I've been living with Type 1 diabetes for years. I've injected insulin on the shoulder of a highway in Guatemala, in the corridor of an overnight train rolling through Vietnam, on a ferry deck somewhere between Greek islands, and once — in a moment I think about more than I'd like to — in a bathroom at Toronto Pearson that smelled like a Tim Hortons that had given up on itself. Forty countries. Five continents. The insulin has been to all of them.
And along the way, I have collected some truly remarkable advice.
None of it came from bad intentions. Most of it arrived from people who genuinely meant well — family members worried about the trip, fellow passengers who noticed my insulin pen or the CGM on my arm, well-meaning strangers who felt moved to help.
But some of it was so thoroughly, impressively wrong that I look back on it almost with admiration.
So here it is — the worst travel advice I've ever received about travelling with insulin — and what I actually do instead.
"Just stick your insulin in the hotel mini-fridge. You'll be fine."
The hotel mini-fridge. That optimistic little box that charges you ten dollars for a bag of chips and keeps your water vaguely less warm than the room. What most people don't realise is that the temperature inside one of those things is essentially unknowable. I've opened mini-fridges that were just... warm boxes with a light.
Unopened insulin needs to be kept between 2°C and 8°C. Mini-fridges are designed to keep beverages mildly cool, not to maintain pharmaceutical storage conditions.
Handing your entire insulin supply over to a hotel mini-fridge is a bit like tucking your RRSP into a lottery ticket and calling it a financial plan. Optimistic. Unlikely to end well.
✅ What I do instead: I bring a proper insulin cooler — one built for exactly this purpose — and I use it whether I'm staying somewhere nice or somewhere that's seen better days. The mini-fridge is welcome to the sparkling water. My insulin stays in the cooler.
"You don't need a doctor's letter. They never actually check."
Look, sometimes that's true. Plenty of times I've walked through security without anyone giving my insulin kit a second look.
But I've also spent twenty minutes off to the side of a CATSA checkpoint while two officers turned my insulin pens over in their hands and discussed them in a language I don't speak. I've had my insulin cooler opened, inspected, questioned, and photographed.
Getting a diabetes travel letter from your doctor takes about ten minutes to request and costs you nothing. It matters especially when you're crossing into countries where agents aren't necessarily familiar with insulin pumps or continuous glucose monitors.
Diabetes Canada recommends carrying written documentation of your diagnosis and your medications every time you travel — and from personal experience, I'd say that advice is worth following without exception.
✅ What I do instead: Before any trip, I ask my doctor for a signed travel letter that confirms my diagnosis and lists everything I'm carrying. Printed copy goes next to my passport. Digital copies live in my email. I've never once wished I hadn't brought it. I have absolutely regretted the times I've travelled less prepared.
👉 Our guide on Diabetes Travel Letters covers exactly what yours should say — and includes a free downloadable template you can take straight to your next appointment.
"Pack your insulin in checked luggage — the cargo hold is cooler anyway."
Please don't. The cargo hold of a commercial plane is not a refrigerator. Temperatures in the belly of an aircraft at cruising altitude can swing wildly — and in some cases, it gets cold enough to freeze insulin solid.
Frozen insulin is ruined insulin. You can't thaw it and carry on. It's done.
And even setting temperature aside entirely — bags get lost. Your luggage ends up sitting in Calgary while you land in Halifax, and suddenly you're a Type 1 diabetic in an unfamiliar city, starting a trip you've been looking forward to, with no insulin and no good options. That scenario is not theoretical. It happens more than airlines like to admit.
CATSA's guidance is clear: essential medications go in your carry-on.
✅ What I do instead: My insulin is in my carry-on. Every trip, no exceptions, full stop. I also pack enough supplies to cover a few extra days — because delays and disruptions have a way of arriving at the worst possible time.
👉 For a full breakdown of what CATSA allows at Canadian security checkpoints — including your rights around liquid limits, pump screening, and CGM procedures — our guide on CATSA Rules for Diabetic Travellers covers everything before you reach the airport.
"Just ask the flight attendant to keep your insulin in the plane's fridge."
This one comes from a thoughtful place. The reality is that most commercial aircraft simply don't have a passenger-accessible refrigerator. On the planes that do have one, it's there for the crew's galley — not for storing passenger medication.
Handing your insulin to a flight attendant to "keep somewhere cool" means your medication is out of your hands, out of your sight, and stored at a temperature you have no control over.
I did this once on a long-haul flight. The insulin was fine when I got it back. But the look on the flight attendant's face when I came to collect it at the gate — that half-second of genuine confusion — was all I needed to never try it again.
