Since we’re still living in the time of COVID, overseas travel has come to a standstill. I know many of us are dreaming of taking a big trip and maybe are in the midst of planning one with fingers crossed.

In 2013, my husband Bryan and I took a life-changing trip to Paris and Barcelona. Prior to that, my only other trip to Europe was a month-long art-focused tour of Italy in 2001 through my college, W&J.

Italy was absolutely breathtaking and the art was inspirational, but bipolar-wise, the trip was a complete and total disaster. I was not in any condition to be traveling in a foreign country for a whole month, but back then we were all pretending that I was my same old pre-bipolar self despite all evidence proving otherwise. An entire future blog post needs to be written about my Italy trip.

My psychiatrist at the time was the doctor who diagnosed me with bipolar, which is probably the only time she made a correct choice in my treatment. She and I did not work together to make a plan for my trip to Italy. In fact, I rarely had appointments with her. When I did, they were only med checks, which were not effective since I was extremely unstable. A good psychiatrist is invaluable.

Honestly, I may not have even thought to mention my upcoming trip to Italy. It’s hard to imagine that now, but back then I was a couple years out from being diagnosed, unstable on my meds, and not exactly thinking clearly. I did call my psychiatrist from Italy in dire straits, but she couldn’t call in meds to a foreign country. Did I mention that I should not have gone on the Italy trip?

Needless to say, I was wary about returning to Europe, but I also was extremely excited to experience Paris and Barcelona with Bryan. My stellar current psychiatrist, Dr. Cox, gave me a solid plan for this trip. It centered on warding off mania and rightly so. Naturally, I was absolutely thrilled to be taking this trip. For someone with bipolar, being extremely happy can mean that mania is right around the corner.

Keep in mind, this is the plan I use for big trips, those involving long flights, time differences, and excitement for seeing a whole new world. This is not a plan meant for driving to the beach for a week, although the first tactic might still apply (your mileage may vary).

Tactic #1: Take extra Seroquel to ward off mania. Dr. Cox upped my Seroquel considerably for the 2013 trip to Europe. Seroquel is an antipsychotic that can be extremely sedating. I remember telling him I was unsure I would be able to stay awake in the daytime on that dose. However, I was able to stay awake, probably due to my excitement from all the incredible sights I was seeing.

Tactic #2: Sleep on the plane, since most flights to Europe are red eyes. This is an attempt to keep your sleep routine as normal as possible and not lose sleep. I asked our travel agent to book a daytime flight, but none were available. The plan was to sleep on our red eye, but this ended up being impossible since a baby was crying literally the whole flight. Even while wearing ear plugs, I could still hear her. Neither Bryan nor I slept a wink.

Tactic #3: Do not sleep when you arrive at your hotel—go to sleep at bedtime to adjust to the time difference (Paris is 6 h ahead of EST). We arrived in Paris at 7 am on zero sleep. We still tried our very best to stay up until bedtime, but Bryan and I ended up crashing around 6 pm. The following nights we did much better.

The plan worked! I was able to avoid a manic episode while I was on the trip as well as after arriving back home, despite being unable to follow tactic #2. However, the big downside was that I went into a major depression shortly after arriving home, which I had not anticipated.

Aside from the advice to take extra Seroquel, the rest of the plan would work well for anyone who is traveling overseas.

When I take a big trip in the future (it’s been way too long!), I will be vigilant to look out for depression as well as mania, although I have found that bipolar meds are better for warding off mania than depression. I will have to decide if the trip is worth taking knowing that depression could be lurking when I get home.

Do you have travel tips that help you cope with bipolar disorder or another mental health problem? Share in the Comments!