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A lot of the things that help you sleep well don't survive the road. Here's what does.
Most of the advice out there about sleep barely scratches the surface. If you've tried the usual tips and still found yourself staring at the ceiling of your hotel room at 3am, that's probably why. I've been there too, so I went looking for something better.
My science background means I don't take wellness claims at face value. I went to the actual research. This free guide is what I found.
Ten practical things to help you sleep better wherever you are, backed by real evidence and explained in plain language, from someone who has lived the problem and wanted real answers.
My story
It wasn't always like this.
Tim used to say I could sleep on a barbed wire fence. On the edge of volcanoes, rock hard beds in yurts, hostel dorms, airport lounges — I'd be out within minutes. Five-star hotel or tent on a Thermarest, it genuinely didn't matter. I just slept.
Then that changed.
Age, hormones, aches that lingered longer than they used to. Stress in my body that eventually had it turning on itself. Eczema. Allergies. Lying awake itching at 3am is its own particular kind of exhausting, and it was destroying my sleep long before I understood what was actually going on.
We settled in Saigon for seven months and I tried all sorts of things. Meditation. Breathwork. Device hygiene. They helped a little. Not enough. Things kept spiralling until I landed in hospital for eleven nights.
What I understand now, and didn't then, is that sleep isn't just rest. The Sleep Foundation and the NIH are blunt about this: sleep is fundamental to how your immune system heals, defends and regulates itself.* When sleep breaks down, cortisol stays elevated, and an already-struggling immune system tips further into chaos.
And it's cyclic. Poor sleep feeds stress, mood, inflammation and more. Those things then make sleep worse. Which feeds the stress, the mood, the inflammation, all over again. My eczema and allergies didn't just disrupt my sleep. They were almost certainly made worse by the sleep I was losing, round and round, until it landed me in hospital.
After the hospital stay, things genuinely improved. The cycle broke. The sleep got better. I started to feel like I was getting somewhere.
Then our next adventure approached. The habits that had broken the cycle began to lapse as we got back on the move. Sleep quality has slid back down, and I can feel the same loop starting to turn again.
That hospital stay was my particular consequence. Yours will look different if poor sleep has been quietly running in the background of your life. But I don't know anyone whose version of that cycle is good.
That's why I made this guide. These are the ten strategies I'm pursuing, because I can take them on the road. Most I know work. One I'm still finding out.
What's inside
Everything in the free guide
Why the first-night effect gets worse the more you move
The science behind why your brain stays on alert in new places, and what long-term travelers can actually do about it.
The cortisol connection nobody talks about
Travel stress is real even when it's fun. Here's what it does to your sleep and your recovery, and how to bring it down.
The 3am wake-up pattern, explained
One of the clearest breakdowns I've found on why women over 50 wake at 3am specifically. It's the kind of detail that finally made the pattern make sense to me. Full reference is inside the guide.
The one supplement worth taking
Cheap, widely available, and one of the better-researched options for sleep. Available almost anywhere in the world.
The free thing that makes the most difference
Ten minutes. No equipment. This is the one I can say with genuine confidence works. I have the data to back it up.
An approach I didn't expect to take seriously
The research is more substantial than I expected. I'm currently running a structured self-experiment on it, and you'll get the results before anyone else.
Who this is for
This guide is for anyone who sleeps badly when they travel. You don't have to be away for months. A weekend break, a work trip, two weeks somewhere that should have felt exciting. If you've lain awake in a bed that isn't yours wondering why you can't switch off, this is for you.
Travel doesn't cause sleep problems. It just takes away the things you'd normally reach for to manage them. This guide gives some of those things back.
Who wrote it
I'm Sharyn — a long-term traveler who has slept in hundreds of different environments across nearly two decades. The sleep problems this guide addresses are ones I've genuinely experienced and started to manage.
I'm currently running an experiment on something that might be the ultimate low-resistance sleep aid — effective while you sleep, no willpower required. You'll get the results once they're in.
Sharyn Nilsen
Catch Our Travel Bug
Free guide — Catch Our Travel Bug
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* Sleep Foundation, "Sleep & Immunity: Can a Lack of Sleep Make You Sick?" sleepfoundation.org/physical-health/how-sleep-affects-immunity. Citing NIH and NINDS research on sleep and immune function.