✅ What I do instead: On longer flights, I use 4AllFamily's Pioneer PRO Mini Fridge — a portable unit that runs off a battery pack, keeps my insulin at the right temperature for hours, and fits under the seat in front of me. My insulin stays with me. Simple as that.
👉 For a complete guide to keeping insulin at the right temperature throughout an entire international journey — from the moment you leave home to the moment you check in at your destination — my guide on How to Keep Insulin Cool When Travelling covers every scenario I've encountered.
"Travel insurance for diabetes is overpriced. Don't bother."
I get why this sounds tempting. Diabetes-specific travel coverage costs more than a basic policy, and when you're already adding up the cost of flights, accommodation, and everything else, it's easy to look for line items to cut.
But here's what doesn't get said enough: your provincial health plan covers you at home. The moment you leave Canada, that coverage drops to essentially nothing for most out-of-country medical expenses. I once lost a bag with three insulin pens in Morocco. My travel insurer covered it. Without that coverage, I'd have been scrambling to replace medication in a foreign city under considerable stress.
And if you end up in a hospital in a country without universal health care? The bill can run into figures that are genuinely shocking.
✅ What I do instead: I buy travel insurance that specifically covers Type 1 diabetes and anything that comes with it — including lost, damaged, or stolen medication. It costs more upfront. It costs a lot less than finding out the hard way that you needed it.
"Once your insulin pen is open, you don't need to refrigerate it anymore."
This one is where things get tricky, because it's technically not entirely wrong — which makes it more dangerous than advice that's simply false.
An open insulin pen can be kept at room temperature. That part is accurate. But "room temperature" means below 25°C, and only for about 28 days, depending on your insulin type and brand.
The issue is that "room temperature" is not a fixed concept. The room temperature of your apartment in Edmonton in February is not the room temperature of a parked car in the Okanagan in August, or a tent in Algonquin Park during a heat wave, or the inside of a daypack you've been carrying around Montréal in July.
I've had insulin go cloudy on me mid-trip. If you've never looked at a pen that should be crystal clear and found yourself staring at something that looks faintly milky and wrong, I hope you never do. Cloudy insulin is insulin you can't use.
Always check the storage instructions for your specific insulin. And never assume that "room temperature" means the same thing everywhere you go.
✅ What I do instead: Any time there's a chance temperatures will climb above 25°C — and that includes most of Canada from June through August, let alone anywhere tropical — my open pens go in a cooling pouch. If I'm not sure, the cooler comes out. Not worth the risk.
"Your diabetes management won't really change when you travel."
I wish. The reality is that my insulin needs on the road look almost nothing like my insulin needs at home on a slow Tuesday afternoon.
There's the time zone disruption, which can throw your basal insulin timing out completely — something worth working through with your endocrinologist before you leave, not figuring out somewhere over the Atlantic.
Then there's the walking. I've hit 25,000 steps in a day on a city trip and been completely caught off guard by lows I wasn't expecting.
There's unfamiliar food at odd hours, the stress response that airports reliably trigger, altitude on some destinations, and the general unpredictability of being somewhere new and outside your routine.
Travel changes everything about your blood sugar. Not some things — everything.
✅ What I do instead: I pack at least 50% more insulin and supplies than I think I'll actually use. I connect with my endocrinologist before any trip that involves significant time zone shifts or unusual physical demands. And I've made peace with the fact that my numbers will be harder to predict when I'm away — that's not failure, that's just what travel does. The extra supplies aren't wasted. They're the whole point.
The Only Advice That Actually Matters
After forty countries and more than a few situations I'm glad are behind me, here's what I've come back to, every single time:
Good travel advice for people living with Type 1 diabetes is almost aggressively unglamorous. It's documentation and backup supplies and insurance policies and conversations with your doctor. It's the stuff that doesn't make for a great story — until you actually need it.
- Get the documentation — and bring it every time.
- Pack more than you think you'll need.
- Your insulin travels in your carry-on. Non-negotiable.
- Invest in an insulin cooler that's built for the job.
- Buy travel insurance that actually covers you.
- Talk to your endocrinologist before you go.
- And know your rights at CATSA checkpoints — because a smooth security experience is one of life's underrated pleasures.
Beyond that? It's just travel.
And travel — even with Type 1 diabetes, even with the lists and the prep and the backup pens and the cooler — is genuinely one of the best things there is.
The insulin comes with me. The bad advice stays home.
💬 We'd Love to Hear From You!
Have you picked up any memorably bad travel advice about managing diabetes on the road — or found something that actually works?
Share your experience in the comments below.
