15 Dirty Things You Should Avoid Touching at All Costs While Travelling

Travel can open the mind. It can also leave you holed up in your room sweating profusely and clutching a wastepaper basket.

That’s because planes, ships and hotels are full of germs just waiting to compromise your immune system. And they’re often present in places you wouldn’t expect, from seat belt buckles, to serving utensils, to hotel room remote controls.

Germaphobes, consider this your trigger warning: there is a surprising amount of poop ahead.

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Hotel remote

We’ve all see the Dateline episodes where an investigative reporter shines a black light on a hotel bedspread, revealing Rorschach test of bodily fluids. Well, turns out the humble remote control is arguably more cringe-worthy. A study from the University of Houston found it was among the dirtiest items in the average hotel room, laced with bacteria and fecal coliform. The latter is science talk for “poop”.

Light switch in a hotel room while travelling

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Hotel light switch

Ranking right up there with poo-sprinkled remotes are the switches on hotel room lights. The University of Houston study found they are commonly covered in bacteria, including fecal matter. In fact, researchers discovered that 81 percent of all hotel room surfaces had microscopic traces of human waste on them.

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Self check-in terminal

While they might save you time at check in, these kiosks are a magnet for disease. One study found that they are by far the dirtiest surface in the airport, with more than 250,000 fungus and bacteria cells per square inch. The average household toilet seat has about 200 of those microbes per square inch.

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Airport bench armrest

The same study, conducted by Insurance Quotes, an online marketplace for, you guessed it, insurance — found the armrests of airport benches were also laden with bacteria. While not as filthy as self-check in terminals, they had more than 21,000 potentially hazardous microbes, also known as colony-forming units, or CFUs, per square inch.

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Airport water fountain

It’s important to stay hydrated when flying — but you might want to slather yourself in hand sanitizer after using one of these. The study from Insurance Quotes found they boast 19,000 CFUs per inch, nearly 10 times more than the average person’s bathroom door handle.

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Flush button on airplane toilet

Phew! You made it through the gauntlet of disease that is the airport and now you’re on the plane. You’re safe, right? Actually, no. Planes are also full of bacteria and no place is worse than the flush button on the toilet, which is home to more than 95,000 CFUs per inch.

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Airplane tray table

If you have a bladder of steel, you can steer clear of the bathroom and all its bacteria. But there’s almost no way to avoid touching your tray table. And that’s too bad because according to Insurance Quotes, it’s home to 11,595 CFUs per square inch.

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Airplane headrest

Surprise! Your seat’s headrest is the dirtiest thing you’ll come across on an airplane, according to an investigation by the CBC show Marketplace. Lab tests revealed it was home to a smorgasbord of germs, including mold, staph, and e. Coli — which, not to beat a dead horse, comes from human waste.

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Airplane seat pocket

You might want to leave that inflight magazine where it is. According to Marketplace, airplane seat pockets are loaded with germs, including bacteria from poop. One lab technician told Marketplace: "We've got to try and think how would fecal contamination get inside [the seat pocket].”

Uh, no. No we don’t.

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Airplane air vent

These vents rarely get cleaned, leading to a buildup of bacteria, according TravelMath, which hired a microbiologist to test several airplane surfaces. They had 285 CFUs per square inch, which is more than the toilet seat in your home.

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Seat belt buckle

These are also infrequently cleaned and surprisingly dirty, registering 230 CFUs, according to TravelMath. (Remember, that’s more than the average person’s toilet.)

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Serving utensils on a ship

These are ubiquitous on cruises, but they’re also a common vector for stomach bugs — like norovirus, which can tear through a vessel like wildfire. Next time you might want to skip the buffet.

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Shipboard handrails

Every day, hundreds of people run their bacteria-filled hands across these metal and wood surfaces, which is why experts advise you to steer clear of them. If you do latch onto one, make sure to wash your hands as soon as possible.

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Bus and subway poles

There are few things more germ-filled that a subway pole, according to a study by the company Clean Slate. Its scientists swabbed Toronto subway cars and found that the poles were by far the dirtiest things you can touch on the “Rocket”. They were covered with so many microbes that Clean Slate classified them as “filthy” and a “high risk” for spreading disease.

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Subway card refill machine

The same study from Clean Slate also found that Toronto’s card refill machines were covered in grime. In fact, the machines, dubbed Presto, are the second dirtiest surface in the subway, second only to subway car polls.