Whether you travel once a year or travel every weekend, it’s a good idea to be ready for any bed bugs you might encounter. The fear of bed bugs seems everywhere nowadays, with news stories about bed bugs in homes, hotels, and even airplanes. That’s why you should have the best travel bed bug spray available so you don’t bring them home.

We know, we know. Traveling already takes a lot of planning and energy. But taking some time to learn about how bed bugs travel can prevent weeks of headaches (and itching) should you bring them home. Let’s look at steps beyond a bed bug travel spray.

Why the Bed Bug Resurgence?

Before we discuss how bed bugs travel and what you can do about them, let’s consider why there seem to be so many stories about them today. Is it just the 24-hour news cycle needing to fill airtime and using scare tactics to keep you up at night when you’re in a hotel? Surprisingly this isn’t the case this time!

Bed bugs were nearly eradicated from hotels and motels back in the early part of the 20th century. Exterminators would use any means necessary to kill bed bugs, and you know what that means: harsh pesticides. In the days of kids playing with globs of mercury while their schools had asbestos installed, you can probably guess that those pesticides were much more toxic than anything we’d allow today. But as dangerous as those chemicals were, something good came of it...they were winning the bed bug war. They indeed beat back bed bugs with chemical sprays, even if it wasn’t good for the health of anyone who stayed in the rooms. 

What To Look For In Bed Bug Travel Spray

Now that bed bugs are back, it’s time to know how to deal with them while on the road. One of the most obvious is to find the best travel bed bug spray possible. That’s what we make here at bedbugstore.com, a bed bug spray that kills bed bugs on contact. But that’s not all you have to look for when investigating how to get rid of bed bugs while traveling.

Look For Something Non-Toxic

Of course, the most important thing you want to look for in a travel-size bed bug spray is that it won’t be dangerous. You don’t want to sleep in a room with the noxious chemical smell that most bed bug travel sprays have.

Bed Bug Patrol has created a natural plant-based bed bug spray that isn’t toxic to humans or animals. We searched the world for the right combination of oils and botanicals that will kill bed bugs but are perfectly safe for mammals. You can spray it as much as you want and not worry about the short- or long-term effects that could be suffered due to other bed bug killers.

Create An Invisible Barrier

One advantage of our bed bug travel spray is that it sticks around. That’s not something you want with most bug sprays; you want the foul smell and dangerous chemicals to go away as quickly as possible. But as we just mentioned, Bed Bug Patrol Travel Spray is non-toxic to humans and animals (but very toxic to bed bugs!), and ours leaves a fresh peppermint aroma. 

After you’ve done a visual inspection for bed bugs (more on that later), it’s still a safe idea to spray the mattress even if you don’t find any signs of them. To create an undetectable barrier, we recommend applying a nice spray all along the edge of the sheets. Our Bed Bug Spray sticks around longer than most, ensuring you’ll kill any that try to move from the mattress to your skin during the night.

Don’t Damage The Sheets

If you ever have to get rid of bed bugs at home, you’ll do everything you can to eradicate them, whether shortening the life of your sheets by washing and drying them on the hottest setting or cutting out the bloody messes that the bed bugs have made.

You don’t have that luxury when you’re at a hotel. But when you use Bed Bug Patrol Travel Spray, damaging the sheets with our spray isn’t something you have to worry about. Our spray doesn’t stain sheets, so you can spray it to your heart’s content. You won’t get in trouble with the management or get charged for stained sheets when you use our product!

Make Sure the Size Conforms

A travel bed bug spray is only good if it gets where you’re going! At three ounces, our Bed Bug Killing Travel Spray can go with you on your carry-on so that it doesn’t get confiscated at TSA checkpoints.

Other Ways To Avoid Bed Bugs When Traveling

If you see bed bugs in your hotel room, it's best to request another room or leave the hotel altogether. But even if you don't see bed bugs, it doesn't mean they're not there. Engaging in other bed bug travel protection is a good idea. Let's take a look.

