Want to know about Traveling with Ritalin or ADHD Medication? Or can you travel with ADHD Medication? This is our experience with traveling from Australia to South East Asia and Europe with Ritalin, ADHD Medication and where we were able to be prescribed Ritalin in Europe as an Australian family.
I am writing this to share our experience and to help you, if you are researching and wondering the same because when i was trying to look for the correct information on this i could not find anything. This blog post article will hopefully be able to give you more of an idea on what to expect if you are in a similar situation.
Follow our travels on Instagram @sky_surfers_ and see more of our journey around the world.
One of the main things i was researching before our journey around the world with our kids was traveling with Ritalin. Our eldest son has ADHD and we were so worried about how we were going to travel through so many airports with his ADHD medication and if it were allowed in some of the countries we were visiting. I spent hours researching and reading forums etc.. but could not find one clear answer. Our son’s Doctor and Paediatrician didn’t even know the correct answer. One thing was for sure, we didn’t want to be doing anything illegal. The only information i could gather was only one months worth of Ritalin was allowed to be taken out of Australia with us and it had to be in it’s original packaging with our son’s name and details on the label. We also had to have a letter from his Doctor stating that he had been diagnosed with ADHD and he needed the medication while he was traveling.
We set off for our one year journey around the world with only one months worth of Ritalin on us… Any parents of a child with ADHD who is on medication knows how important the medication is, not only for school work (which he was doing through an online schooling platform) which you can read all about here
Traveling & Distance Education/Home Schooling
but also to boost his self esteem, as improved performance and behaviour can lead to more positive feedback and experiences.
We flew from Australia to Bali, with the Ritalin in my carry on bag along with the letter from his doctor and when it came time to pass through security and customs i was so nervous because i still did not know the ‘rules’ with bringing Ritalin into Bali. To my surprise, not one security officer questioned it! I felt so relieved and hoped it would be the same with the rest of South East Asia… We then went on to travel Vietnam, Malaysia and Singapore with it and even with the amount of security and scanners we went through, not one person questioned it. So yes, you can travel South East Asia with Ritalin or any other ADHD Medication.
After our time in South East Asia we flew to Europe and were wondering and very hopeful it would be the same scenario, although by this stage we were running very low!!
We started to research and wonder where in Europe an Australian family was going to be able to find Ritalin. We tried booking an appointment online with his doctor back home in Australia but he would not allow it since we were not in the country and the Ritalin could not be sent to us in the mail. After doing a little research i discovered that Ritalin originated in Switzerland, this was such a coincidence because we were headed there at the beginning of our European adventure!
The only way to be prescribed ADHD Medication in Europe as a foreigner is to take your original letter from your doctor to the hospital and see a doctor there. Ritalin is perscribed in boxes of 100 in Switzerland and it was actually quite affordable. We traveled through the whole of Europe with the Ritalin in my carry on luggage along with the script from the Hospital in Switzerland and original letter from our son’s doctor in Australia and again didn’t get asked or questioned about this medication once.
So there you have it, if you are in the same situation and doing all your research as i did, this was our experience and thankfully we were able to travel through 21 countries with no airport security flagging the ADHD medication i had in my bag!
Wondering how we were able to travel the world fulltime with our kids?
