Making a Children's Herbal Travel Kit

Over the summer and again during the holidays, travel is in the air. Be sure to take a well-stocked children's herbal travel kit with you to keep your children healthy as you bravely explore our beautiful world.

Traveling with Children

Traveling is one of my favorite life experiences, but let's face it, it is much harder with children. Long gone are my adventurous days of traveling with just a backpack and a $20 bill in my pocket. When traveling with children, you have to think through some serious logistics. In this blog, I want to help you know what to pack to keep your children happy and healthy while you are on your grand adventure.

While we were planning our family trip to India, we added a children’s herbal travel kit to help keep our son healthy and comfortable while we were traveling in a new and distant place. Let's look at the items we decided to take with us. 

Children's Herbal Travel Kit

You do not have to have an extensive apothecary in order to have a complete children's herbal travel kit. It just takes a little planning and a few tinctures to be ready to go and enjoy your trip.

One of the many conveniences of tinctures is that they are so portable. Their small size can easily fit in a purse or small bag. They do not require refrigeration, and they have an incredibly long shelf life. Also, considering the current flight requirements, it is nice that most tinctures are packaged in one ounce bottles. You can learn more about tinctures from this short podcast.

• Stomach upsets. An upset and unsettled stomach was one of the first potential complaints on my mind, so we decided to bring Stomach Soother. This tincture is made with ginger, peppermint and fennel. It can be taken orally at the first sign of indigestion or immediately after eating new and interesting food that may upset your stomach.
• Sleep disturbances. For the long flights and time change, we packed Children’s Tranquility, which contains chamomile, catnip, valerian and passionflower. Its calming effect will bring much needed rest from a hectic day of travel.
• Immune help. For maintaining a healthy immune system, we brought a Children’s Daily Immune tincture, with the primary ingredient being astragalus root. Astragalus is famous worldwide for its ability to keep your child's immune system strong and steady.
• Sickness preparedness. If he does get sick, we packed Children’s Immune Boost, formulated with echinacea, yarrow, Oregon grape root, and usnea. These herbs are powerful infection fighters that are still gentle enough for children’s delicate systems. For added immune and respiratory health we included a Children’s Respiratory Support tincture, because it contains elderberry and thyme, two herbs that are highly effective for respiratory complaints.
• First aid. Healing Salve and Herbal Cord Care Powder came with us too, because these are both good antibacterial products that are good for treating cuts, scrapes, and other sores. I ended up meeting a sister midwife and gave her my cord care powder. (I wonder what she ever did with it!) 

A few other items that are not herbal products did make it into our bags as well, including activated charcoal, grapefruit seed extract, and vitamin C powder. We also brought an essential oil blend to use as a bug spray, room freshener, and relaxing chest rub. I cannot stress enough how helpful this little oil blend was! 

Now, I do not want to brag, but our immediate family stayed healthier than everyone else on the trip. I know, hands down, without question, it was because we took our herbs!