Traveling with a new piercing: what actually goes wrong
The question people ask before a trip is whether airport security will be a problem. It will not. The things that actually damage a healing piercing on holiday are water, sun, dirty hands and a cleaning routine that quietly collapses somewhere over the Atlantic.
Here is what matters, roughly in the order it will come up.
Airport security, which is not the problem
Body jewelry is small and most of it is titanium, which is not especially responsive to a walk-through metal detector. Millions of pierced people fly every day without incident.
If something does register, you will be asked to step aside for a hand wand or a pat-down. That is routine. You do not have to remove a healing piercing to satisfy security, and you can say so plainly: it is a healing wound and taking it out risks losing it. Screening officers deal with medical devices and dressings constantly and this is a smaller ask than most.
Full-body scanners image shape rather than metal specifically, so jewelry may show. It still does not mean removal.
The only genuinely awkward case is a piercing somewhere private during a pat-down. If that applies, ask for a private screening. You are entitled to one and it is a normal request.
The real problem is water
This is the one that ruins holidays, and it is worth being blunt about because it is also the one people talk themselves out of.
A healing piercing cannot go in the sea, a pool, a lake, a hot tub or a hotel jacuzzi. Not briefly, not with a plaster over it, not on the last day. Standing and shared water carries bacteria that a healing channel has no defense against, and warm water carries more of them.
Chlorine is not a solution to this. It reduces some organisms and irritates the wound while doing it.
Showers are fine and always have been. Clean running water over a piercing is part of looking after it, not a risk to it.
So the arithmetic is simple and it is worth doing before you book anything. Our healing times page has the real figures. A lobe is a couple of months. Cartilage is six to twelve. A navel can be six to twelve. If your holiday is a beach holiday and your piercing is three weeks old, the piercing wins or the holiday does, and pretending otherwise is how people come home with an infection.
Sun
Ultraviolet light on a healing piercing is a second, separate problem, and it does two things.
It burns skin that is already an open wound, which is more painful than it sounds and can blister. And on anything that has healed and scarred, sun darkens and thickens the scar tissue permanently.
Keep a healing piercing covered. Loose clothing, out of direct sun. Sunscreen does not go on an unhealed piercing, because it is not a wound product and it will sit in the channel, so covering is the answer rather than creaming.
Sand, and everything else on a beach
Sand gets into everything, including a channel, and it is not clean. Once it is in there it abrades.
If you are on a beach with a healing piercing, cover it, and rinse it with clean water afterwards even if you think nothing got near it.
The cleaning routine, which is what actually collapses
At home, twice a day with sterile saline is easy because it happens at fixed points. Traveling removes every one of those points.
Pack the saline. Sterile saline in a pressurized can is the simplest thing to carry, and it is what our aftercare page tells you to use at home too. Do not plan to buy it there. Do not improvise with bottled water and table salt, which is neither sterile nor the right concentration.
Liquids rules apply. Cabin baggage limits mean a small can in the bag and a larger one in the hold, or a large one in the hold and nothing in the cabin. Losing your only can at security on the way out is a common and entirely avoidable start to a trip.
Time zones break the routine, not the piercing. Twice a day means roughly twelve hours apart, not at particular times. Morning and night wherever you are is fine.
Hands. The single biggest risk on a trip is touching a piercing with hands that have been on handrails, seat backs and door handles all day. Hand sanitizer goes on hands, never on the piercing.
Long flights
Cabin air is dry and long flights make most people swell slightly, particularly in the extremities. A piercing already fitted with a short bar can feel tight at altitude.
This is another argument for having a downsize done at the right time rather than early, and for not traveling with a piercing that is days old. If a piece has felt snug at ground level recently, get the length checked before you fly rather than discovering it at thirty thousand feet.
Sleeping on a plane also means sleeping in whatever position the seat allows, which for a fresh cartilage piercing is a real consideration. A travel pillow that holds your head off the piercing is worth more than it costs.
How long before a trip should you get pierced
The honest answer is that it depends on the trip and the placement, and the two questions to ask are how much of the healing time will have passed and what the holiday actually involves.
A city break three weeks after a lobe piercing is unremarkable. A diving holiday two months after a cartilage piercing is a bad idea. A beach fortnight at any point in the first several months of a navel piercing is asking for exactly the problem this page describes.
If the trip is the fixed thing, get pierced afterwards. That is almost always the right call and it costs you nothing but patience. If you want it done before, come in and say when you are going and what you will be doing, and we will tell you honestly whether the timing works.
Getting pierced while you are away
We are not going to tell you never to. We will tell you what to check, because the checks are the same everywhere and a holiday is exactly when people skip them.
Single-use needle, opened in front of you. Never a gun. An autoclave for anything reusable, with records. Implant-grade jewelry, and if nobody can tell you what the metal is, that is your answer. Our page on what makes a good piercing is the full list and it travels.
Then there is the part specific to being away: you are about to start a months-long healing process in a place you are leaving on Saturday. If something goes wrong in week two, the person who did it is in another country. Whoever looks at it instead did not do it, does not know what went in, and is working from your description.
And you cannot swim afterwards, which for most holidays is the entire point of the holiday.
If something goes wrong while you are away
Know the difference before you go, because the two look similar and need opposite responses.
