On the Road With OAB: A Summer Vacationer’s Survivor Guide

By: Tia Schellato, D.O.

In 2025, Philadelphia ranked seventh of the “Best Summer Travel Destinations,” by WalletHub. Should you run into any of those tourists in the City of Brotherly Love, there’s a decent chance one will ask you to point to the nearest bathroom.

You might know the feeling yourself, if you experience the symptoms of overactive bladder (OAB): the immediate need to go while driving in an unfamiliar area; frantically searching for bathrooms in a museum; or stressing about having an accident while on a group tour.

Nearly one in six adults – up to 30% of men and 40% of women – live with OAB. Many have ways for coping with it at home, but summer vacationing can upend those regimens. In this blog, we’re sharing tips for how to manage OAB while on the bumpy road of travel.

Why Your Bladder “Acts Up”

Your bladder is a hollow organ with one job: to store urine. Normally, it can hold up to two cups for two to five hours, at which point the nerves in your bladder signal for you to squeeze the urine out.

If your bladder is overactive, however, its muscles will squeeze involuntarily and without notice. This might result from nerve damage or miscommunication between the spinal nerve (sacral) and brain. For menopausal women, hormonal changes could lead to OAB. For men, an enlarged prostate might be compressing the urethra.

You can identify OAB by these symptoms:

• An immediate urge to urinate that is hard to control
• The frequent need to go, but with small amounts of urine
• Involuntary leaking, or accidents (urge incontinence)
• Having to get up to go the bathroom more than twice a night (nocturia)

9 Ways to Prepare Your Bladder for the Journey

The above symptoms can interfere with your vacation plans, but they don’t have to. This nine-point OAB travel guide should help put you in better control of you overactive bladder.

1. Teach your bladder to wait. Bladder training involves holding off the need to urinate by short periods of time – 10 to 15 minutes – and then extending them. Start training a few weeks before your trip, with an aim to schedule your bathroom breaks to set times of day. Trip tip: When the urge to go strikes, do not rush. Relax your body. Perform Kegels (squeezing exercises), which strengthen the muscles supporting your bladder and can improve wait times.
2. Pack outfits that work with your bladder. When choosing what you’ll wear on your summer trip, consider what’s easy to get out of. Skip unnecessary belts, pants with lots of buttons, and tight waistlines that pressure your bladder. Do pack extra underwear and absorbent liners. Trip tip: Prepare an “urge pack” of one undergarment, absorbent liners, tissues, and a small hand sanitizer, and store it in the bag you’ll carry every day.
3. Give your bladder an aisle seat. If your trip includes a flight, try to book an aisle seat near the bathroom. If it’s a long flight, consider wearing an extra-absorbent undergarment liner or overnight pad. Should you choose to have a cocktail, drink it slowly. Trip tip: Keep your “urge pack” close at hand, in an easy-reach spot of your day bag under the seat in front of you.
4. Track your food and drinks. In the weeks before your trip, record all you consume, how much, and the urgency of your bathroom trips. This can help you isolate what stimulates your bladder. Travel tip: Pay attention to alcohol, caffeine, bubbly drinks, and artificial sweeteners, among drinks. Food triggers include spicy dishes, acidic foods like oranges and tomatoes, processed meats, and chocolate (sorry).
5. Pretend you’re in the Mediterranean. Studies have found that the Mediterranean diet – high in olive oil, nuts, lean proteins (especially fish), fruits, and veggies – can reduce OAB symptoms, Healthline reports. Travel tip:Mix these foods into your meal plan before your trip, to see if they improve OAB symptoms.
6. Learn which drugs can help, or hurt. Talk to your doctor about medications and skin patches that manage OAB. Also find out if any prescriptions you take could make your OAB worse – certain alpha blockers and antidepressants have shown to exacerbate symptoms. Travel tip: Be aware of the side effects of blending meds, and ask if you can modify prescriptions.
7. Inject a little control. Bladder Botox can ease OAB symptoms by partially paralyzing the bladder muscle. Bulkamid, an injectable gel, can minimize OAB symptoms by adding volume to the urethra walls. Travel tip: These treatments are minimally invasive and require little recovery time. However, Botox injections can take several weeks to fully kick in, so plan accordingly.
8. Take advantage of bathroom tech. Thanks to phone apps, we can navigate a strange city, reserve a room, and translate a foreign language. Apps also can find the nearest restroom for you. (Yes, that’s true!) Examples include Bathroom Scout (3.3 million locations) and Flush. Travel tip: Ensure the app covers the areas where you plan to travel and check it before heading out each day.
9. Try to kick the habit. Your bladder does not like cigarette smoke; it carries chemicals that irritate it and cause it to involuntarily contract. Further, a smoker’s cough can weaken the pelvic muscles, leading to incontinence.Travel tip: Experiment with cigarette replacements such as nicotine patches, lozenges, and nose sprays, and record your OAB results.

Stay Calm and Call Your Urologist

If you worry that you’ll be the traveler frantically asking someone to point to the nearest bathroom in a faraway place, it might be time to talk to a urologist – before your tip. Our team of OAB specialists can prescribe medications, work with you on a bladder-training plan, and perform minimally invasive nerve-stimulation treatments or surgery.

Such prevention is key to happy, dry travels!

Learn more about OAB symptoms, causes, and treatments. Take the OAB symptoms quiz to see if you may have OAB. For an in-depth explanation of OAB management, watch this recorded webinar on bladder control.