Whether it’s a summer weekend at the cabin, road trips to the mountains, or flying to an exotic island, a vacation give us the delight of experiencing a new environment. But that same new environment, with its new foods, new activities, and new climate, means our skin may experience changes.
Skin Responds to Both Internal and External Changes
The skin serves as our body’s natural armor, constantly working to protect us from external forces such as changes in humidity, temperature, and exposure to particulate matter. When healthy, it performs these complex regulatory functions seamlessly and without conscious effort.
However, when your skin is compromised—due to conditions like eczema or other inflammatory disorders—its ability to adapt becomes impaired. It may struggle to respond appropriately to environmental changes and can misidentify harmless particles as threats, triggering unnecessary inflammatory reactions.
As a result, something as simple as a vacation to a location with different climate factors, water quality, or allergens, can either provide relief or significantly worsen symptoms. That makes travelling highly unpredictable for sensitive skin.
In addition to environmental shifts, the lifestyle changes that often accompany vacations can further impact the skin’s condition—especially when it is already compromised. Alterations in your diet, increased alcohol intake, late nights, and reduced sleep can all disrupt the body’s natural rhythms and immune function, potentially triggering flare-ups or delaying healing.
Exposure to salt water, chlorinated pools, and prolonged sunlight—though enjoyable for many—can be harsh on sensitive or damaged skin, stripping it of moisture or aggravating inflammation.
These combined factors can make what is intended to be a restful getaway physically challenging for individuals with vulnerable skin, underscoring the importance of maintaining a consistent skincare routine and being mindful of exposures even while traveling.
Below are some of the external and internal factors to think about when evaluating why your skin may be better or worse on your vacation:
External Factors During Your Vacation
#1 — How You Get There
Whether you take an airplane, bus, train, or automobile, how you get to your vacation can affect your skin. First, all of these transportation choices usually involve dry, processed air. You’ll want to pay close attention to applying moisturizer more frequently and drinking more water to prevent dry skin or an unwelcome flare-up if your skin is prone to dryness. However, if you have weeping lesions, this may actually help things.
Be thoughtful about choosing your travel clothes. Lightweight, loose, and soft fabrics worn in layers work best. There nothing worse than being cooped up in an airplane seat with tight clothes binding at your waist or scratching at your skin. Layers also prevent you from getting too hot or too cold, so your skin stays comfortable.
#2 — What’s Outside
On vacation, we often experience increased sun exposure, because we’re usually spending more time outdoors — whether at the beach, the lake, or wandering the sidewalks of a historic city. You’ll want to bring a hat and be vigilant about applying sunscreen to prevent overexposure.
For some, more sunshine will improve their skin condition. For other’s it will exacerbate it. Also, different sunscreens are made of many different chemicals that your skin may find benign or problematic. Test your chosen sunscreen before you go on vacation so there are no surprises
New places can also mean different allergens, like pollen or mold. This can pose a challenge to your immune system that could throw your skin off-balance too.
Staying at a hotel or guest house? If your skin is sensitive to artificial fragrances and chemicals, you may need to be careful with sheets and towels, and definitely avoid any complimentary soaps, shampoos and lotions waiting for you in the bathroom.
#3 — Water, Water, Everywhere!
Your vacation might involve swimming or playing in a lake or salty ocean. Or, the area you are visiting may have a different pH in its tap water – with more or less mineral content than your skin is used to. Your skin’s improvement or distress on vacation might be tied to the water quality. Be sure to rinse well after swimming in lakes, oceans, or chlorinated pools, and don’t discount the effect of the local water on your skin.
Internal Factors on Vacation
#1 – Different Foods
Your skin’s health could improve or decline on vacation based on what you’re eating. Many people indulge in sweet, rich, or processed foods on vacation that they don’t normally eat at home, then wonder why their stomach and their skin seem out of sorts. Remember, too, that new foods also mean possible new allergens or sensitivities.
Vacationers should understand that trigger foods and beverages at home will still be trigger foods on vacation. You can either indulge knowing you are making a trade-off that risks a reaction, or stay on the safe side with your choices.
If you drink more alcohol on vacation, know that alcohol promotes inflammation and is also dehydrating. This means that while it may help you feel more relaxed, it can also trigger a skin response.
#2 – Different Stress Levels
A vacation can mean a time to get away from day-to-day stressors found at home or at work. At other times, vacations can be inherently more stressful than home due to the travel demands, expenses, and a busy activity schedule. These varying stress levels could be showing up on your skin.
#3 – Sleep and Body Clock Issues
If you’ve traveled across one or more time zones, your body’s circadian rhythms could be thrown off due to jet lag. Disrupting our body’s inner-clock can aggravate a skin condition, and also affect our sleep, wake, eating and digestion cycles.
In addition to jet lag, excitement about your trip plus sleeping in a strange bed can also lead to a sleep deficit while you’re away from home. Try to budget in plenty of rest time when you plan your vacation, and keep your schedule somewhat flexible, so that you can nap and adjust if your energy level is low due to jet lag or a lack of sleep.
Conclusion
If you have a skin condition such as eczema, TSW, psoriasis, or acne, it helps to consider how the changes you’ll experience on vacation might affect your skin. Be sure to bring any medication or other items you might need should a flare-up occur, but don’t overstress. With a bit of mindfulness about your new environment, you can avoid a flareup, or cope with symptoms more easily while away from home.
Even the fact that you’re on a vacation indicates that in an important way, you are being good to yourself. That is good preventive medicine for everyone!
Want to Learn More About Skin Health?
Click HERE to get the Amethyst Holistic Skin Solutions Newsletter. You’ll receive interesting information about skin health via articles, before/after pictures, case studies of Amethyst patients, videos, interviews and more. Feel free to share this article with someone who you think may benefit.
About the Author
Olivia Hsu Friedman, LAc, Dipl.OM, DACM, Cert. TCMDerm, is the owner of Amethyst Holistic Skin Solutions and treats Acne, Eczema, Psoriasis, and TSW. Olivia treats patients via video conferencing using only herbal medicine. Olivia is Chair of the Board of Directors of the American Society of Acupuncturists, serves on the Advisory Board of LearnSkin, and is a faculty member of the Chicago Integrative Eczema Group sponsored by the National Eczema Association.