Do An Examination

The first thing you should do when you get to a hotel room is to examine it, even before you bring your luggage in. (set it upright in the tub until you’ve done your inspection.) While this might seem like much work, spending five minutes investigating now could have you weeks or months of frustration if you take them home.

It would be best if you started with the bed, of course. At home, one of the telltale signs of bed bugs is the brownish-red stains they leave on the sheets. This is their excrement. But the sheets on a hotel bed are not the same ones on it last night (you hope), so that won’t work. You should inspect the mattress itself for these telltale signs of bed bugs.

While you’re checking the mattress, lift any seams. Bed bugs like to hide, so if you’re going to find them, the seams of a mattress are the most prominent location. You should look for adults, of course, who are about the size, shade, and even color of an apple seed. You can also look for discarded skins because bed bugs go through five nymph stages before they are sexually mature. Sometimes, nymphs are easy to see, but other times, they are difficult if they haven’t fed recently and are whitish-clear against a white mattress. Finally, the eggs are no bigger than a pinhead and are incredibly difficult to see. Here’s help with how to identify bed bugs and their bites.

It’s not always easy to see bed bugs and their offspring. This task can be made much easier with a bed bug detection light. Our UV Bed Bug Light operates at a frequency that makes all stages of bed bugs fluoresce, allowing you to find signs of them in record time.

Watch Your Clothes

Luckily, bed bugs aren’t very good at grabbing onto clothing when you’re wearing it. Bed bugs tend to be pretty easy to shake off, but that doesn’t mean your clothes are invulnerable when sitting in the hotel room.

When you’re in a hotel, we suggest that you don’t lay your clothes down vertically. The most common way that clothing can become infested is by being put in dresser drawers. Instead of using dresser drawers, hang up your bulkier or dressier clothing in the closet. (Other clothing can be kept in your luggage; see below.)

The trick is to know how bed bugs move, what they’re capable of, and what they’re not. The closet is an excellent option because they can’t crawl up most slick surfaces very well. But if you leave your clothing on the bed or in a dresser, they can crawl inside and then be transported back home in your luggage.

Your Luggage Is Vulnerable

Bed bugs love modern mattresses because there are so many places to hide. There are seams, pillowtop creases, and grommets in which they can relax for the day before coming out at night to suck blood. But there’s one place in the room with even more nooks and crannies: your luggage, which includes duffel bags and backpacks.

Sure, all those compartments make traveling more accessible and better organized, but they also provide a haven for bed bugs. That’s where luggage wraps come in. Much like mattress encasements, luggage wraps prevent bed bugs from getting into your luggage in the first place. If they can’t hide in your luggage, they’re more likely to head under the trim or in a dresser. That means you never take them home in the first place. 

Let’s Keep You Safe!

Because most bed bug infestations begin with a stay in a hotel, we hope you’ll take the situation seriously and invest in the best bed bug eradication and prevention techniques possible. Doing so during a stay at a hotel could save you from even having to deal with them once you’re back home.

If you’re looking for the best bed bug solution, you don’t have to take our word for it.  Click here for bed bug travel spray reviews, and then be sure to grab the best insecticide for bed bugs on the market. 

Check hotels here.

Our natural, plant-based Bed Bug Patrol Killer Spray provides an all-natural solution to infestations of bed bugs, as well as fleas, spiders, and other common indoor bugs. Our 100% natural solution is made in the USA. It relies on the power of natural ingredients like citric acid, clove oil, and peppermint oil to naturally deter these bugs from living in your furnishings and upholstery. Just spray our solution on affected surfaces twice per day, and it will get to work on exterminating your bed bugs and preventing their return. To keep you safe from bed bugs on your travels, arm yourself with our Bed Bug Blasting Travel Spray, which comes in a handy, TSA-approved travel-size bottle for your convenience.