If you travel often enough, by sea, air or highway, it’ll hit you sooner or later. Seasick, bad street vendor food, the flu and the usual afflictions of getting old. What can be done to combat it?

Of course, you can determine to avoid stupid eating mistakes, over-boozing and close-ups with sneezers. That makes sense, but illness may still hit at any moment during your journeys. The best advice is to, like the Scouts, be prepared.

Prior to traveling, check with your doctor and assemble a kit of meds to take with you. Of course, include your usual daily prescriptions, and add meds for colds, upset stomach, minor injury and other typical travel hazards. Take enough to last through your trip, plus an extra week’s supply.

Additionally, before you leave home, continuously check updated info from the U.S. State Department. Be prepared for health, crime, political unrest and other problems that may greet you when you arrive at your destination.

With warm weather approaching, many seniors consider giving of themselves. Lifetimes of business, teaching, travel and other skills make seasoned citizens very valuable to their communities and beyond. Here are just a few major volunteer programs to ponder:

USO: Since World War II, the USO has provided services to members of the Armed Forces and families. Seniors may participate in ongoing activities, as well as for special events. USO volunteers are at many major airports, train stations and bus depots, offering snacks and comfortable waiting areas for traveling military.

Senior Corps: Among other services, the volunteer program includes foster grandparents, senior companions and RSVP (Retired Seniors Volunteer Programs). One volunteer service is driving physically-challenged seniors to medical appointments and for grocery shopping.

These days seniors find typical hotel bills in Miami, London, Paris, New York and Los Angeles to be $400 a night and up. Avoid the tourist traps by checking with online travel experts. For example, Rick Steves knows where to find economic digs. He offers continuously updated lists of inexpensive hotels and bed and breakfasts. www.ricksteves.com

Consider mom and pop hotels and b&bs, and pay $75 a night or less, which often includes a full breakfast. We never eat much breakfast at home, so while traveling we have rolls and coffee, then make sandwiches from breakfast fare. That gives us free picnic lunches, saving from $20 daily.

If traveling in Europe, learn some conversational French, Spanish, German and/or Italian. It helps find where the locals eat, at half of what the same meal  costs in a tourist trap restaurant. Even better, they serve basic, much healthier meals.

In London, as in New York, we line up daily at the two-fer booth and see excellent plays and musicals for half price, sometimes even free on certain days and times. Everywhere you wander, expect to be exposed to tourist traps, whether traveling in Manhattan, Madrid, Manila or Majorca. Escape overpaying by intelligent pre-trip planning and smart shopping around for the most at the least prices.

We keep hearing stories about people getting sick and other cruise problems. We’ve cruised several times a year for the past 25, and can honestly report that we were never sick once. Of course, it hasn’t been all sunshine and smooth sailing.

On several of our cruises, passengers and crew members were sick or hurt, and some needed hospital treatment. Most news stories don't mention an important factor when reporting cruise ship illnesses. Many passengers are elderly, retired folks who bring preconditions aboard with them.

We’ve also heard of instances when passengers were robbed on shore excursions because they wandered off the main streets at night into unfamiliar and potentially dangerous port neighborhoods. The same could have happened to them if they had ventured into unsafe areas of London, New York, Paris, Chicago, Tokyo, Rome or Los Angeles.