No funny punch line here 😅 Just a look into the bag of an herbalist on a cruise!
I recently returned from a week away aboard the Wonder of the Seas (a most fantastic Royal Caribbean experience!) and thought I’d share with you the items I do not travel without! From our signature Immune Booster extract to a small sprayer of Colloidal Silver, I made sure our medicine bag (for a family of five) was stocked! Let’s look at our travel staples!
Elderberry Gummies by Roots and Leaves: a shelf-stable and portable easy dose of the powerful antiviral berry! While the youngins really only need one each day while we travel, my kiddos absolutely love them, so we sometimes give them two. My husband and I take two, and the added Vitamin C and Zinc in these gummies covers more than just exposure to viruses. Zinc and Vitamin C play a role in nutrition as well!
Probiotics: You may have heard before that immune support begins in the gut, and I’m not here to disagree! That’s why we are serious about our probiotic intake at the Murphy house; we take Probonix regularly, about three times a week. While we carry various kinds at the shop (women, adult, children), don’t get too caught up in the labels. We don’t have multiple bottles at home; we all take the same one (sometimes kids, sometimes adults), and it keeps us all regular and healthy!
Immune Booster: If I had to choose between this and a single adaptogen, I’d probably go with an adaptogen – if it were just me and my husband. Since we were traveling with our kids, I opted instead to bring Immune Booster. It’s not quite adaptogenic, but it does contain Oatstraw, a calming nervine which helps with mood support and irritability. Traveling with kids isn’t easy – so mood support is important during a family cruise (I spent a LOT of time with Jesus on board, as well!). This blend also contains nutritive herbs like rose hips and nettles, as well as echinacea, so it covers quite a few bases to contribute to a happy and healthy body during travel overseas.
Colloidal Silver: We weren’t sure if we’d get away with taking a full bottle of this on board, so we opted instead to just bring a small nasal sprayer of it. This was enough for us to use up the nose to combat any bacteria or viruses we may have been exposed to, and it was also just enough to pour onto any wounds or blisters that occured – and with 3 kids, wounds and blisters are a sure thing! My daughter needed silver within just the first day from a scrape she got on the boat’s splash pad.
Bruise Butter: Yep, you guessed it – more wound products. I have yet to count all the bruises across my kids’ legs from their time spent on the sky climber, but there’s a bunch for sure. So we stayed lathering Bruise Butter all over them – and since I’m mother of the year, I forgot sunscreen – so Bruise Butter was my go-to for my kids’ burns after the first day. I was shocked at how wonderful it worked! (But I still recommend First Aid Salve for sunburn and rashes).
I’m a very light packer, and I try and be mindful of how much stuff I’m bringing on board when a “reasonable amount of carry-on luggage” is outlined on our itinerary, so this was the small list I chose for our 7 day cruise, and it was perfect!
And in case you were wondering – we had the absolute best time! We all came back healthy and sun-kissed, already anticipating our next big family vacation!
