By Laura Pandolfi, Type 1 Diabetic Traveller.
I've been Type 1 diabetic for years. I've injected insulin on the side of a road in Guatemala, inside a moving sleeper train in Vietnam, on a rickety ferry between Greek islands, and once — memorably — in a toilet cubicle at JFK that smelled strongly of ambition and regret. I have taken my insulin to roughly forty countries across five continents.
And in that time, I have received some truly spectacular advice.
Not bad advice in a mean-spirited way. Most of it came from people who genuinely cared — well-meaning relatives, fellow passengers, random strangers who spotted my pen or the CGM on my arm and felt compelled to share their wisdom.
But some of it was so spectacularly wrong that, looking back, I'm almost impressed.
So here, in no particular order, is the worst travel advice I've ever received about travelling with insulin — and what I actually do instead.
"Just put your insulin in the hotel minibar. It'll be fine."
Ah, the minibar. That miraculous little fridge stocked with £8 crisps and warm white wine. Here's the thing about hotel minibars: the temperature inside them is genuinely anyone's guess.
They're designed to keep drinks "cool-ish," not to maintain the 2°C–8°C that unopened insulin needs to be stored right. I've opened one that was practically a warm cupboard with a light bulb in it.
Trusting your entire insulin supply to a hotel mini fridge is a bit like trusting your life savings to a fruit machine. Optimistic, and probably not going to end well.
✅ What I do instead: I travel with a proper insulin travel cooler — one that's been designed specifically for the job. It maintains a consistent temperature regardless of whether the hotel is a five-star suite or a guesthouse with creative electrics.
The minibar gets the wine. My insulin gets its own USB mini fridge.
"You won't need a doctor's letter. Airport Security never checks medication."
The reality is rather much more variable.
I have been waved through airport security without a glance about a hundred times!
But I have also been held at a security lane for fifteen minutes while two officers had a detailed conversation about my insulin pen in a language I don't speak.
I have had my USB insulin cooler opened, examined, questioned, and — once — photographed.
A GP letter costs nothing and takes ten minutes to request. It has saved me enormous amounts of stress, particularly when travelling internationally with insulin to countries where airport staff may not be familiar with insulin devices.
The NHS recommends carrying a letter confirming your diagnosis and the medications you carry — and they're not wrong.
✅ What I do instead: I download my free diabetes travel letter template and ask my doctor to fill it out before departure. Every single time. I also carry a copy of my prescription. It lives in my hand luggage next to my passport, and I've never once regretted having it. And of course, I have digital copies of everything stored on my email address.
"Pack your insulin in your checked luggage — it'll stay cooler in the hold."
I cannot stress enough how wrong this is. The cargo hold of a plane is not a nicely regulated refrigerator. It experiences significant temperature swings — potentially dropping well below freezing at altitude.
And frozen insulin is ruined insulin. You cannot thaw it and use it. You just have a pen of very expensive, completely useless liquid.
Beyond the temperature issue, there's the small matter of what happens if your checked bag gets lost. Your luggage ends up in Düsseldorf while you're in Dubrovnik, and suddenly you're a Type 1 diabetic with no insulin in a foreign country. I have never allowed this to happen and I never intend to.
The UK Civil Aviation Authority is actually very clear on this: essential medicines should travel in your hand luggage.
The rules around flying with insulin are well established — and keeping everything in your carry-on is both the safe and the legally straightforward choice.
✅ What I do instead: Insulin is in my hand luggage. Always. Non-negotiable. Along with enough diabetes supplies to cover several extra days in case of delays, because delays happen to everyone, and they happen to diabetics at the most inconvenient moments possible.
"Just ask the flight attendant to pop your insulin in the plane's fridge."
Bless the person who told me this. They meant well. The truth is that most aircraft don't have a passenger-accessible fridge at all, and those that do are typically used for crew food and galley supplies.
Asking a flight attendant to store your insulin "somewhere cold" places your medication entirely in their hands — and there's no guarantee it will stay within the right temperature range, or that it won't be forgotten about until you land.
I once made the mistake of handing my insulin to cabin crew on a particularly long flight. I got it back fine, but the look of mild panic on the attendant's face when I asked for it back ("the... what? Oh! The... yes, one moment...") was enough to cure me of that habit forever.
