Keeping Track of Pills When Travelling

Pill Preparation - Ordering

Order enough pills to last throughout your trip. 

Include any regular pills. Plus aspirin or paracetamol. 

Pill Labels

Make sure the pills are labelled so you know which pills they are, and to show to Customs officers. Be aware that some medication may be banned or require authorization.

What do I and you need to note

when packing pills? I remember these rules. 

Pill Packing

1 Whatever will go wrong will do so. Hope for the best but prepare for the worst.

2 A place for everything and everything in its place. 

3 Make a checklist and check the checklist.

4 Be Prepared.

5 A stitch in time saves nine. 

Better to pack pills, enough pills, rather than hope to buy at your destination. In Thailand five members of my family wasted an hour, walking to three different drug stores at our destination to buy me more Thyroxine pills. 

COUNTING DAILY PILLS

1 The number of days and pills. 

2 Spare pills.

3 Prescription.

3 The temperature of pill storage. Cool box. 

4 Record of which pill was taken each day. 

5 Liquids for taking pills. Water bottle. Cup.

Pill crusher - for a long trip to a second home.

Pack pills to go into hospital. You might be kept all night in A & E (accident and emergency).

For the return journey, I always take an extra pill. Firstly, on long flights back from Singapore to the UK,  You arrive the morning after the last day of your holiday.

Travelling in the other direction, UK to Singapore, and on to Australia or New Zealand you tend to forget that you are arriving a day later. You need your next day's pill in your pocket to take before breakfast. (My thyroxine instructions say take half an hour before eating.)

6 24 HOUR Pill Records.

Address of chemist and their opening hours. Weekend, evening and national holiday hours.

 My regular chemist in London, and nationwide Boots, sells pill dispensers with compartments for each day of the week.

This month, in July 2025, I found a wonderful new system. For calcium and vitamin D tablets, which I should have used every day after I stopped taking pills osteoporosis for post menopause.

I have had verious strategies. 

1 Counting Travel Days And Pills

One is to count out the number of pills you need for your trip.

Pill Storage - Choices

 Keep the morning pill for the day of travel in your handbag, or jacket pocket. That is so that you don't rush off to the airport leaving the day's pill behind in the fridge. 

Note down where the pills are. You don't want to be searching through four pockets, two inside your jacket, two outside, plus your wasitcoat poickets, your two dress pockets,  your handbag's three pockets, Your wheelie bag's outer and inside pockets, and your tote bag's inside and outside pockets. Then remembering that your husband has all the family's pills together.

Pills in fridges

Have you left pills behind in the fridge at home? In the hotel bedroom fridge? In the hotel reception or kitchen's fridge?

Pills in Pockets Of Vehicles 

 The back of the airline seat? The glove box of your own car left at the airport? The hire car glove box?

 The bag with the take away food, which the family are about to throw in a nearby bin?

Remembering to take pills - Reminders

You can add take pill to your to do list in the front cover of your travel diary, or each day in your diary. Or send yourself a reminder in wahtsapp every night for your monring pill. Or set an alarm on your phone, and label the alarm, Take Pill.

Travelling With Pills

 I take Thyroxine pills daily. When I travel I have several challenges. 

1 Remembering to pack them.  

2 Where to keep them handy. 

3 Knowing if I have taken the day's pill. 

4 Not getting arrested for taking in mystery pills, or forbidden pills, pills which might be for sale rather than personal use.  

5 Keeping pills cool in a hotel room in a tropical country when the hotel bedroom has no fridge.

6 Explaining what pills I want to a chemist shop assistant who speaks no English, eg Vietnamese. 

7 Finding pills in pockets or suitcases years later and not knowing if they are out of date. 

8 Having an extra pill to take first thing on an overnight flight home.

9 Having a pill at home when I get off the plane on a weekend or bank holiday.

10 Losing pills in delayed or lost luggage.

11 Finding foreign chemists cannot supply pills unless I have a doctor's prescription.

Now you are aware of the challenges, you can find suitable solutions.

Here's what I have done in the past. This is my reminder to myself. You must do what suits you and what your pill instructions and doctor advise.

Angela's System - Self Reminder

1 Place empty pill boxes in suitcases. When you pack, this reminds you to take the pills. If you forget to pack the pills, you can show the box to the pharmacist at the destination, or airport.

Write pills on the top of our packing list.

2 Keep pills handy in your jacket pocket, bag, or hand luggage.

3 Travel with a pill organizer. 

Options:

Write in your diary each day when you have taken the pill. Place inside each box the person who takes the pill, the type and/or brand of pill, vital reminder (eg not with grapefruit, one hour before eating). In case you leave the pill box in the suitcase and find it later and don't know how old the pills are, add the expiry date, which you can tear off the packet, and place inside one of the pill compartments, or sticky tape to the pill box.

4 Have a bottle of water on your hotel bedside table with the pill box beside it. Take the pill on rising, if the instructions tell you to take the pill half an hour or an hour before taking food. (That's so the pill is absorbed into your bloodstream, not carried out with the first churning of food out of your stomach.)

5 Take a copy of your prescription, showing that the pills are for you, and that a doctor has prescribed them. The cardboard pill box from your drug store might show your name and address, even if you have decanted the pills into a plastic pill box.

6 If there's no fridge in the hotel or conference bedroom, you could ask the reception or catering manager if you can store your pills in a food fridge or wine fridge. Label the box with your name, the date, and your room number and phone number.

Happy travelling.

You will find pill containers in the drug stores all over London.

Calcium & Vitamin D Chewable Tablets!

In a branch of Boots by the exit on the Baker Street side of Baker Street Station, I found chewable vitamin D tablets. Not my usual brand which are disc shaped.

These were vanilla flavoured. I still have my tubes from the other brand, and the tubes are a better shape for my bag, although longer, they are long and thin and less bulky.