Irritation is localized, settles with rest, and is usually caused by knocking, pressure, or jewelry that is the wrong length. Our page on bumps and what they actually are covers it.
Infection spreads. Redness that expands, heat, real pain after the first few days, swelling that increases, thick colored discharge, and in serious cases feeling unwell in yourself. That is a doctor, wherever you are, and it should not wait for the flight home.
Do not take the jewelry out. This is the instinct and it is usually wrong. Removing jewelry from an infected piercing can close the surface over the infection and trap it. Leave it in and get seen.
Photograph it. A clear picture in daylight on the day something changes is far more useful to whoever sees it later than your memory of it a week on.
What to pack
Sterile saline, sized for the liquids rules. Clean gauze or non-woven pads rather than cotton wool, which sheds fibers into a channel. Your jewelry sizes written down in your phone, in case a piece has to be replaced abroad. And the studio's number, ours or whoever pierced you, because a two-minute phone call answers most of what people panic about.
Which piercings travel well, and which do not
Not all placements are equally affected by a trip, and it is worth knowing which one you have.
Lobes travel best. Soft tissue, good blood supply, the shortest healing time on the ear, and easy to keep clear of collars and straps.
Cartilage travels badly. A helix, a conch, a flat or a rook heals for months rather than weeks, reacts to pressure, and is exactly where a plane seat, a rucksack strap or a hostel pillow will press. If you are going somewhere involving a lot of sleeping in transit, this is the group to think twice about.
Navels are the worst case for a beach trip. They sit under a waistband, they take months, and the whole placement is in the part of you that goes in the water.
Nostrils and septums are middling. They are not in contact with much and they are easy to clean, but they are also in the part of your face that gets sunburnt first.
Tongue piercings and long-haul flights are an awkward pair. Oral piercings swell considerably in the first days and dry cabin air makes a healing mouth uncomfortable. If you have just had one done, the first week is not the week to fly.
Hotels, hostels and shared bathrooms
Two practical things, neither of which is fussiness.
Hotel towels and hostel bedding are laundered but they are not sterile, and a towel dragged across a healing piercing snags it and leaves fibers behind. Pat dry with a clean paper towel instead, or let it air dry. This is the same advice as at home and it matters more away from home.
Shared showers are fine for a piercing in a way that shared baths and pools are not, because the water is running rather than standing. Flip-flops are for your feet, not your piercing, but the same instinct applies: it is the standing water that carries the risk.
The one-line version
Security is not the problem. Water is. Sun is. Hands are. And a cleaning routine that had fixed points at home has none in an airport, a hotel or a hostel, which is why the piercings that go wrong on holiday mostly go wrong quietly rather than dramatically.
If you take one decision from this page, make it the timing one. A piercing booked for the week after you get back is a piercing that heals in your own bathroom, on your own schedule, with the person who did it twenty minutes away.
Coming home
Look at it properly in good light on the day you get back, which is something people forget to do because the trip is over and the piercing survived it.
Check whether the jewelry still sits the way it did, whether either end has started to press, and whether anything is sore that was not before. Two weeks of disrupted routine, seat backs and unfamiliar pillows leaves marks that are easy to catch now and annoying in a month.
If a downsize was due while you were away, book it. It is the appointment that gets skipped most often and it is the one that decides whether a piercing that healed well stays that way.
Where we are
Piercings & Co., CF Carrefour Laval, unit J012A, 3003 Boulevard le Carrefour, Laval, Quebec H7T 1C7. Call (450) 682 1777.
Coming in before a trip is worth the twenty minutes. We can check the jewelry length, downsize anything that needs it, and tell you plainly whether the timing of a piercing works against the timing of your holiday.
Frequently Asked Questions
Will my piercing set off airport security?
Almost never. Body jewelry is small and usually titanium. If a detector does register something you will get a hand wand or a pat-down, which is routine. You do not have to remove a healing piercing, and you can say that it is a healing wound.
Can I swim on holiday with a new piercing?
No. Not the sea, not a pool, not a lake, not a hot tub, and a waterproof dressing does not change it. Showers are fine. If the trip is a swimming trip, get pierced afterwards rather than before.
How long before a holiday should I get pierced?
It depends on the placement and on what the holiday involves. A lobe before a city break is fine at a few weeks. Anything before a beach or diving holiday should generally wait until you are back. Tell us the dates and we will tell you honestly.
Can I take saline through security?
Subject to the usual cabin liquid limits, so take a small can in your bag or a large one in the hold. Do not plan on buying it at your destination and do not improvise with bottled water and table salt.
Does the sun matter?
Yes, twice over. It burns skin that is already an open wound, and on healed scar tissue it darkens and thickens the mark permanently. Cover a healing piercing rather than putting sunscreen on it.
Should I get pierced while I am away?
You can, if the studio passes the same checks you would apply at home. But you are starting a months-long heal in a place you are leaving, you will have nobody to go back to if it goes wrong, and you will not be able to swim for the rest of the trip.
Something looks wrong and I am abroad. What do I do?
Spreading redness, heat, increasing swelling, thick colored discharge or feeling unwell means see a doctor where you are rather than waiting for the flight. Leave the jewelry in, because taking it out can trap an infection under the closed surface. Photograph it in daylight.