultation with a stranger, and given Xanax. I took one or two, and yes, they were a miracle cure. It’s not surprising that they have a street value.

A second doctor’s visit, within days, an older and wiser doctor, told me to put them in the bin immediately or I’d become addicted and never get off them. He told me that I was smart, and that I could figure this out for myself.

That was good advice, but he didn’t mention perimenopause and made no suggestion that I may be magnesium deficient.

I worked that out for myself, and it took years to find the correct minerals for me. Today I know that I need magnesium AND potassium. The magnesium alone helps with cramp somewhat, but with the right balance of Mg to K in an electrolyte blend, without sweeteners or flavours, I’m good. My body and mental state run just fine. I also swear by good sea salt and today I carry my own salt when we travel. I also travel with Lion’s Mane mushroom extract; I think that helps too.

But there’s more to overcoming anxiety than just giving your body what it needs.

I developed a mantra. “Everything right here, right now, is absolutely fine.” I used it on terrifying flights and to cross high bridges in the Himalayas. I don’t like heights. I doubt I’ll ever meditate or mineralise myself out of that phobia.

I developed that mantra by myself. I hadn’t read any self-help books, I didn’t use YouTube back then, I wasn’t into “woo”. I was an orthodox scientist for most of my life and believed nothing outside of textbooks. I just said the words in my head, calmed and relaxed my body, and it worked.

Today, I’m much better informed thanks to incredible people on the internet. I’ve read a lot of books, I meditate less than I should, I touch grass and trees, and I stick to inputting messages that are uplifting, rather than the shock and horror of the daily news.

Actually, I’ve always avoided the news, but previously, it was because of anxiety; I was scared by it. Today I avoid it because I know it’s good for us to do that. Whatever terrible things are going on in the world, and the spin the news channels put on it, should not affect our lives and our joy.

Today, “woo” and spirituality have collided into science fact, and we know that a lot of the facts we were taught were fiction.

As Dr Joe Dispenza says, and backs up with hard scientific data, your thoughts can make you sick, so is it possible that your thoughts can make you well? I know, first hand, that it works.

Dr Joe was my starting point and his books got me exploring rabbit holes a few years ago. I won’t link to them on Amazon, but you can find them at any more ethical source.

I had to change what I thought was a personality fault by changing my thoughts. The video below talks about this, but there are so many people sharing similar messages. Have you seen them? Are you part of this new way of thinking? It works. I changed my personality, my outlook, and my happiness level.

If you practice anxiety, you get good at having anxiety. Practice gratitude, peace and joy, and it becomes a habit. I’m there, pretty much, but I have to remind myself to practice.

How Did My Travel Anxiety Manifest Itself?

This post was originally just about packing anxiety. Packing stressed me out enormously back then. But a lot of other things that we do when we travel caused me to become anxious too.

My travel anxiety was basically an obsession with thinking up horrendous ways in which we all could die and I became very good at imagining fatal circumstances. I think having kids makes it worse; you’re extra worried about them.

• I was scared of flying. The fear is of crashing, bombs on planes and windows or doors blowing out at altitude.
• I was scared of bus journeys, particularly those on perilous roads in the Himalayas.
• I used to be really anxious about tsunamis, way before we met our friends who survived the tsunami in Sri Lanka.
• I was scared when taxi drivers went too fast on Bangkok flyovers. I have to get my husband to tell the driver to slow down.
• Since our horrible near accident in Egypt, I was even scared of vehicles when we were walking on pavements.
• I was scared of fires in hotels, I always have an exit plan and used to rehearse escaping in my head.
• I was scared of staying in hotels on high floors and avoided them at all costs.
• I was scared of not packing that one thing I would need. How stupid is that? Eveywhere has shops, and I’ve run out of clean clothes many times now. Nothing bad happens. I’m so brave now that I only ever take one carry-on bag. My life for a few weeks condensed into 7 kg. It’s liberating.
• I developed a fear of dogs in those years. While I still think it’s sensible to avoid street dogs, I was scared of every dog. It came from nowhere and disappeared the same way. I have a very large, very beautiful and kind dog today

But there are also a lot of things about travel that don’t scare me. I have no anxiety at all around new places, different cultures, foreign people, theft (although we have been robbed) food, not knowing a language. None of that bothers me at all. I love those things.

If something else about travel causes you to be anxious, tell me in the comments. It could be something I haven’t thought of.

How Did I Travel While I Had Anxiety?

The travel, the lifestyle and the experiences, with my family, were far more important to me than going through all of those processes that caused my anxiety. It’s that simple.

Scuba diving is scary for me, too, but my love of turtles is greater than the fear, so I do it. Does that make sense?

Skydiving would be scary, but I have no desire to do it, so I don’t. That’s how things work, for me at least.

When I Had Anxiety around Packing and Travel, I Wrote This Blog Post

The original travel blog post that I wrote back then is below. I’m very happy that I managed to cure myself.

