A Traveler’s Guide to Dealing with Bed Bugs

Don’t let the bed bugs bite…

Anyone who has traveled extensively or stayed in a hostel before has at least heard of bed bugs, if not experienced it directly themselves. For those who haven’t – bottom line, they’re tricky little buggers.

Background Info

Bed Bugs are small reddish-brown parasites that feed on human blood. They hide in small dark areas and come out to feed at night on the exposed areas of your skin.

Often living in places where a constant flow of new people are available to feed on, bed bugs are curses for hotels, hostels, and all alike. Bed bugs are adaptable and will often hop from place to place, traveling from room to room or even highjacking a suitcase and following its owner for weeks.

How to Tell If You have Bed Bugs?

Bed bug bites can appear like any other type of bug bite. Thus, many people don’t discover what their affliction is for days after the first bite. However, you must identify the bite and eliminate the bugs quickly or else they could stay with you for weeks.

Symptoms can pop up within the hour or take days to appear. The most common symptom is bite marks. The bites can look different – some like blisters and others like generic bug bites. They’ll typically appear in a row (three is common) and will be itchy, VERY itchy.

Other symptoms can include feeling run down and lethargic, sometimes a minor fever.

Bed Bugs can also leave traces in the areas they feed in. It’s common to see rust colored or dark spots along the mattress, residue of blood and their feces. Although harder to see, they may have also hatched eggs in the area – as small as a speck.

Something else to look out for is a musty smell on a mattress or chair. In more hygienic places this can be the dead giveaway, but in some motels or less than clean hostels you might have a harder time differentiating it.

What to Do If You Have Bed Bugs?

• Immediately wash all of your clothes in excessively hot water – heat is the enemy of bed bugs! You need to make sure that the bug isn’t in your belongings or traveling with you.
• Alert the place you’re staying and/or the place you think you caught the bugs. Warning – the place you’re staying might ask you to leave the premises or will make you pay a heavy fee for staying.
• Be on the look out for an allergic reaction to the bites. Some people may not show any reaction at all while others could develop fevers, lethargy, severe itching, or heavily swollen bites. In my case, my bites swelled a lot but the other symptoms were minor and I didn’t seek hospital help.

• Buy an anti-itch cream or antihistamines. However, you need to realize that there isn’t a way to stop the bites from showing up once the bugs have bitten. The symptoms may go away in a a few days or up to a couple weeks.

How to Avoid Bed Bugs?

• Read reviews of where you’re staying – ESPECIALLY for hostels. If there are any comments about bed bugs within 6-8 months of when you’re staying (I stretched it to a year!), be careful about booking there!
• Do not leave anything on the floor of the hostel you’re staying at, especially clothes. The bugs can get into the clothes and travel with you.
• Check your bed before sleeping in it. Look for the rust colored or dark spots along the mattress.

A Note – To be clear, a place having bed bugs isn’t necessarily a sign of poor hygiene. It is very easy for a place to become infested with bed bugs and it is EXTREMELY hard to get rid of them.

And there you have it! Be cautious, but stay adventurous!

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Any questions? Contact me or comment below!