Everything You'll Wish You Knew Before Flying During Flu Season - Because The Polar Vortex Has You Checking Flights To Somewhere Warmer

Has the Polar Vortex got you googling flights to places where temps are above 2 degrees? Last year around this time, during the scary flu epidemic of 2018, I boarded a flight to Florida and within 24 hours of deplaning, I was all sorts of sick. Severe sore throat. Major headache. Fever. Body aches. The whole kit and caboodle!

Well, there wasn't much I could do at that point except rest, drink lots of water and tea, pop the occassional Tylenol (those damn body aches!), and eat as much fresh pineapple as I could get my hands on. (I swear it helped my sore throat, and thank goodness for InstaCart door to door delivery.) These are some of the key things I wish I'd done to stay healthy in the first place - including one oh-so-important lesson from a Bravo TV Real Housewife - that you may want to consider before jetting off somewhere warmer this winter.

1. Nose In The Air. To protect yourself from what lurks in that recycled air on the plane, it's a good idea to grab a tube of Neosporin before your flight, and using a Q-tip, lightly coat the inside of each nostril. This should help you avoid anything airborne that might ultimately put the kibosh on future plans, after your arrival, which I'm guessing don't include days upon days of watery eyes, coughing, discomfort, and poor-me-crying-jags whilst you attempt to find something new to watch on your smart phone. 

2. The New Masking. Sure, thanks to YouTube beauty vloggers and Insta Famous skincare gurus, unwrapping a sheet mask and taking a selfie while wearing is pretty standard stuff. The new masking, however - that I spied first hand on a flight home to RI last year (at least a dozen or more ppl had them on) - is sporting a surgical one. On the plane. My nurse friends assure me it's not 100%, but after my recent experience, I'm seriously thinking of jumping on this bandwagon for my next trip. 

3. Spice Up Your Life. Learned this from someone on Instagram actually, after I was already under the weather, but will definitely give it a whirl first chance I get. Her doctor had apparently advised that after arriving at her destination, she should eat a super spicy meal. I guess as a way of flushing out anything in the sinuses. My nose always runs whenever I have any hot and spicy food, how bout you? And it sounds way more fun than using a Neti Pot, that's all I'm saying.

4. Take A Page Out Of The Real Housewives Handbook. More specifically, Lisa Rinna's. And no, I'm not talking about lip augmentation (although for the record, I'm all for it as long as it doesn't look ridiculous). One thing Lisa does when she travels - and she logs some serious frequent flyer miles between RHOBH and her appearances on QVC at their studios in West Chester, PA with her signature line of clothing - is clean every surface in her hotel room with antibacterial wipes immediately. The tv remote. The phones. The light switches. Everything. You do remember that story on one of the news shows a few years back where the investigative reporter went thru a hotel room with a black light and what he found was beyond disgusting. Can I get a collective EWWWWW?

***This post has been updated and revised from one that appeared on the site during the winter of 2018.