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Enjoying the great outdoors can involve some pretty high highs: Stunning vistas! Fresh air! The sound of babbling brooks! But if you have a chronic condition like arthritis or inflammatory bowel disease, stress about how to handle symptoms flaring up or unexpected obstacles arising can make things like hiking and camping a lot more complicated.
But that doesn’t mean those activities are impossible. It just takes a bit more planning. Here are some strategies travel influencers with chronic conditions use so they can do what they enjoy most: traveling the world to experience all of Mother Nature’s best trails, campgrounds, and sights.
Have a plan A (and a plan B)
Stress is a trigger for many chronic condition symptoms, and travel can most definitely be stressful. Being a bit of an over-planner and coming up with solutions for any potential issues ahead of time can help you feel more relaxed and reduce the risk of flare-ups. “I’m a really big researcher and planner so I always have a general idea of what I’m getting myself into,” says Shawna Reeve, 39, an outdoor travel influencer who has ulcerative colitis, a bowel disease that can be set off by stress. “That way, the process itself isn’t that stressful to me.” For her, that means always reserving a camping spot in advance (and ensuring it’s near a bathroom) or, if she can’t book a space, identifying multiple other campsites nearby with availability and solid toilet situations. “I also choose my hikes in advance and check AllTrails to see if bathrooms are available,” she says. “And I meal plan and prep in advance so I have plenty of food available that I know will agree with my stomach—I don’t want to grab random stuff on the road!”
Be flexible
All that planning can end up being a waste of time if your symptoms worsen right before you go on a trip. As frustrating as it is when that happens, it’s important to be open to shifting gears or, if necessary, canceling a trip entirely. “Sometimes I plan on going for a hike, I’ll have a flare-up in the morning, and I am like, ‘There’s no way I’m going to go drive for an hour to somewhere without a bathroom,” says Madeleine Wilson, 30, an outdoor travel influencer from the Seattle area who hosts the podcast Outdoorsy. Wilson has arthritis, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), complex regional pain syndrome, depression, and anxiety. “It really sucks because the weather may be nice and you miss out sometimes,” she says. Her approach to handling that disappointment? Planning a future trip. “[I like to keep] my eyes on the next fun thing,” Wilson explains.
Get the right gear
There are times to pack light, but going camping with a chronic condition is not one of them. “I have a lot of things I bring with me that are extra, where people are like, ‘Wow, you bring a lot with you.’” says Wilson. “But I don’t want to be uncomfortable!” Exhibit A: the orthopedic camping slippers she wears when hanging out at the campsite to help alleviate her arthritis-related foot pain. Reeve also prioritizes bringing the right gear when she’s adventuring outdoors. Since going to the bathroom can sometimes be an urgent situation, she stashes a Wag Bag in her backpack. “Just having it reduces my stress,” she says.
Keep your doctor—and loved ones—in the loop
Checking in with your provider before going off on an adventure is always a smart idea. They can confirm it’s safe for you to go and recommend any necessary tweaks to your treatment plan. “I had a trip to Germany, and it was going to line up with when I needed to go to do an injection of medicine for my ulcerative colitis, so I reached out to my pharmacist and…they told me to bump the dose forward so I could do it before my trip,” says Reeve. Also clue in your loved ones to your plans, especially if you’re traveling solo. “I tell my husband exactly where I am going to be at different times, and I have a Garmin inReach Mini, which is a small satellite communication gadget that lets me tell him I’m safe or if I’m changing my plans,” says Wilson. “Knowing I still have a way to contact the outside world while I’m ‘off the grid’ gives me tremendous peace of mind and empowers me to be more independent and adventurous.”
Think creatively
Just because one approach isn't doable for you doesn't mean you have to sit things out. “There’s an incredible area of national park in New Zealand called the Abel Tasman, and people go on a 60-kilometer [about 37-mile] hike over four days to get to these golden beaches. But that’s not sustainable for me, and I thought, ‘I’m never going to be able to see this place,’ which really upset me,” says content creator and podcaster Jess Brien, 31, who is currently traveling around New Zealand in her van while managing multiple sclerosis, which causes chronic pain in her back and legs. “But then I found out you can get to some of the different bays with a water taxi! So I’ve gone there for some adventures the last two summers and only had to walk about 10 kilometers [about six miles] total.”
Know your limits
For someone without a chronic condition, pushing themselves too hard on a trail might bring on some muscle cramps or achy feet, but that’s usually about it. For someone with a condition like arthritis, however, overextending their body can worsen symptoms. Wilson learned that the hard way when a hike the internet said would be five miles was actually closer to eight. “I got to mile six and my foot started feeling like, ‘This is your limit,’” she says. “I ended up, obviously, making it, [but] I was really uncomfortable at the end of it.”
Mishaps like this one have also changed how Wilson researches her hikes. “I make sure I get my information on distance and elevation gain from a reputable source—one that gets their data from experts instead of just crowdsourcing it—like a trail association,” she says.
Change your perspective
Ditch the false idea that you need to do something hardcore to enjoy nature. You don’t need to trek through mountains for days with a 50-pound backpack to be a hiker. In fact, you don’t need to hike at all to enjoy the great outdoors! “My camping trips now don’t [always] revolve around a giant hike. They revolve around getting to a pretty spot where I want to sit and read my book.… That fills my cup a lot,” says Wilson.
Another perspective shift to consider: It can be easy to think about what your chronic condition has taken from your life, but there may be things it’s given you as well, like an appreciation for the present. Brien wears a necklace that says, “If you can, you must,” which is a quote from a woman named Em Carey who survived a horrifying skydiving accident. “I am definitely inspired by the fact that we literally have no idea what’s going to happen to us,” Brien says. “You Google symptoms and see other people with the same disease and their trajectory. Even though I’m doing so well, it’s hard not to sink into that. Occasionally, I joke that a lot of people retire in their 60s and travel then, but I’m living my best retired life and travel now, and I’ll settle down when I’m older.”