✅ What I do instead: I use an insulin 4AllFamily's Pioneer PRO Mini Fridge for Insulin on long-haul flights. It has a built-in 8-hours battery and can keep insulin refrigerated for as long as it's plugged to my portable power bank. It sits under the seat in front of me. My insulin never leaves my control.
"Don't bother with travel insurance for diabetes — it's too expensive."
Oh, this one. I understand the instinct — specialist travel insurance for Type 1 diabetes can cost more than a standard policy, and when you're budgeting for a trip like I usually do, it's tempting to look for savings.
But the cost of a medical emergency abroad — or simply the cost of replacing insulin and supplies if they're lost or damaged — can be genuinely eye-watering.
I lost a bag with 3 insulin pens in Morocco. Replacing them involved a pharmacy, a phone call to my insurer, and a fairly significant amount of paperwork — but crucially, my insurer covered it. Without cover, that would have been a very different conversation.
The FCDO recommends appropriate travel insurance for all medical conditions, and diabetes is no exception.
✅ What I do instead: I always get travel insurance that explicitly covers my Type 1 diabetes and any related emergencies, including lost or damaged medication. It's not cheap. It is, however, considerably cheaper than a hospital bill in the United States.
"Once your insulin pen is open, you don't need to keep it cold"
This one is technically partially true, which makes it the most dangerous kind of wrong.
Yes, opened insulin can be stored at room temperature — but only below 25°C, and only for around 28 days depending on your insulin type and brand.
The "room temperature" your body is used to in the UK is not the same "room temperature" you'll encounter in Thailand in August, or in a hire car parked in the Algarve sun, or in a tent in Andalusia.
I've had insulin go cloudy on me in a heatwave. If you've never held up a pen and watched insulin that should be crystal-clear looking vaguely milky and wrong, I hope you never do. It is a genuinely unpleasant experience.
Check the storage guidelines for your specific insulin — and don't assume that "room temperature" means the same everywhere you travel.
✅ What I do instead: I keep my opened insulin pens in an insulin cooling pouch whenever temperatures might exceed 25°C. That means most of southern Europe in summer, all of Southeast Asia, all of the Middle East, most of Africa, and anywhere I'll be spending time outdoors in heat. When I'm not sure, the cooler comes out.
"Don't worry — your routine won't change that much."
Reader, my insulin routine changes enormously when I travel.
There's the time zone chaos, which requires adjusting your basal insulin schedule in ways that benefit enormously from a conversation with your GP or diabetes team beforehand.
There's the effect of walking significantly more than usual — I have hit 25,000 steps on a city break and then been baffled by unexpected lows.
There's the eating-everything-at-unusual-times problem, and the stress hormones at airports, and the altitude on certain destinations, and the sheer unpredictability of travel as a thing.
My insulin needs when travelling bear only a passing resemblance to my insulin needs at home on a Tuesday.
I always pack at least 50% more than I think I'll need — and this advice is echoed by the NHS and every diabetes specialist I've ever spoken to.
✅ What I do instead: I take considerably more insulin and supplies than I think I'll use, I talk to my diabetes team before any significant trip, and I make peace with the fact that my blood sugars will be slightly unpredictable. That's fine. That's travel. The extra insulin is not wasted — it's peace of mind.
The Only Advice That Actually Matters for Diabetic Travellers
After decades of travelling with insulin across every terrain imaginable, here's what I've learned:
The best travel advice for Type 1 diabetics is boring, because boring is what keeps you safe and lets you enjoy the actual adventure.
- Get the documentation.
- Pack more than you need.
- Keep your insulin in your carry-on.
- Invest in a proper insulin cooling solution.
- Get travel insurance that covers you properly.
- Talk to your diabetes team before you go.
- And read the UK airport regulations for diabetics so that security is boring and uneventful, exactly as security should be.
The rest? The rest is just travel.
And travel, even with Type 1 diabetes, is one of the greatest things in the world.
The insulin comes with me. The bad advice stays at home.
💬 We’d Love to Hear From You
Have you received memorably terrible (or surprisingly brilliant) travel advice about managing diabetes abroad?
Share it in the comments below — we'd love to hear your stories.