My husband laughs at my packing. He laughed even harder when I mentioned that I was going to blog about packing for, you see, in the last 4 years of full-time travel, of constantly moving on to pastures new, packing anxiety has been my constant companion. I hate packing! I really, really can’t stand the stress, it leaves me agitated, confused and wound up. Thankfully, I love travelling so much that it doesn’t stop me, but still, after all the practise I’ve had, it’s a big issue.

Packing Anxiety is Real, Packing is my Worst Nightmare!

What more can I say? I have to leave myself hours to pack, a full morning for instance, for a job that should take 5 minutes.

The worst packing scenario is trekking, where the majority of our stuff stays in storage, and only absolute essentials come along for the hike. Multiply my stress by 3 because I have to make these choices for the kids, too.

Thankfully, Chef can pack his own stuff.

I think his method is possibly better, but he doesn’t worry about forgetting things and doesn’t care what he looks like, ever.

I suffer from packing anxiety, a terrible affliction which gives me nightmares and sees me reaching for the gin. I’m not joking, I suffer from intermittent anxiety, but packing anxiety, when it hits,  has made me quite unwell. For somebody who loves to travel, it’s no laughing matter.

Update: I have learned in recent years, that my anxiety gets much better if I take my magnesium. I have also learned that I have ADHD, which is closely bound to anxiety, perfectionism, procrastination and a whole bunch of fun things. Isn’t it interesting how we get to know ourselves as we age?

Anyway, I’ve got better at it over the years, I know what I need to take and what can stay at home, and I know the signs of packing anxiety creeping up on me, so here are my tips, born of experience. And breath….

My Best Packing Tips to Ease Packing Anxiety, by an Anxious Person

1. If you forget something, you can usually buy it at your destination.

You can; this is very straightforward. The only potential exceptions would be good underwear, swimwear, good jeans, sportswear and shoes. It’s hard to forget those things. But they have M&S in Kuta, Bali, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, and more, and that’s where I bought my last swimsuit.

3. Don’t forget a first aid kit.

All I pack today is paracetamol, in case one of us gets a headache on the plane or wakes up one night with a fever, nothing else. My previous worries over medical gear are below.

This is where the packing anxiety really kicks in!

I always take Betadine iodine spray, we’ve used that loads on cuts and grazes and trench foot.

Plasters, dressings, tape and bandages, same.

Medicines for the kids are going to be a worry.

I’m wondering about taking some worming tablets. The kids get worms all the time here in tropical Australia. I think this will continue around the world as they will invariably continue to play with other children. (update – they never got worms again after leaving Australia.)

Nits are a problem here, too.  Maybe I should I take nit treatment.

Maybe an antihistamine for reactions to insect bites, stops itching and scratching and allows them to get some sleep.

I’d love to take an antibiotic cream, but it’s only available on prescription, for what is called school sores here,  a bacterial skin infection that spreads rapidly and is very contagious. It’s hard to treat, but Bactroban cream seems to knock it on the head if you treat it early.

Again, it’s common in the tropics in children. We just had another run in with impetigo or school sores, my least favorite tropical disease, click the link to read all about it. (Update: We never had school sores again after leaving Australia.)

You see, normal people wouldn’t be worrying about all this 6 months before departure, packing anxiety sufferers can’t stop thinking about the “what ifs”

5. Plastic zip lock bags, oh how I love them!

Today, I take one plastic bag for liquids to present at airports, plus some sort of bag for dirty laundry. I wrap toothbrushes and razors in a washcloth and roll that out in hotel bathrooms. I can’t believe that I used to have everything in plastic bags, or later, packing cubes.

Take loads of plastic bags. I have one for everything. Kids underwear, my underwear, kids T-shirts, socks, everything.I like to be able to find stuff, you see.

I bag anything that could leak.  Particularly if flying into high altitudes, like Peru. Things seem to explode in the lower pressure, it’s happened to us. The ball popped out of a roll-on antiperspirant.

Extra bags for stinky dirty laundry and wet stuff, too. Plastic bags make me feel much better in general, lots of them.

6. Backpacks are not my friend.

Today I only take a carry-on, so no more worries about what goes where in my luggage.

I hate having to rummage about for something that is invariably right at the bottom of my backpack.

For that reason, I always prefer a pack that zips open like a conventional travel bag, not a top loader. My husband disagrees, so make up your own mind.

Being able to see what’s in my pack helps a lot.

7. I can’t live without wet wipes.

Today I wouldn’t dream of even buying disposables like this, I certainly wouldn’t pack them.

I know I can’t, I have to take some.

And so it goes on, the thought process, the list writing. A packing list helps, but then I get anxious about the list. Is it long enough, what did I forget?

I think I’m fully cured. Our travel for 2026 start in just a few days, 3 countries are booked so far, 1 carry-on each, the journey may involve riding motorbikes. Sign up to stay in touch!

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