If you’re traveling overseas, especially to a remote area, you may be wondering how to best take care of your contact lenses. Although a challenge, you should be able to wear your contacts anywhere no matter how undeveloped if you keep in mind a few contact lens tips for travelling abroad:
Don’t drink the water (or use it on your contacts)
You should never expose your contact lenses to any type of water: tap, distilled, lake, bottled, doesn’t matter. The microbes and viruses living in it, especially the Acanthamoeba organism, can attach to your lenses and cause a serious and difficult to treat infection. Only use non-expired, sterile contact lens solution on your lenses. And always wash your hands with clean, drinkable water before handling your lenses.
Have your prescription up to date and keep with you
You probably won’t need it, but just in case, having your prescription up to date and on your person will save you the time and energy of trying to get a new one in a country where eye tests might not be readily available. Several online contact lens suppliers will ship overseas, but they will need an up-to-date prescription.
Never transfer solution into a smaller container
With all the liquid restrictions for air travel, it may be tempting to transfer your solution to a smaller bottle, but this can affect the sterility of the solution. Buy a new smaller size bottle, or better yet, bring daily disposable lenses like Proclear 1 day. They require no cases or solution, and you don’t have to worry about sterility because you put in a fresh pair each day.
Bring what you need and some extra
You never know what you’re going to find, or not find, abroad, so it’s a good idea to take whatever eye care products you need with you rather than buying them at your destination. This is another good reason to bring daily disposables. No matter what your wear schedule, bring extra pairs just in case of loss. One way to hopefully avoid lost lenses is to pack them in your carry-on luggage.
There’s so much to see when we travel abroad. Make sure you take care of your lenses so you don’t miss a thing! And look here for some more contact lens tips for travel.