Road trips, boat trips, plane rides, and travel generally mean fun, footloose, and fancy-free experiences.

Unless you have motion sickness and end up on the floor, curled up in the fetal position, quivering like a wet dog on a cold winter’s day. Or, heaving your guts over the side of a boat while trying to balance in amidst the onslaught of waves, your green face glances across to your friends, and you give them a shaky, pathetic thumbs up as you wipe the drool from your chin.

Those are classic scenarios of motion sickness. Motion sickness is actually a disturbance of the middle ear from constant movement or motion. The condition occurs when there is a disagreement between visible motion and the vestibular system’s perceived movement.

Nobody has time for that so below is a list of tips and tricks to combat the dizziness, nausea and downright dreadful disorder.  Motion Sickness Medicine  Motion sickness medicine can be bought over the counter from most pharmacies and works on most people.

Meclizine,Bonine, Antivert and Dramamine can be easily obtain and are effective on short to medium trips and usually only work on mild cases of motion sickness.

If your case is severe, you can pop into the local GP and get prescription for something a bit heavier like Scopolamine. I have used Advil before and it tends to work. It come in patches and pills although does have some side effects that you should discuss with your doctor in length before taking them.

If you decide to take the natural route. Chewing on celery or ginger can be mildly effective. And if that does not tickle your fancy, you can get them in pill form. Peppermint is also another good one.

Drink some tea to settle your stomach before set sail, take off or jump on the gas.  If motion sickness does hit you and you start to feel nauseous and queasy try sipping on a fizzy drink like lemonade or ginger beer. You will burp a few time and hopefully start to feel better as your stomach has released unwanted gases.

If you are travelling by boat or car, a good little trick is to focus on something stable like the horizon. When you’re being thrown around in a boat and your see legs are jelly just peek on up to the only steady flat line in sight. This will calm you and hopefully relieve some nausea.   Always eat a solid meal before travelling, to ground you and settle your stomach. Do not over eat and do not eat anything that will cause your stomach to be irritable such as spicy food. Keep it plane, keep it simple.

Ha. Did you see what I did there? Keep it plane… Like aeroplane. Genius. Anyway. Onwards and upwards.  Reading tend to bring on motion sickness so you might want to put brushing up on your literature on hold until you get to the destination.

After all, who are you trying to impress? Always face the direction of travel and if you’re in a car sit in the front.

Make sure you’re a quick draw on calling shotgun or you will be puking all over the shot. Practice in from of the mirror before its time to leave.

Shotgun!  When you notice travel sickness coming try to be as relaxed as possible and do not panic. It will make things worse. Chill out, take some deep breaths, and stare at the horizon. Be cool, calm and collected.

Still think you’re going to yak. For the sake of your friends and family and those around. Carry some puke bags. Make a game of it. See how full you can get them before they bust causing a chain reaction puking passengers.

After you hurl up lunch. Be sure to replenish your body with electrolytes and take a multi vitamin with your next meal.

If all the fore mentioned remedies, do not work. Hit the hay. Go to sleep for the whole journey. Curl, get cozy and dream about not be cursed with this horrible affliction and that should see you through the trip. Puke Free.

There are many methods for combating motion sickness. The key is to find one that works best for you, as everyone’s system is different.

Natural methods are healthier and do not cause side effects but sometimes do not give the desire result. Prescription medications can but effective but have some nasty side effects.

In the end, you can always just sleep it off.