How do you feel about donning goggles to keep flu bugs out of your eyes when traveling? And don't forget the mask. If everyone dresses that way in transit, there won't be many stares and glares. Hand sanitizers, attractive gloves, and wipes aren't too visible. When traveling you want to know what really works regarding flu protection, other than vaccines, immunity, and sensible diets.

When large groups of people gather for a Thanksgiving meal, it could spread more swine flu viruses. Just the act of traveling in a plane might contribute to more people getting sick. About 33 million Americans are expected to travel by car on the nation's highways during the Thanksgiving weekend holiday between Thursday and Monday, a slight increase from last year. About 2.3 million more will travel by airplane. For more information, see the Nov. 24, 2009 MSNBC article, "Thanksgiving Gatherings Could Spread Swine Flu."

Each November, seasonal flu emerges. This year, the swine flu seems to be pushing aside seasonal flu viruses. Scientists will find out by December whether seasonal flu has been swept aside by the H1N1 virus as it mutates. When you sit down to a public Thanksgiving meal, you don't know whether people donating their cooking skills to donated food from still more people have family members at home with swine flu. Is the food served on sanitary paper plates and disposable plastic utensils?

On top of that, who is sitting next to you on both sides and across the table breathing into your face? Can you imagine the feeling you'd have if you showed up at a public dinner wearing goggles and a flu-protection mask wondering whether it works or not? It's enough to produce the type of stress that really does weaken your immune system, but there are precautions that seem logical.

What Precautions Can You Take?

If you're traveling along with the other millions, you could travel by car where you're isolated or at least among the same family members who may or may not be coming down with a seasonal illness. The large communal dinners pose the danger of strangers meeting together from all walks of life to share food and prepare food. The more get-togethers you attend, the higher the chance of catching the flu from someone not covering a cough or sneeze.

Without goggles, even a flu mask won't protect you because the virus hits the eyes first, and then you inhale it. Where you're most likely to catch the flu is in crowded, indoor shopping malls and riding in public transportation.

Restaurant workers behind the stoves in the back of the restaurant can be heard coughing as they come into work only partially recovered from the flu. Maybe the fever is gone, but how long is the virus shed not via the hands, even if washed and gloved, but simply by talking while preparing food? As food handlers talk to one another, invisible droplets of saliva spray out up to three feet on the food they're preparing or serving, unknown to the servers or cooks. How many people talk over the plates of food?

The government has launched a new travel-health campaign. For further information, see the website of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) or the MSNBC article site. The CDC urges you to travel only if well. But the problem with that is for the first day or two that you've caught the flu and are highly infectious to others, you don't feel any symptoms.

On the second or third day, the fever and coughing hits you like a deep chest cold. You then realize not only did you catch the flu, but it's probably the swine flu. Worse yet, you've infected people sitting within six feet of you on public transporation, in malls, and at communal Thanksgiving meals. You're more likely to catch the flu sitting for hours next to people on both sides of you on a crowded plane or bus than from the toddler that coughs in your face across the dinner table.

Most people have not been taught to cough into their sleeve.They still hack into a balled fist that just ricochets the viruses off their fingers into your eyes and nose. Watch some cooks preparing food in a restaurant, especially at fast-food eateries.

As you watch cooks and servers handle food, observe them when they sneeze or cough. Do they frequently turn their head in the opposite direction of the food rather than cover their coughs with their sleeves or the bend in their elbows? If so, aren't there people in the direction of their cough or sneeze? Not all servers act this way, of course. But you'll see some actually coughing into plastic gloves or wiping their forehead with plastic gloves instead of removing the gloves first and wiping their forehead with a tissue.

When you travel on a crowded bus, train, or plane, if a person sitting next to you is sick, there's no way anyone on the bus or plane will move that person to the back or isolate the sick person. If there are empty seats, you can move more likely on a train. But during a holiday season, even the trains may be crowded.

A lot of people seek out cheap travel, often taking two or three day bus trips during holidays. Many people don't take wipes or hand sanitizers on board with them. You don't know who is shedding virus, has just been vaccinated, is beginning to cough with the flu, or is ill, but shows few symptoms yet. You could bring the wipes and sanitizers or carry a plastic bottle of rubbing alchohol for your hands.

Think twice about travel as swine flu has sickened 22 million Americans since April 2009. Instead of traveling to family members, you could hold a virtual online Thanksgiving dinner with relatives online, but that wouldn't be much fun.

Each year, the usual season flu always seems to start around Thanksgiving, although cases could show up in October and continue until the beginning of May. Thanksgiving travel allows seasonal flu to jump from the areas of the country where it's heavy to isolated areas of the country with fewer flu cases. But in the case of swine flu, it's all over the country. There are no isolated pockets.

Scientists are waiting for a third wave of swine flu to hit or a mutation in the virus making it as deadly as the European mutations causing bleeding lungs and a higher death rate. Will it mutate here? See the article, "Trying last-ditch lung bypass for worst swine flu." Doctors are using last-ditch methods of hooking some swine-flu victims with damaged lungs to machines formerly used on premature infants with respiratory failure. But only 120 hospitals are equipped with those machines in the areas mentioned in that article.

It's tough waiting out the unpredictability of swine flu. At this point no one knows whether it will peak and decline or mutate and become deadlier. In the meantime if you travel, you could put on those goggles and mask, bring the hand santizer, and hope for the best.

You could vaccinate and wait. Or you could have a small Thanksgiving meal for only a few. On the other hand, you could have a virtual teleconference online of family members with Web cameras meeting online from several cities around the country or world. While you wait out the direction the virus will take, it's wise to sanitize. For information on hand sanitizing techniques against flu virus see the Purell site.

According to the International Scientific Forum on Home Hygiene (IFH), the hands are one of the most frequent transmission routes for many types of infections as they come into direct contact with known portals of entry for pathogens (mouth, nose, conjunctiva of the eyes). Your computer keyboard might have more microbes on it than your toilet seat.

Therefore, practicing proper hand hygiene is the easiest way to help reduce infections. Another way that some infections can spread is through the air, which is why it is important to cover your mouth with a tissue when you sneeze. Many people don't realize that touching a computer keyboard and then rubbing the eyes or nose is another way flu virus gets into your body. Another way is rubbing the eyes or picking the nose after you go to bed for the night. Some people don't wash hands thoroughly before they go to sleep.