Help me survive a snoring travel companion!
 

While hotel choices, siteseeing recommendations, etc. are all very important, I think getting a good night's sleep while traveling is important as well. I'll be traveling with a family member who snores and it's always rough on me because she goes to sleep first and I stay up until the wee hours hearing the noise. I've tried a couple of different brands of earplugs, but they don't help and I wake up in the morning and they have fallen out of my ears at some point in the night. I've bought my family member some snore strips and while she said she slept better with one on, it didn't reduce the decibels. Anybody else out there with the same situation? Any recommendations for super quality ear plugs or nose strips or other tactic to try?! I'm even hoping to find some accommodation cheap enough to allow separate rooms!

if you find a solution i will happy to put it to test.. on myself.. and my DH.

Have you tried the ear plugs made of a spnge material which expand inside the ear canal?

Sorry: sponge material

My Sharper Image Travel Sound Soother is invaluable to me:
http://tinyurl.com/gt6yc

I sympathize completely. I'm 44 yrs old but can still hear my dad snoring through my parents' open bedroom door.

Check out www.vrbo.com my friend. We travel occassionally with my parents but always rent a condo, apartment or house on vrbo and I've yet to hear him. Get seperate sleeping quarters- at least a 1 bdrm with a pullout couch in the living room.

My wife has found a good solution with custom fitted silicon earplugs (hers are called "Earbugs" from Iris the Visual Group in Canada). The fittings and manufacture seem to cost up to $100.
She swears by them (and at me no more) and I now get to sleep on my back.
Plus they really worked in Rome. I'm getting some too.

I buy the highest decible earplugs I can find at the local drug store. Now comes the gross part. To get them in so they stay in and WORK. 1. Slightly dampen the ear plug. 2. Twist it to tiny shere. 3. Pull DOWN on your ear lobe and SHOVE that thin in there. Mine is almost flush with the ear opening.

Works for me and my mother is a world class snorer (Probably because she is a world class smoker, but that's another thread)

A medical treatment for the snorer is the most effective long-term solution I know about. A procedure called Somnoplasty worked for me. The almost painless office procedure went a long way to saving my marriage, I think. At least it prevented a severe case separate bedrooms.

Google Somnoplasty. One site is:
http://tinyurl.com/24dd9b

Best of luck, and pleasant dreams!

:-)

the best way in the short term is just to get separate rooms because sleep is important.

My husband snores, so I face this whenever we travel as well as at home.

First, I do use earplugs. I use the "Hearo" brand available at Walmart, CVS, etc. If they are inserted properly, they shouldn't fall out.

Now, here's what I also use that definitely helped me on our last trip to Europe. Headphones. Get some nice, comfy headphones -- the softer around your ears the better -- and put those on over your earplugs. If you want to listen to music also or a sound soother, that's great. But for me, just the addition of the headphones on top of the earplugs drowned out enough of the snoring for me to fall asleep.

Smothering the offender with a pillow is painless and silent.

I have that sound machine that Tiff showed and love it! It doesn't completely drown out DH's snoring, but it helps.

I was on a girls trip last year, and my friend was snoring something awful. I tried everything, but finally threw her thick paperback book at her. In the morning she asked why her book was on the floor, and I told her. She got a good laugh out of it. I hope your family member has the same sort of sense of humor:)

My DH had this problem and it was infuriating when we travelled...He'd wake up and feel fine, and I would have the urge to kill. Important thing is that people who snore that loud and long probably have 'sleep apnea' and need to seek medical help...go to a 'sleep clinic' and get fitted for a C-Pap machine, for their benefit and yours. Since we did this, we both sleep better, and can travel again with comfort.

I sympathize - I used to travel with a friend who snored so bad. She could fall asleep within seconds of hitting the pillow, while I spent hours thinking of how to get away with the pillow suggestion (never could work out a foolproof plan for that).

In the end, we learned to always get a suite. While I could still hear her in the other room, it wasn't so much that I couldn't fall asleep. The extra cost of the room was SO WORTH IT!!

Separate rooms is part of my travel budget when I travel with certain people.

My husband is a serious snorer and it only gets worse when he is jetlagged. There is nothing more frustrating then trying to grab a few precious hours of sleep when the person next to you is snoring loud enough to shake the bed! I've tried earplugs and headphones but it doesn't drown out the saw. When we last visited his father in Dublin, I confessed that my husband's snoring was keeping me up all night and his father "forced" him into another room. I have never slept so well on vacation! Until my stubborn husband goes to the sleep clinic I am definitely spending the extra money on a suite. I know we both have a better time when we both sleep through the night!

As someone who often travels solo, the cost of my own room comes as no surprise.

I would definitely do so were I in your shoes.

My husband snores big time! Unfortunately we cannot afford two separate hotel rooms, so I have slept on bathroom floors; slept in the car in the parking lot; drunk a half bottle of wine in the middle of the night! Several years ago I purchased a Bose headset hoping it would do the trick. By itself it's ineffective but used in conjunction with good fitting earplugs and a walkman playing nice music they work pretty well. I've also learned to drink that wine before he goes to sleep. I do love it whenever we find ourselves with two separate rooms, but that happens very rarely. Most European bathrooms are so small that I can't begin to stretch out and I'm only 5'3".

People who snore loudly are predisposed to sleep apnea, a condition where they stop breathing during sleep. This causes interruption in normal sleep patterns so they're excessively sleepy during the daytime. It can also cause their oxygen saturation to drop and a problems with their heart.

Suggest she seek a consult with a sleep certified physician and possibly have sleep study done. I will quiet her snoring and help her health a great deal.

They make some GREAT CPAP machines that are very small, come with a humidifier, and work on any voltage.

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