This series of posts is called Travelling with Autism. It’s another series I’ve been wanting to start for more than a year, but life just got in the way of it. Now, here it is. It’s a series about what it’s like to travel when you have autism spectrum disorder and what I do to make it easier.
I’m going to give you some background before my next post in the series, which will be out tomorrow.
You see, I absolutely love travelling… but, it is quite a challenge as well. I have a lot of special needs and travelling can seem almost impossible if you only look at all those needs and the worries that come with them. In fact, if I had not been travelling since I was little, I might never have made an attempt to go anywhere at all.
I was lucky, I guess. My mother moved around a lot, buying old houses and fixing them up before moving again. Sometimes, she simply moved from place to place – she was like a modern day nomad. She regularly travelled, with my grandmother as well, to the southern parts of France. We lived in Paris for about half a year when I turned 7, because my mother was considering moving to France for good. In the end, for other reasons, we went back home again.
Every summer my grandfather and his girlfriend went camping in a caravan and I was, along with a cousin of mine, invited to join them. All the grandchildren went camping one way or another with them, I think.
I hated it at first.
In time, I came to appreciate the summers. I used to think everything was different and strange, but my grandfather and his girlfriend insisted on a sort of daily routine, which was really helpful to me.
We got up at about the same time every day, we showered and had breakfast. Then we went somewhere on adventures, then we came back home to the caravan. We had dinner in the evening around the same time and went to bed around the same time as well.
We had the same kind of food every day. Traditional food that I didn’t like, but it was the same kind of food always. It was comforting, even though I didn’t like it.
The routines made it easier for me.
My cousin and I would play the same games, sing the same songs and I didn’t even have to come up with anything to talk about, because I could just talk about whatever we had done that day. Some days we visited museums, some days it was parks, some days it was new cities, some days it was castles or beautiful gardens or something else entirely.
I always brought books with me, because when I needed a moment to myself, I was allowed to go somewhere and read. So, when I needed a break from people, I took my book somewhere secluded, or just inside the caravan, and read. Sometimes, I only pretended to read, but you get the point. I was allowed moments of solitude without any questions as to why I needed it.
Every summer was the same, so I soon came to expect it and it became a natural part of my year. We could even suggest destinations and my grandfather would always make it happen if he could. He did everything he could to make those weeks memorable and wonderful, and he talked about how much he enjoyed those summer holidays until the final days of his life.
Since then, I’ve travelled with my mother several times, with other friends and family members and more importantly, I’ve travelled alone. I have messed up so many times, you wouldn’t believe it, but I have also learned so much.
I have had meltdowns in the most awkward places; from the countryside in the UK to down town central Tokyo. I survived it all and it didn’t make me stop wanting to travel. Actually, it’s become easier and easier over time and now, I have learned how to handle myself better. I am more afraid going around the capital of my own country than I am of travelling alone to some faraway place. It may sound silly, but it’s the truth.
During both my bachelor’s degree and my masters, I studied in Japan. The first time I lived in and around Kyoto about 15 moths and the second time I lived a year in Tokyo. Living in Japan wasn’t really like travelling or any holiday I’d gone on before, but I still learned a lot that became very useful. If I hadn’t travelled as I much as I had growing up, I might not have gone, because I would have been too afraid.
Going to Japan was the best thing I ever did. It was scary both times, but the second time it almost felt like coming home, only to a new place.
The people I’ve met with ASD, at least the people I’ve met so far, they seem to either love travelling a lot just like me or they are a bit unsettled by it and prefer to stay closer to home. It was a bit of a surprise to me because I thought everyone was just like me. I never really had the choice to stay in the same place all my life and I am grateful for that.
It’s made me wonder about why that is though, why doesn’t everyone like to travel?
That’s the reason I decided to make this series. I want to share my love of travelling, as well as all the mistakes and successes I’ve had, so that if you feel like you would like to travel, but feel worried or afraid, then you can read this and maybe you can feel a bit more prepared before you go.
Maybe you are a parent or friend of someone with ASD, and in that case, this series is definitely also going to be interesting. It might help you understand how people like me think and what could make it easier, or what can make it more difficult, when you travel with us.
I am going to share a lot of mishaps and failures with you, but I’ll start with some good advice.
One thing that I have learned, even though it took much too long for me to learn this, is that knowing those you travel with is really important. Therefore, I am going to continue this series tomorrow with a success story. A few years back I went to Istanbul with a cousin of mine (not the cousin I mentioned earlier in the post, I have quite a few cousins) and it was a pretty great holiday, even though it was the first time we ever travelled together just the two of us.
If you come by my site tomorrow, I’ll tell you why.
